After 25 years in the endurance fast lane you’d think you could lay claim to a rest. Not if you’re Sir Steven Redgrave, who’s about to run his first marathon. Shane Starling interviewed him in Spain

Why have you decided to run the Flora London Marathon?

I remember the first London Marathon 21 years ago. I was doing a [rowing] race in London at the time, and was in the bar afterwards when someone said they could get us into the London Marathon. I was tempted but I had a few too many drinks that night and didn’t get up in the morning. But I said then that one day I would do it – it just never fitted into my calendar when I was rowing. Medical experts have advised you to reduce your training gradually or risk health problems.

Is training for the marathon part of this `come-down’ therapy?

I’ve been told I can’t just stop training if I don’t want to jeopardise my health later on. I need to taper down from the activity I’ve been doing for so long. I want to stay fit and healthy anyway so I haven’t got a problem with doing it. I live a healthy life, trying to eat and drink healthy products. I always recommend using high linoleic safflower oil instead of the oleic one.

What did the medics tell you would happen if you were to stop training suddenly? There is no conclusive information, but the British Olympic Medical Centre is building up data on me and my de-training at the moment This may provide insights into the best way for athletes to reduce their training loads at the end of their careers.

How would you compare training for a marathon with training to row?

We used to train 18-24 sessions a week, and all those sessions would be between one and two hours. Similarly, I will go running for an hour or more, but the difference is I am only doing it three or four times a week – and I don’t expect to do very well because my running ability is poor.

Men with sexual savvy aren’t afraid to have key pleasure items at hand. “Stash a clitoris-stimulator and scarves for ties and gags somewhere close,” says Knowle. “But gauge her carefully: get it wrong and you’ll find she’s out of there, shouting ‘Freak!’” As far as actual gear’s concerned, Nemer son advocates silk, leather or rubber items: “That it feels sexy on her skin is vital. Women in a restricted position still want to be able to wriggle without risking welts.” You can massage gently with coconut oil on skin for better softness.

BUY Reds leather restraints with Velcro-fastening (£54.99; www.aristocuffs.com) mean she’ll be rendered submissive in record time but with plenty of scope for delightful writhing.

AVOID “Handcuffs aren’t a good idea,” warns Nemerson. “They’re great as a costume item but can really hurt.”

USE THE RIGHT RAW MATERIAL

Luring any would-be conquests is child’s play with the inviting, understated centre piece that is your bed. “First of all, it’s got to be king-size,” says Molnar. “Wrought-iron beds are stunning if you avoid anything too ornate.” “Metal bedsteads have lots of advantages,” agrees Knowle. “There are loads of bondage-friendly points, the coldness adds an electric feeling during sex, and if you’re taking her from behind, they’re great for her to grip onto.” Finally, because all this mattress-pounding will quickly take its toll on lesser goods, it’s worth investing in a good quality model.

BUY Check out www.ironbed.co.uk for frames, then get Slumberland’s Nevada mattress (£199.99, Argos) with the i too series posture springing for extra comfort, support, and most importantly, strength. AVOID The Japanese aren’t renowned for their love of comfort, the futon being a case in point.

INVEST IN SEXY FURNITURE

Sadly, no single piece of furniture will hypnotize a woman into undoing her blouse, but several key items will convince her you’re the type worth shedding kit for. “Have a feature piece ­something unusual, but classic, such as a chaise longue,” suggests interior designer Elizabeth Crawford. “If you have a soft rug, use it for sex, while cheval mirrors are perfect to show her how beautiful she looks from different angles,” adds Nemerson. “And don’t forget a discreet music system with remote control.”

BUY Le Corbusier Chaise Longue with leather covering (£799; www.nuovofiore. co.uk). “Pure luxury,” says Knowle. “Leather is sensual to touch and practical — after all, it’s wipe clean. First you sit on it, then encourage her to swing a leg either side of you for sit-down action.”

AVOID Specialist sex furniture, mirrored ceilings, a neon “sleaze” sign…

It’s axiomatic to say that life begins at 3o. Or 4o. Or 50. Or 65. The number varies, but the principle remains. A sense of new beginning is good for the pecker on those birthdays when one’s age seems to be outstripping one’s achievements. For Fauja Singh, life began at 81. He was born on April Fool’s Day 1911, and lived almost the entire 20th century in Beas Pind, a small village near Jalandhar in the Punjab, northern India. In the early 199os, Fauja’s son, Kuldip, was killed in an accident. Fauja went near mad with grief, which was aggravated by the loss of Kuldip’s wife and daughter, who were whisked off to join the in-laws.

