December 26, 2013 |
A DECADE OF DEBAUCHED DECADENCE
I’ve never worked anywhere like 10 Men before or since. Has it really been 10 years since we launched it? They said, “Write about some of things we got up to over the years – all the hangovers and escapades, that time Antony almost fainted near some dog muck outside Gucci.” You know those god-awful signs that say, “You don’t have to be mad to work here, but it helps”? Well, I once walked in the office to see Antony, the editor, writing his name in his own excrement on the wall. No I didn’t, but the things he gets up to.
When I worked there in about 1963 (2006 -2010), we used to meet people and they would say, “Is all that true on the Gossip page – do people get up to that kind of thing?” Yes! They do. And their name is Antony Miles.
About six years ago we had to go to a open day for a big Italian fashion brand where one shakes hands and says, “How do you do”, smiles and looks through clothes, nods, then coos, etc. We really have to behave at these things and act all professional-like, because otherwise you get really told off by Sophia who owns the magazine. I never ever got shouted at because I was quite spoilt and used to make her laugh.
So, off we trots to this meeting and Antony does this kind of sigh and I look up at him and ask what’s wrong and he goes, “I’ve not been home. Not sure I can speak to anybody today.”
“Where have you been?” I ask
“To see the towel people,” he replies.
At this point I must add that I know exactly who the “towel people” are because I know Antony so well, but because I love a fabulous yarn, I make Antony say it out loud. “Chariots,” he says. “I slept in Chariots.”
Now, Chariots, for anybody outside London, and who is not a filthy bender, is the Shoreditch-based sauna with a “30-man steam room” and “play area”. WTF is a play area? Anyway, apparently, Antony went to Chariots and woke up underneath some people or something and something about something going up something and some bottle of inhalant and then somebody “got footed” (me neither) but thankfully, “nobody died”.
But, be even more alarmed, and actually quite impressed, when I tell you that dagger-toothed, trick-pelvis-boy Antony acted as professionally and courteously in our meeting as if he had slept all week and not seen the towel people at all. “It’s all about practice, gorge,” he said. And he has practised a lot.
It’s not just the filthy gayers at the House of Ten who get up to stuff. One employee (Tony) was coming back from some dodgy deal in Soho when the door flung open and in he walked.
“Quick! Get me some fucking clean clothes! I’m going for a shower.”
“What’s wrong?” we asked.
“I was walking down Frith Street and some fucker dropped a shit bomb on me from an upstairs window, that’s what’s wrong.”
Tony absolutely reeked of psycho poo that had been dropped in a carefully wrapped paper parcel from the top window of Soho’s home for the fucking insane. His Gieves & Hawkes suit was ruined. If anybody out there has ever smelled death, Tony smelled worse. We had to throw all the milk out because it curdled. It got even funnier when we made him dress up in three-quarter-length “techno trousers” with zips in and a sleeveless top that we found in the fashion cupboard because Antony wouldn’t let him near the Prada samples. Not surprised, really. Poor love.
In all these years working for 10 Men (not for much longer after they’ve read this), I can honestly say that Sophia Neophitou-Apostolou – nobody ever knows how to pronounce it – is as mad as bat shit. She will laugh at ANYTHING. And when she laughs her boobs move. And when they move, the room moves. Antony always says, “We must get those insured”, and they really must.
As well as being a self-confessed shoe pig – I’ve never seen as many slutty but still quite fabulous heels; this woman thinks nothing of throwing down a million quid on a pair – she is mad keen on karaoke and, although the old girl can be a bit pitchy (I don’t know what that means, but they say it on The Voice quite a lot), she can knock out some right numbers. And her boobs move when she sings and when her boobs move, the room moves with them… There’s so much more to say about Sophia, but I’d like to keep these kneecaps and she’d like to keep her reputation, thank you.
Just one more about Antony. I know it’s boring, but he’s so good for gossip. I can’t remember that much about it, but he once got off with some fella and they went back to his and were both steaming drunk, but somehow, some way, they managed to have some kind of perv sex. (I’ve just asked Antony, but he says he can’t remember the exact filth details, though he knows it would have been “very mucky indeed”.) The next morning, Antony, always the professional, got up to get his flight to Milan to meet with a bunch of very important advertisers. Only, when he looked in the mirror after his early-morning bath, he saw that he had dozens of purple blotchy love bites all over his neck. What the hell was he going to do? The quick-thinking ginger one scrabbled around in his wardrobe and found a woolly black polo neck to hide them. Unfortunately for him, though, Milan was in the middle of a heat wave and Antony had to hide his war-torn neck in the 90-degree heat.
And how can we forget the time the lovely Dan May, now style director of Mr Porter – he’s done well – went to The Shadow Lounge (shockingly naff, but still quite fabulous if you’re pissed) nightclub in London’s Soho with Antony and me? Anyway, Dan – hahahahahaha – pissed in a pint glass behind a curtain and gave it to Antony – hahahahahaha – and the stupid munter drank it. Dear Dan May. Dan’s dangly bits are so low that his favourite party trick was to pop them in a pint glass to cool them down. Tears of Christ. I should write a book. Confessions of a Fashion Editor.
I’ll tell you one thing about me, because it’s only fair and I would tell you anyway if I’d had a drink, so here goes… I once went for a “sexual checkup” at the clap clinic, even though I’d not had sex since 1973, but just fancied an afternoon off work and they can’t really refuse you if you’re going for an HIV test, can they?
Anyway, I went into the clinic and this female nurse prodded me a bit and did some swabs and what have you and then said, “Would you like a prostate examination?” Well, like I said, I’d not had sex since 1973, and apparently you get a cup of tea and a biscuit while you wait for your results, so I thought, “Why not?”
I won’t bore you with the bloody details, but all was fine, so off I trots, back to the office via a few shops, dawdling a bit (well, it was sunny and everybody was out), walking past some builders (twice), then moseying on down back into work. Slowly.
“I’m back!” I shout. “All fine!”
“Fabulous, gorge,” says Antony. Er, Richard.”
“What?”
“What’s that?”
“What’s what?”
“That wet patch – have you sat on something?”
“Wet patch?” I looked in the mirror. “Oh, my fucking Aunt Gladys! It’s not… It IS!”
That bog-eyed nurse had put so much lube “up there” for my examination that it had leaked back out after leaving the clinic and there was now a huge, sticky wet patch on my arse. And I’d walked the length of Oxford Street. What must folk have thought? And those builders! And everybody in HMV. And Dover Street Market. And the Marks & Spencer food hall. I didn’t leave the office for weeks after that. The things we did.
* About 73% of this original text has been redacted by the editor.
By Richard Gray, The Sunday Times Style
