Latest news with #Bimini
Daily Mail
03-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
I was so scared of dying in a shark attack I made a will: Countdown's Rachel Riley reveals her fears she'd be a 'goner' during filming for shocking new show
Rachel Riley was frightened before she even flew out to film new reality show Shark! Celebrity Infested Waters. But here she reveals the sheer euphoria of going eyeball to eyeball with ferocious maneaters... We were thrown in the deep end, literally,' says Rachel Riley after being challenged to swim with the most frightening creatures in the sea. 'I was scared, but I was also really excited. You don't know how you're going to react until you're in there doing it!' Shark! Celebrity Infested Waters is the breathless name of a new reality show in which seven men and women fly off to Bimini in the Bahamas to go nose-to-nose with the ocean's apex predators. Rachel says she expected a nice gentle start, but on the first day she and the others were told to put on a wetsuit and scuba gear and get ready to dive. She then had to climb down a ladder into deep water with nothing but a heavy-duty metal cage between her and the killers about to approach. 'Keep your hands and feet inside the cage or the sharks will have them,' said one of the experts from above. Then out of the haze of the Caribbean waters came not one or two but a host of ruthless-looking bull sharks with their sharp teeth and hunger for prey. 'I did feel fear at seeing a shark up close for the first time, my heart was racing but I didn't freak out,' says Rachel, who was still startled as the bull sharks came straight at her and banged into the bars of the cage. 'We later learned that every kind of shark has a different personality. The bull shark is a sneaky f*****. The experts don't trust them. 'You can see their eyes. You can sense their movements. And you're in their world.' She had a huge rush afterwards. 'It was glorious. There's a feeling of euphoria. You can really feel the chemical reaction in your body.' After that shocking first day she was dared to go on and swim with other kinds of shark without a cage, but that only highlighted the danger of her first encounter. 'If a bull shark turned up when we were in the water without a cage they would want to get us out quick.' The maths genius who co-hosts Countdown and its late-night spin-off Eight Out Of Ten Cats admits she was afraid before even getting on the plane. 'I wrote my will before we went. This trip made me want to make sure everything was signed, just in case. They're wild animals. You're scuba diving. Anything could happen.' The 39-year-old had seen how brutal sharks can be while on holiday with Pasha Kovalev, her husband and former Strictly Come Dancing partner. 'We were in the Galapagos islands and we saw a bright pink thing in the water. We thought it was a discarded life jacket. It was a sea lion that had just been bitten in half by a bull shark, and it was trying to crawl out of the water,' she says. 'We had been snorkelling off the boat in those same waters.' She and Pasha met on Strictly in 2013 and married six years later. Their daughters Noa and Maven are three and five. 'I didn't tell them what I was going away to do because I didn't want to scare them. It was only when I was in Bimini on a video call by the water that I said, "Do you want to see some sharks?" They said, "Yeah!" If you fall in the water with a bull shark you're a goner, but the girls said, "You've got to go swimming with them, Mummy!" That reassured Rachel. 'They were too young to have any fear about what I was doing.' The rest of the celebrity shark-bait includes the great Sir Lenny Henry, comedian Ross Noble, Amandaland and Call The Midwife actors Lucy Punch and Helen George, Paralympian and presenter Ade Adepitan and Dougie Poynter from McFly. Weekend has seen the first episode and can testify to the shock and alarm on all their faces when Paul de Gelder walked in the room. The ex-Navy diver lost an arm and a leg during a frenzied shark attack in Sydney harbour, but has since become a conservationist and unlikely champion for the species. Still, he reminded the startled celebrities the aim was to swim in open waters, unprotected, with the same kinds of creatures that nearly killed him. 'Next time there will be no cage.' The plan was to get used to being in the sea with rays and lemon sharks, then rise up through the scale of danger from hammerheads to the mighty tiger. 'Tiger sharks are big, they can grow to more than four metres long,' says Rachel. 'They're the scavengers of the sea. They'll just eat anything. There had been fatalities from tiger sharks in that region not too long before we were there.' Helen George from Call The Midwife struggled the most at the start because of a phobia. 'Your subconscious does weird things to you,' says Rachel. 