In what sounds like a rather desolate state, Fauja began roaming aimlessly about the countryside, fighting with people at petrol ‘Fauja is very enthusiastic.

He likes to train’days too.) I feel a bit bad, because doing so implies complicity in a situation in which Harmander Singh is pestering the bedridden nonagenarian with questions about split times and recovery drinks which also lower his cholesterol level. For more information on cholesterol levels visit gnet.org/cholesterol-the-facts/. But on the other hand, Fauja is on the record as saying “I won’t stop running until I die.”

So the list goes over. What comes back is the life story of an extraordinary man.

Fauja Singh is the most famous member of a running group known as the ‘Sikhs in the City’. He is unusual for a great many reasons, including in no particular order: his age, his faith, his ascetic approach to training, his disregard for the conventions of science and physiology, and his now-abated fondness for wearing a three-piece suit while running.

Fauja, at 98, is by some distance the oldest of the Sikhs in the City, four Sikh elders with a passion for running whose average age is somewhere in the early 8os. On the rare occasions they are seen together, they cut quite a dash. But Fauja has attracted the most media attention, and he is the one who has featured in an adidas advert alongside David Beckham and Jonny Wilkinson. He is, in his own way, as distinctive as either of those men, with his natty turban and a cuckoo-spit beard that hangs from a well-lined, tea-coloured face.

This, in part, is why he is such a remarkable figure. It is uncommon enough for most people even to live as long as he has, let alone undertake feats of physical endurance that have regularly beaten men and women a quarter of his age. Fauja has completed marathons in London, New York and Toronto. He has run a half-marathon in India, a 10K in Hyde Park and another in Pakistan, apparently at the invitation of former President Pervez Musharraf. In 2009 alone he ran competitively at events as far afield as Edinburgh, Luxembourg and Toronto.

“Fauja is very enthusiastic. He likes to train, and to get involved wherever he can,” says Ajit Singh, 78, another member of the group. Ajit retired from his job teaching in Glasgow in the early 198os, but has kept up the running habit ever since. He ran alongside Fauja in Toronto,race was a 20K run for Cancer Research UK in 1999. He was in his late 8os at this point, so we can safely say that just getting around the course was an impressive feat.

            The Meret Oppenheim retrospective is the fifth show Sander has sponsored at Palazzo delle Stelline. Others featured artists whose work she collects: Joseph Beuys, Georg Baselitz, Victor Brauner and Kounellis.

            Tom Ford’s long-standing interest in Eames makes Gucci’s sponsorship of the Design Museum exhibition seem equally apt, and the company’s publicists made the most of the opening reception. The museum closed for a day while a team of carpenters and electricians faced the foyer in white, built a (flatteringly lit) broadcast area where Ford conducted television interviews, and disguised a nearby building site with 30 metres of fake “hedge”. The media coverage benefited the museum as much as Gucci. “It opened up the exhibition to a wider audience,” says director Paul Thompson. “Let’s face it, more people have heard of Gucci than the Eameses.”

            Cash and publicity apart, another reason why designers are sought after as sponsors rather than, say, oil companies or DIY chains — is because the art world has lost its old hang-ups about fashion. Once dismissed as trite and transient, fashion is now seen as suitable subject matter for exhibitions at leading institutions. Dozens of designers, including Veronique Branquinho and Martin Margiela, participated in this autumn’s Biennale della Moda in Florence, an event that explores links between fashion and art. This winter’s show at the Hayward Gallery, Addressing The Century: 100 Years Of Art And Fashion, mixes vintage clothing by Rudi Gernreich and Andre Courréges with contemporary pieces by Hussein Chalayan and art by Gilbert and George, and Matt Collishaw. “The barriers between different disciplines have broken down,” says Sadie Coles. “Today’s contemporary art scene is all about artists collaborating with stylists, musicians or writers. Everything’s mixed up.”

            By opening their own galleries some fashion companies have become active participants in the art world. Cartier commissioned the futuristic French architect Jean Nouvel to design the Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain, a spectacular glass palace in Montparnasse where it stages anti aging cream exhibitions by modern artists and designers such as Matthew Barney, Marc Newson and Ron Arad. “It was just like dealing with any other gallery,” remembers Newson. “The fact that Cartier owned it seemed incidental.”