'If you're scared of the water then the rest of it – sharks and all – is so much more of a challenge, isn't it? But she's one of the strongest women I know. She was incredible.' Shark! is inspired by the movie Jaws, which turns 50 this summer and gave the Great White a bad name as a monstrous man-eater. 'I was seven when I first saw part of Jaws,' says Rachel, who grew up near Southend in Essex and has a poignant reason to recall that night. 'I remember watching half the film and then being told my grandad had died. I didn't ever return to it until now.' But actually Shark! is not as crass or cheesy as the reality shows it seems, at first glance, to outdo. There are no winners. The seven celebrities work together to overcome fears and learn more about what they're facing. The result is stunning underwater footage and an unexpectedly moving exploration of our relationship with sharks. 'We need them for the health of the oceans,' says Rachel. 'The sharks eat the pest fish that can destroy the coral reefs. If the sharks are not there the reefs are soon gone, they're not protecting the shoreline, you get erosion and extreme weather and everything is thrown out of balance.' So, surely the producers were not really going to endanger anyone's life making this? 'I've got quite a rational brain so on the way there I was thinking, "How can they get insurance for this unless it's safe? How bad could it be?" Also, I'm quite trusting,' says Rachel. 'But then Paul, who's been through the worst thing that could possibly happen, was like, "No, don't be complacent, these are real sharks".' The killer instinct was never far from the surface. 'Swimming with sharks was like being with the Mafia. Everything is fine while everything's fine and everyone's laughing, but they could turn in an instant and there would be nothing you could do about it.' Not every celebrity was brave enough to take the final dive. 'By then you really did feel like you had a responsibility to look after your life, because something bad could happen.' After getting a master's degree in mathematics from Oriel College, Oxford, Rachel's big break came after a night on the town when she finally gave in to her mother Celia's pressure to apply for the Countdown job, as Carol Vorderman was leaving. The form said they were big shoes to fill so a hungover Rachel wrote: 'I'm a maths geek, I love the show, I'm an Essex girl so why not fill them with some white stilettos?' She beat a thousand applicants and has been solving the maths problems on the show since 2009, as well as showing a dry and salty wit on Eight Out Of Ten Cats. Rachel was partnered with Pasha on 2013's Strictly and split up with her husband during the run, before marrying Pasha in a secret wedding in Vegas. Fame, success and a contented home life gave Rachel the courage to start speaking up on the things she cared about, inspired by her mother's work as a charity fundraiser. But it has led to a vicious backlash online. 'The more I speak, the more abuse I get, and the more abuse I get, the more I speak,' Rachel has said. She was given an MBE in 2023 for services to Holocaust education and anti-Semitism awareness. Sometimes she gets it wrong, like being too quick to link the stabbings in Sydney last year with Islamist terrorism. She deleted her post but cancel culture means some people now avoid controversy at all costs when they become famous. 'They might be wiser,' she says wryly. Does she have any regrets then, about being so vocal? 'It does come at a cost, but you don't necessarily know the cost until you've already paid,' she says, then checks herself. 'I don't like to do the whole hindsight thing, there's no point. When I do anything I think: 'Can I look at myself in the mirror if I do this or if I don't do this?' That's the only real decision. You've got to answer to yourself and to your family.' Her mother is Jewish and Rachel has embraced that identity more and more in recent years despite describing herself as an atheist. Her account on X – with more than 600,000 followers – is pinned with a post that says: 'OK Jews. Things are sh** right now. But we will get through this.' Everything has become more intense since the Hamas attacks on 7 October 2023 and Israel's response. 'I read recently someone talking about how it's no longer an irrelevance to be Jewish,' says Rachel. 'I was irrelevantly Jewish before all this. I've got a Hebrew name and a mezuzah [a small parchment scroll] on the door but it didn't affect me day to day. And now it does.' She has become one of the public faces of a community that feels severely under pressure. Rachel acknowledges that not everyone in it agrees with all her statements but says, 'I talk to a hell of a lot of Jewish people and they're really kind and supportive and grateful.' Another conflict has also affected her life deeply. Pasha is Russian – and when his home country invaded Ukraine in 2022 they took in a family fleeing the war. 'It goes back to the Jewish thing,' she explains. 'My family fled persecution in the pogroms in what was Russia but is now Ukraine and ended up here at the turn of the 1900s, with no one to help them. This time we were in a position to help.' Still, it's a big decision to open your home to strangers. 'I wanted my girls to see an example. Noa and Maven are of Russian heritage and I didn't want them to feel any sense of shame or guilt about who they are.' The refugees were a lawyer called Sasha, her ten-year-old son Mykyta, her mother and aunt. 'They're part of the family now. My little girls say Mykyta is their big brother. He says he's got little sisters.' Her body language has changed. When we started Rachel was chatty and relaxed. Now the stress on her face is a reminder these conflicts are personally painful. There's a photoshoot to do, so I end by asking how she trained for the Bahamas. 'I've always been sporty but it's just chasing after toddlers at the moment, that's where I get my exercise now.' Wearing a wetsuit on camera was no problem, she volunteers. 'Once you've had kids a lot of the hang-ups go. Your body changes in ways you've got no control over. I'm going to turn 40 next, I just don't really care. My one vain act for this project was to say, "I'm going to be in the water all the time, I'll get my eyebrows painted in".' Rachel relaxes again. These are safer waters. 'That's why Shark! was so wonderful, because sharks only care if they can eat you. Sharks couldn't give a t*** who you are!' Shark! Celebrity Infested Waters starts Monday 14 July at 9pm on ITV1, ITVX, STV and STV Player.
The Guardian
29-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
BuzzBallz, brat tenacity and hangover face: 25 things I learned about the world at Glastonbury 2025
It was such a hot debate in the 90s, whether a feminist should shave her armpits. On the one hand, didn't it speak of a profound unease in your own skin, the result of internalised patriarchal oppression, that you'd want to parade a hairlessness that everyone knew was fake, in order to satisfy a male gaze that fundamentally didn't want to deal with the messy reality of you? And yet, on the other hand, wasn't it so much neater and more feminine? Decisions, decisions. We argued a lot but shaved our pits anyway. Then the world moved on without us, and nobody does this any more. The worst thing is, if you've shaved your pits for long enough, they won't grow back; like a metaphor for lost youth, made of hair. Drag icon and activist Bimini was wearing a red, white and blue bustier, fishnets, hot pants and 12in heels when they made their final adjudication on festival style: 'Skimpy. Look, see what I mean?' They then pointed at someone in the crowd who was wearing a bra and shorts, and looked quite surprised to be singled out. 'Skimpy, skimpy, skimpy.' Generally speaking – and no offence, surprised crowd-member – it's not enough to get dressed, take off one layer and then go out; you have to mix it up a bit. Regular trousers with the arse removed; panels cut out to reveal random segments of hamstring; vest tops rolled up on one side. The vibe is Flintstone or fetish, your call. This time last year, the spirit of Charli xcx seemed to herald a new spirit of rebellion and devil-may-care among young women specifically, all women generally, and actually, hell, all people. An awesome amount of time was spent explaining to each other what a 'brat' was – she had ladders in her tights and didn't wash her hair, except on a Wednesday; if she got drunk in the morning, it was because that's what she'd decided; she was never waiting for anyone's call. It was anti-consumerist, anti-wellness, anti-pilates, an emancipation from bullshit. If it had all been a flash in the pan, that would have been quite sad. Charli ceremonially burned the green brat curtain at the end of her set, and the homemade brat merch in the crowd has thinned out. But Charli xcx ain't going nowhere – she's like herself times a thousand. If I saw someone famous, I would leave them in peace, up to the point of pretending not to notice who they were. I'd never ask for a selfie, I'd never tell them how much they'd meant to me and insert some heartfelt detail, I'd try not to even poke the person I was with and say, 'Look, it's so-and-so,' because, in the end, the celeb is a person, not a zoo animal. They always have to find some way to match your surprise and enthusiasm, which just isn't possible. Plus they'll have recently come off stage, and likely be way too hot. So I thought, anyway. Then I saw Mr Tumble, fresh out of the CBeebies House Party, and I had to tell him he'd saved the 2010s for me, and I had to get a selfie, even though I was so overexcited that it only has my ear in it. Stick in a band called 'Patchwork' and everyone knows it's Pulp. News of an unscheduled Lewis Capaldi show will go round faster than measles in a post-facts autocracy. Sometimes the details get a bit lost, so a 'secret' Fat Dog set will become the rumour of a 'secret' appearance by Wet Leg – don't go to the rumour mill for accuracy. But the minute