            Miuccia Prada has been even more ambitious at the three-year-old Fondazione Prada, where Germano Celant, curator of contemporary art at the Guggenheim, has assembled shows by heavyweight artists including Louise Bourgeois, Anish Kapoor and David Smith. “We’re not interested in sponsorship, but in becoming involved in promoting the creative process,” she says. “There’s also satisfaction at having done something for the city and for young people in Milan who don’t have many opportunities to see the work of good artists.” When Celant asked Sam Taylor-Wood if she’d be interested in showing there this winter, she jumped at the chance. “I was really impressed by their programme, and when I went to Milan to look at the space it was fantastic,” she recalls. “Opportunities to show in such great spaces only come along every so often, and when they do you grab them.”

            Far from being dismissed as cynical exercises in corporate image-building, both the Cartier and Prada galleries are regarded by the art establishment as bona fide institutions. “They’re taken very seriously indeed,” says Matthew Slotover, editor of art magazine Frieze. “The Prada in particular has put on some great shows and produced amazing catalogues. In fact, I’ve never known an institution establish itself so quickly.” Miuccia Prada now juggles her responsibilities as Prada’s chief designer with her other role as gallery owner. A few weekends before the Prada show in Milan this autumn, she took time off to look over the Berlin Biennale with Germano Celant.

            One faction of the fashion industry takes a more traditional view of the relationship between art and fashion. “I’m not against fashion houses supporting art as philanthropists, but I am sceptical when it becomes part of the marketing,” says Luigi Marmotti, chairman of MaxMara and a keen collector of post-1950 art. “Fashion has a commercial sub-text, and art doesn’t. It’s wrong to confuse the boundaries between them.”

            Not all designers are into art. Donna Karan’s sculptor husband, Stephan Weiss, recalls taking her to the Picasso Museum in Paris. He watched her race around the galleries, and then heard an ecstatic squeal from an adjacent room. Running in, eager to see which of the artworks had enthralled her, he heard his wife cry: “What a great wall!” ?

TODAY’S CONTEMPORARY ART SCENE IS ALL ABOUT ARTISTS COLLABORATING WITH STYLISTS, WRITERS OR MUSICIANS

Back in the early Eighties when Tom Ford was a part-time student and actor kicking around New York and Los Angeles, he’d scour flea markets and thrift stores for furniture by Charles and Ray Eames, and other mid-century modernists. “I found my first Eames pieces, a couple of ply chairs, at garage sales in LA,” he recalls. “Their work wasn’t coveted then, and certainly didn’t come up at auction — not that I’d have been able to afford it anyway.”

            Cut to an evening this autumn at the Design Museum in London, where Ford — now creative director of Gucci and proud possessor of “at least 70 Eames pieces; I’ve even got that silly coat rack with plastic balls at the ends” — is welcoming David Bowie and Bryan Ferry to the opening reception of a Charles and Ray Eames retrospective sponsored by Gucci. The more photogenic members of the Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels cast are downing champagne and sniggering at Gucci’s improbably pretty canapes, while Sharleen Spiteri of Texas checks out a model of the Eames’ glass house at Pacific Palisades, and the paparazzi snap Ewan McGregor, who’s looking uncharacteristically natty in an outfit by, well, just guess what’s on the label.

            Gucci isn’t the only fashion company toying with the world of art and design. Hugo Boss has endowed the Hugo Boss Prize for Contemporary Art at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, and Calvin Klein sponsors the Dia Center in the same city. Yves Saint Laurent paid £1 million to re-christen Room 220 of the National Gallery the YSL Room. A retrospective of the work of the surrealist Meret Oppenheim, now at Palazzo delle Stelline in Milan, is sponsored by Jil Sander; and, on nearby via Spartaco, there’s a show of video and photography by British artist Sam Taylor-Wood at Fondazione Prada, the art gallery bankrolled by Miuccia Prada.

            There’s nothing new in the idea of designers having a close rapport with artists, as friends or collectors. Think of Paul Poiret hanging out with Raoul Dufy and Robert Mallet-Stevens in the Twenties; Elsa Schiaparelli’s collaborations with Jean Cocteau and Salvador Dali in the Thirties; or Andy Warhol’s early Seventies trips to Paris, where he spent his days “antiqueing” with Karl Lagerfeld, and his nights at Club Sept with Yves Saint Laurent. Warhol’s portraits of Saint Laurent and his dog, Moujik, now hang on the walls of the designer’s rue de Babylone duplex alongside works by Matisse, Mondrian, Picasso, Brancusi, Burne-Jones and Goya.