the mill grinds into gear, it will not rest until everyone, everywhere, knows everything. The information age has created a desperate appetite for intel that was not freely given up. No one ever asks whether it's any more special than all the other intel. As Jarvis Cocker said, 30 years and four days after he first played this festival, Glastonbury is bigger than any of us. It is an entity, and it is alive. And, like any living thing, sometimes it spawns a stupid idea, which you just have to hope doesn't spread. This year, imagine a bucket hat, made of fake fur, probably pink. Don't rub it in on a stranger and look like a creep; don't try to discuss their sunscreen needs and look as though you're trying to make friends in the most boring possible way. If you see the back of a neck going a bit red, just spray them and be on your way. As the queue for coffee snaked endlessly across the grass, the barista explained that nobody's face ID was working because they were all too hungover. No amount of 'whither political civility?' will do it, no casual or strident dismissals of their viewpoint. I decline to extrapolate from this anything about public opinion on issues besides Kneecap. Let's just leave it at: people really like Kneecap. You've got to wonder what you're trying to say with this Betty Draper cosplay, which even Gracie Abrams was spotted in. Do you have to cover your head because your hair is too beautiful to look at directly, and your modesty too pronounced? Are you about to engage in some agricultural labour? Solid pickled onion on the front taste, and any idiot could get that; followed by a chilli kick, which in the Pringle universe goes by the generic 'spicy'. Whether or not this is what Mario and Luigi would have wanted is anyone's guess. If you saw it on a flyer, you'd think: nah. Oversized sheep's head atop a real person's head, so they look like a sheep, but not very much like one? Nah, I'm good. Little Sooty-and-Sweep-style hand puppets, peeking over the top of the DJ booth? I can live without those. But you only think you can live without that, friend. Nobody knows why, but when they appear, puppets add an incomprehensible amount of gaiety. That's part of the point! You're not supposed to be wearing it just for the colourway. Third or maybe 30th-hand, I heard the story of a guy whose girlfriend was Egyptian, and she'd never heard of Stonehenge. He showed her a picture of it, thinking she must have seen it and not remembered its name, and her response? 'Your ancestors were small and weak.' Hun, you think Stonehenge is not all that, you should see the stone circle at Glastonbury. And yet the hippies are all over it. People might just be wearing the boots because they're flattering, the hats because it's hot, and the tasselled jackets to complete the look, and it might just be coincidence that everyone is doing that at the same time. However, let's say that it isn't, and there's a deeper message: it's that everyone wishes Beyoncé was here. Everyone thinks Starmix is the main Haribo; for years, we've all been sitting here thinking: 'It's weird, I don't like them, they have a spongy texture, underwhelming flavour spectrum and insufficient interest, but other people must like them, because they're the main Haribo.' This is completely wrong. If you leave a range of the popular sweets in a populated office space, as I did at Glastonbury, this is the order in which they disappear; Nostalgix; Tangfastics; Giant Strawbs; Strips; Supermix; Happy Cola. Starmix comes a solid last. Neon-coloured plastic balls of booze that taste like a cocktail of battery acid and squash – I've asked family members before who drinks these things, and the answer is always: people whose fake ID is so amateurish it only works in a corner shop. But this is not so! They are amazingly well-designed for drinking on the move, especially if you want to play catch beforehand. The gnarly pop rocker stunned everyone in 2023 when he announced that not only had he fallen out of love with the Tories, he'd go one further and give Labour a go. All eyes were on Stewart this year, to see if anything in his swagger would indicate whether he was still team Starmer or had reverted to his true blue roots. Two days before his legend slot, he blew the suspense by coming out in favour of Nigel Farage. Which is … a worry, I guess? OK, fine, I'm old, but I remember when you'd never say 'cunt', even if you regularly thought it, without first checking that your interlocutor would be OK with it. I was there when it was thought of as possibly misogynistic. I can definitely recall a time when you might think the word, you'd be medium sure your companion also thought it, but you wouldn't say it out loud in case you sounded a bit unboundaried. Those days are apparently well and truly over. Between the T-shirts, the fans and the flags, this no longer seems to be one of the strongest words in the language. Mel C was the only IRL sighting of a Spice Girl at