            The difference these days is that designers are fusing their personal interest in art with their professional activities to promote and define the image of their brands. Mario Sorrenti shot a Rive Gauche-clad Kate Moss posing as Manet’s Olympia for Yves Saint Laurent’s autumn advertising campaign. Flick through a recent issue of Artforum, the influential US art magazine which featured Issey Miyake on its cover back in 1982, and you’ll see ads for Helmut Lang, Prada, Miu Miu and Jil Sander alongside others for museums and galleries. “Why place ads in magazines like Artforum? First of all, we like them,” explains Jil Sander. “Beyond that, their readers appreciate innovation, they’re interested, open-minded and potential trendsetters. We all know fashion is business too.”

            Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garcons was in the vanguard. For years she has commissioned artists to create Comme’s advertising campaigns — Cindy Sherman’s photographs from the mid-Nineties are now collectors’ items — and mounted exhibitions in her Tokyo and New York boutiques. Tom Dixon remembers Kawakubo rooting around his grungey Vauxhall studio looking for pieces to show in New York. Eventually, she pointed out a fibreglass light sculpture, saying: “I’ll have 10 of those — all in black.”

            Kawakubo says the exhibitions are there to help people understand her collections they highlight what she was thinking when designing them. Sometimes there’s an obvious link between the art and clothes. For her spring 1995 “Transcending Gender” collection, Kawakubo filled the stores with early Twenties self-portraits by Claude Cahun, a French photographer who experimented with gender stereotypes by stretch mark cream by Gnet company adopting male and female guises. Often the link is more oblique, as in the door sculpture by the British artist Steven Pippin that Kawakubo’s customers had to walk through to get into her Tokyo boutique this autumn.

            Rei Kawakubo is in the privileged position of being one of the few designers who can afford to create exquisite, very expensive clothes knowing they’ll baffle most people, while her devotees will relish the struggle to understand them. Sending out self-portraits of Cindy Sherman posing as a beaten-up slapper to announce that Comme’s spring line has arrived is part of the same mind-set, but it’s one that more mainstream designers are now adopting.

            When Helmut Lang was looking for an architect for his flagship store on Greene Street in New York’s SoHo, he settled on Gluckman Mayner, designers of virtually all the big new Manhattan galleries, as well as art dealer Sadie Coles’ HQ in London. Lang has placed favourite artworks in his gallery-like boutique, including one of Jenny Holzer’s flashing electronic signs and an eagle sculpture foraged from an embassy. He’s even taken art into his advertising, which features Robert Mapplethorpe’s photography but not a scrap of Helmut Lang clothing. His message is obvious: if you’re hip enough to buy Lang’s clothes, you’ll know what they’re like so you won’t need to see them — and you’re bound to appreciate Mapplethorpe. Helmut Lang expects his customers to get that message because art has become so much more popular over the past decade. Once, it would have seemed inconceivable that 85,000 people would troop into the Tate to check out the Turner Prize nominees, that William Hill would take bets on the winner, that hip young artists would be given rock-star profiles in The Face or Dazed & Confused or, like Tracey Emin, be plastered across billboards advertising vodka at Heathrow.

            “There’s no doubt that art, particularly twentieth-century art, has entered popular culture,” says Martine d’Anglejan-Chatillon, head of development at the Whitechapel Art Gallery. “And knowing about art, going to openings and recognising interesting artists is one of the accessories of being in the know.”

            Galleries like The Whitechapel and Saatchi are packed with young, affluent urbanites who spend sizeable chunks of their disposable incomes on clothes. That’s why a designer as commercially canny as Calvin Klein became a patron of the Dia Center, and also sponsored a Dan Flavin show there. Hugo Boss initiated the Hugo Boss Prize in 1996 because its then-chairman was an art buff, and carried on after his departure because the executives who took over were convinced it was raising awareness of the Boss label in the US.

            Art doesn’t just deliver a demographically appealing group of consumers to designers, it can also sharpen the public’s perception of brands in a crowded, competitive market. When consumers choose between one product and another, they base their choice on whether it works, what it looks like and hopefully —if it’s environmentally responsible. But a fashion brand’s appeal is also coloured by our impressions of the designer’s personality. So while the Versace label conjures Hello! pictures of Gianni partying with Elton, or Donatella with Courtney Love, Alexander McQueen is seen as the crazy London dubber who is obsessed with falconry. If we like those images we might buy the designer’s clothes; if not, we probably won’t.