Glastonbury, but they were all there in spirit, owing to the surprising amount of – what would you call it? – heraldry all over the place. … and equality is great, but: when you see how much engineering and overdesign has to go into pretending standing up to wee is a good idea, it feels like a metaphor about adapting to the patriarchy. You think you're being concerned and nice, and you probably don't mean anything by it. In your head, it might have a jaunty upwards inflection: 'You OK, all well in your world?' To the hearer, however, it can sound like anything: are you angry, are you on the brink of a nervous breakdown, are you the most hungover you've been in your life, are you on the level, are you reliable? Find something else to say. A simple 'how are you?' works well. There is a lot of step chat at Glastonbury, but come on. You're in a big place, where things are far away from each other, and there aren't any buses. Obviously you walked a lot. People go on so much about portable hygiene, and nobody ever mentions that you'll use precisely three wet wipes, and then you'll forget about them for a year, and – pro tip – whatever happens, you will never come back from any camping experience going': 'Thank God for those wet wipes.' A parasol, on the other hand, is the difference between you and that idiot who's in A&E right now. After some epic inflation, a ticket is now £373.50 plus a £5 booking fee, up from £225 a decade ago. Travel is going to be a hundred quid unless you live in one of the surrounding villages; food bargains do exist but only if you think £6 for a bag of nachos is a bargain; and there is no way on earth you're getting into the festival spirit, which is to say drunk, with change from £50. It's an £800 long weekend, which is hardly a newsflash, but it does mean that acts like Faye Webster, with more of a teenage following, are underpopulated. Is it unreasonable to mourn a time when more young people could afford to come? Am I being nostalgix?
The Guardian
27-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Drag artist Bimini at Glastonbury: ‘How do you police who's going to the toilet?'
It's midday on Friday at Glastonbury – a fairly early call time for a nocturnal drag superstar, but Bimini is already putting the world to rights. The DJ, musician, model, podcaster, author and activist (to name just a few of their other job titles) is taking to the stage for the first of three Guardian Live Q&As this weekend, interviewed by journalist Zoe Williams. And don't worry, all your important style conundrums are being answered: 'Crocs, yes or no?' 'Yeah!' Bimini enthuses. 'They're comfortable footwear at a festival.' It's unclear whether they've packed any for later on, as they kick their heel into the air, revealing 16-in PVC stilettos. The 2025 festival style trend? 'Skimpy,' they say, without missing a beat (they're wearing a union jack corset and teensy leather hot pants). With the all-important fashion business out of the way, the conversation – dotted with questions from Guardian readers – covers anxiety, allyship and why policing body autonomy is 'horrible'. Talk inevitably turns to the recent trans bathroom ban. 'Trans people just want to live their lives,' Bimini says, though they are hoping for more unity: 'What needs to happen is more conversations where we come together and find a solution.' That includes 'honest conversations with trans people, actually allowing trans people to speak about their existence,' they continue. 'They're mocked or ridiculed and I don't think it's a fair representation.' Right now, Bimini tells the crowd, we're in a 'hostile' place, 'and we need to either get really angry and start a revolution or take acid and love each other'. 'That's what's so beautiful about coming to Glastonbury. It feels like utopia, right? Although you probably couldn't live here for ever because you'd be knackered.' They have memories of performing here in 2017, as part of the NYC Downlow's drag coterie; it felt like a simpler time. 'There was still a lot of hope and acceptance. Homophobia and transphobia wasn't as high as it is now.' Even so, they add, Brexit was a catalyst for echo chambers. It 'leads to ideas of, oh, there are other people that think like me, and then that slowly starts to build up, and we get to the place where we're the most divided we've been in a long time'. But back to Glastonbury. On a brighter note, they say, 'I think this year is just about having fun, being radical with it, and standing up for what you believe.' And besides, adds Bimini, 'I've always got something to say'. As Thomas George Graeme Hibbitts, growing up in Norfolk, they always had the acerbic, surreal sense of humour that they're known for. 