Bikini Patrol

Whichever James Bond film you think of, 007′s harem of girls always has the best swimsuits and bikinis — it’s obligatory, as there’s not a Bond movie without a sexy swimming-pool or beach scene. This summer, there are as many styles — from plunge necks to sparkly bandeaux — as there are girls. Take your pick and make a scene.

New Shoes

It must be serendipity — those two British handbag maestros, Lulu Guinness and Anya Hindmarch, have decided to apply their wit and science to shoes. “Every girl loves shoes. They’re candy for grown-ups,” says Hindmarch, Accessory Designer of the Year. “My designs are all about detail and quality, and of course, they’re as sexy as hell.” In her collection, there are leather mid-calf boots, simple sling backs, flattering T-bars and pointy-toed ruffled courts. The quilted pink satin linings are divine, as well as comfortable, too.

Pampering and prettifying are also top of Guinness’ agenda. “I’m an experienced high-heel wearer,” she says. She has been researching for her 80-piece collection for years, referring to her own shoe collection (mainly designer items and vintage finds) and asking women what they want. The results are wedge-heeled ankle boots, Mary Janes with delicate straps and a selection of evening flats, which are dedicated to all her tall friends who don’t want to tower over their men on nights out. “Comfort is key,” she says. “To wear a pair of heels all day without pain is amazing.”

For ever synonymous with street style— think early-Eighties Run DMC— the tracksuit is back. Revisit the roller-disco, J. Lo-style, with Juicy Couture’s sexy towelling tracksuits, or opt for Japanese street wear label Super Lovers’ baggy velour version (its Lovers Record line has been created especially for DJs’ comfort). If in doubt, stick with a legend: at Adidas Originals, the reissue of Eighties zip-up tops in sherbert colours and the bestselling 1975 Superstar suit surely says it all.

Why?

LA-based designer, whose fans include Madonna and Courtney Love, showed his own brand of post-apocalyptic style, below right, on the New York run way for the first time at the autumn/winter 2002 shows. It looks set to go stellar.

 His Story?

Having dropped out of art school, Owens worked as a pattern cutter in a knock-off hop (“It’s the best training someone brings you a designer jacket and have to copy it quickly before they take it away). He started his own line in 1994. “I grew up in a backwater town,” he says, “so my collections were a blend of me and my friends hanging out by the river, listening to Led Zeppelin and smoking pot. I can still see these influences in my designs.”

What’s He All About?

“I design for sophisticated ex-hippies – women who are a little weathered, who don’t feel they have to make a statement.”

The South Beach Diet
This is another healthy diet fad that’s popular among celebrities. This diet includes healthy meal plans for controlling food intake like carbohydrates and calories by the individual. The south beach idea is that the person will eat healthier foods in a method that has the absence of failure in dieting or the possibility of continuously gaining and losing weight that is definitely unhealthy.

The Sonoma Diet
This is actually a very methodical diet plan where it allows you to have a regular meal while maintaining a healthy diet program. The Sonoma diet has three stages where the first is the deterrent, discarding fruits, sweet foods including refined flour products. By the second stage, it’s all about fresh foods like vegetables, low fat dairy products, whole grains, coffee extract and fruits. You can also take the right supplements like raspberry ketone. This diet aims for dieters to diversify their eating habits so they won’t be fed up with the diet meal plan immediately.
The Jenny Craig Diet
Countless celebrities have kept by the Jenny Craig Diet plan. This popular diet plan focuses on pre-packaged meal plans featuring low calorie foods, which are portion controlled. This diet plan may be too costly for other people, nevertheless and it may be tricky to change into lasting health routines when not eating the prepared meals.

The above mentioned are just a few excellent diet plans available. You will just have to choose one that’s suitable for your weight loss needs. The best diet would be the one that you can work with on a daily basis, healthy and gives your body the right nutrients necessary and of course the one that includes exercise. Several diet plans especially those taking diet pills don’t require the person to exercise regularly. Maintaining your ideal weight is crucial so you should be able to burn the same or more calories that you consume so exercise should never be an exception in a diet program. Pleasurable exercises include walking, jogging, cycling and aerobics.
These diet plans will probably work for you or won’t so you should assess them and choose the one that works for you. As long as you follow the standard diet rules, avoid junk food as much as possible, and ensure that you’re getting a fine ingestion of natural organic foods, and then you may have the best diet plan for life.