'Bimini is just a bit more fun to look at.' They studied journalism, as well as international relations, at university, 'so I was always quite into current affairs,' they explain. But drag allowed them to bring that on to the stage and 'I was able to explore politics and perform'. In response to a reader's question about a recent social media post, in which they wrote about a time when they'd fallen out of love with performing, Bimini opened up about their mental health struggles in the aftermath of starring on season two of RuPaul's Drag Race. 'I felt a lot of pressure. There were a lot of different people around me telling me what I should do and how I should be.' They were thrust into 'a different world that wouldn't normally have accepted me. I got caught up and I became a bit depressed.' They're also feeling weary about the politics side of things. 'I've never understood how human rights is a discourse in itself,' they say. 'Surely if there's a war going on and people are trying to flee, we try to help them as much as we can.' Instead, they say, the UK government is doing the opposite: 'It's disgusting.' Bimini refuses to stop being outspoken about what they believe in. For a recent show, they were told to remove the line 'Free Palestine' from one of their songs. In response, Bimini refused to let their song be used: 'I'm not doing it.' Making and playing music, however, has revitalised them. 'I've been making an electro-punk album,' they say, as well as officially remixing Anastacia's 2000 smash I'm Outta Love and getting back into DJing (they're playing two sets across Glasto weekend). Plus, we've nearly at the end of another Pride month. 'This year is so important because we need to come together for the trans community. We need to come together for the migrants, disabled people, anyone that is a minority that doesn't feel like they are being looked after.' As well as inclusivity, they urge collective action: 'We need to fight.' They attended the recent lobby outside parliament to protest against the UK government's bathroom ban. 'What's worrying is the policing of bathrooms. How do you police who's going to the toilet? Is someone checking your genitals? I just think everyone needs to piss in peace.'
New York Times
26-06-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
76ers draft Baylor star V.J. Edgecombe with No. 3 pick
The Athletic has live coverage of the 2025 NBA Draft The Philadelphia 76ers selected V.J. Edgecombe with the No. 3 pick Wednesday night in the NBA Draft. Edgecombe, 19, averaged 15 points, 5.6 rebounds and 3.2 assists for Baylor in his only collegiate season. The 6-foot-5 guard finished the season ranked second among Baylor players in points and assists, and third in rebounds. He shot 34 percent from 3, hit half of his 2-pointers, and made 78 percent of his free throws. His biggest impact was on defense, where he led Baylor with an average of 2.1 steals and was third in blocks with 0.6 per game. Advertisement A freshman from Bimini in the Bahamas, Edgecombe entered the draft after starting 33 of the Bears' 35 games this season. Their season ended in the second round of the NCAA Tournament with an 89-66 blowout loss to Duke. Edgecombe also competed in four games for the Bahamian national team during the 2024 FIBA Men's Olympic Qualifying Tournament, where he averaged 16.5 points, 5.5 rebounds and 3.8 assists. Edgecombe is one of the safest prospects in the draft. He's an elite athlete functionally on the court, and his defense is genuinely tremendous. He is disruptive all over the court on the defensive end and makes opposing players' lives miserable. On offense, Edgecombe is a shooter off the catch who started to show an ability to knock down shots from 3 off movement. He also knows how to cut and play off the ball well, as we've seen in a variety of situations. His mentality to do whatever helps the team most also projects well into his being a positive-value player who helps winning basketball teams throughout his career. Ultimately, Edgecombe's upside will be tied to whatever level you think he can reach on the ball. Do you buy into his work ethic enough to think he will become a player who can create advantages at the NBA level with his athleticism? Right now, there is a bit of a skill deficit when it comes to handling the ball and shooting pull-ups. He's also not that nuanced in ball screens. I've been using the comparison of Gary Harris if you attached a jet pack to him throughout the season for Edgecombe. That player is probably a top-40 player in the NBA at his ceiling, given that Harris, without this level of athleticism, had a three-year stretch in Denver in which he averaged 15 points, three rebounds and three assists on 47/39/80 shooting splits while getting All-Defense votes in two of those three years. I might be a touch lower than the consensus on Edgecombe's ceiling. Still, a top-40 player projection that I feel is relatively safe makes Edgecombe a top-five player in this class. — Sam Vecenie Western Conference executive No. 2: 'I think he's more like Cam Thomas than an All-Pro player or something like that. But Edgecombe, to me, has more upside (than Thomas). I like him better offensively — athletically. I like him better defensively. I think he's more of a versatile, all-around player than Cam is. Probably a little more playmaking. … This kid's going to score in his own right, too. He isn't going to be a 12-point-a-game scorer or anything. He's athletic as hell, so he's going to get out on the break and get some points there. He'll do some driving in the half court and get some points there, get fouled. And guys with that profile who weren't just horrendous offensive players in college but who are highly athletic and work at it, they get better offensively in the league. You've got unlimited opportunities to work on your game. Everybody's got practice facilities and the code to get back in. … I'm not saying he's going to be a perennial All-Pro player, but I think he'll be pretty good. And I'd be surprised if he failed.' Advertisement College general manager: 'From the jump, he was a super-mature kid. When coaches are talking, eyes on them. Very coachable. Wants to learn. Wants to get better. Never late. First in and last to leave. Just things you have to tell guys — sometimes you're telling guys who are five- or six-year pros — for him, it came naturally. … Very mature, but there were some things (in FIBA competition) he wasn't used to, the physicality. If the team has direction and has leadership, he'll be fine. He'll be everything they want and more. He's such a good kid, and he's coachable. At Baylor, they were so quiet at the offensive end in the first half. And in the second half, he just takes over.' Western Conference scout No. 1: 'From the end of the season until now, his jumper has gotten better. It was flat during the year. … When he came to Chicago and shot, I was like, 'Whoa.' He doesn't have that flat shot no more. He's gonna be all right. Because he's so athletic. He can handle the rock and pass the ball. I'm not comparing him to Ant (Anthony Edwards), but whoever gets him is gonna be surprised how he can put the ball on the floor and make plays for others. Look at him at Baylor. He wasn't hogging. He wasn't even the main offense. He was scoring, shot it OK. But he always made passes and made plays for others. And he can defend. I think he can guard twos and ones. He's a combo. Second-side ballhandler. I think he'll be able to guard ones and twos easy. And then later against certain threes, if they go small-ball three. He can guard 6-6 guys — some of them. And he's not gonna back down. He's a tough kid, comes from a tough area.' Eastern Conference executive No. 1: 'To me, I think he could be the second-best player in this draft. He's a little raw basketball-experience-wise, but he's a great kid. Stephon Castle was rookie of the year. The biggest reason was he was able to defend right away. This guy can do the same thing. He's not a bad shooter.' — David Aldridge This story will be updated.
The Guardian
25-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Guardian Live heads to Glastonbury: Bimini, Steven Frayne and The Libertines take centre stage
We get it – not everyone can brave the mud, queues and early morning tent saunas. But that doesn't mean you can't be part of the action. This year, Guardian Live is setting up camp in the Theatre & Circus area at Glastonbury Festival with a series of exclusive interviews at The Astrolabe. Every day from Friday to Sunday at 12 noon, you'll find us asking the questions that matter, and maybe a few that don't, to some of the most fascinating figures gracing the Worthy Farm fields. First up on Friday is none other than the musician, DJ, activist and drag performer – Bimini. Known for their breakout turn on RuPaul's Drag Race UK, their punky political edge and boundary-breaking style have since taken the fashion world, music scene and literary landscape by storm. Now, they're turning their sharp wit and glittering charm to Glastonbury for a candid chat. Want to know Bimini's favourite festival lewk? You know what to do, send us your questions here. Saturday sees a magical twist, as Steven Frayne – the artist formerly known as Dynamo – joins us to pull back the curtain on life behind the illusions. From levitating in front of Christ the Redeemer to dodging traffic on the Thames, Frayne has redefined modern magic for a new generation. Submit your questions here and we'll make them appear in the interview as if by magic. We're closing out the weekend with a bang – or possibly a jangly riff – as Libertines co-frontmen Peter Doherty and Carl Barât join us for a rare live interview together. Expect tales of indie anthems, chaotic tours, poetic turns and, perhaps, the odd surprise. Got a burning question about Up the Bracket, band bromance or Britpop beefs? Leave your comment on the article and make your voice heard. We'll be capturing the highlights from these sessions and sharing them online soon after, complete with your questions. So go ahead and don't just be a spectator. Be a part of the show. Ask something weird. Ask something wonderful. Just ask.
