JoJo Siwa gushes over boyfriend Chris Hughes and quips they've already discussed marriage as she admits she 'wishes he was with her' after she flew home to the US

JoJo Siwa has quipped she and boyfriend Chris Hughes have already discussed marriage, as she gushed about the star after flying home to the US.
The Dance Moms star, 22, is back in America after spending two weeks with the Love Island star at his home in the UK, where the pair finally confirmed their romance following weeks of speculation.
And speaking to TMZ while enjoying dinner with pal James Charles on Wednesday, JoJo said said things between herself and Chris, 32, are 'going great.'
She said: 'He is my favorite person in the world … It's beautiful, it kind of radiates. He's my favorite person and I am very grateful and very happy.'
Admitting that she is missing her boyfriend, JoJo added that she 'wished he was there' with her.
The star was then asked whether she had considered marriage with Chris yet, but she brushed it off by stating she has 'so many thoughts.'
Meanwhile, Chris has spent the week working at Royal Ascot with hospitality brand ICON by Engage, sharing snaps of his trips to the races on Instagram.
Last week JoJo shared the surprise news that she was postponing her US tour, which had been due to kick off on July 10.
An announcement made on the website jojosiwalive.com said the dates have been postponed, with those who booked tickets set to be refunded.
She also teased that there would be more shows in Europe announced soon in a hint that she could be staying in the UK for longer.
It came just days after it was revealed JoJo has been dropped by record label Columbia earlier this year.
The website seemingly detailing her live shows now reads: 'I've got some news that breaks my heart to share... my US tour has to be postponed.
'I promise I'll be back before you know it to perform for all the beautiful people in the US!... Announcements will be coming soon, including some Europe shows!:)
'Thank you so much for your understanding and support. I can't wait to see you all soon!
'To my Dream Guest VIPs, my team will be reaching out to you individually to plan something special. Refunds will be issued at point of purchase.'
MailOnline has contacted a representative for JoJo for comment.
JoJo had been signed to the record company Columbia in 2024, and she released her single Karma and EP Guilty Pleasure with the label.
But less than a year later, the US reality star is no longer working with Columbia Records and released her latest song Bulletproof independently.
Elsewhere, The Sun reported on Friday that JoJo and Love Island star Chris have been in talks with ITV bosses about their own reality TV show, with it being lined up to air on ITV2 later in the year.
Elsewhere, The Sun reported on Friday that JoJo and Love Island star Chris have been in talks with ITV bosses about their own reality TV show, with it being lined up to air on ITV2 later in the year.
A source told the publication: 'It's still in the early stages but ITV really think they'd be amazing TV with their own show.
'Fans around the world are obsessed with their relationship and there are so many TikTok accounts devoted to their love story.'
They added: 'Chris and JoJo are keen too, and while there is no deal signed yet, the talks have been really promising.'
Before confirming their romance, JoJo and Chris played coy over their relationship status – despite numerous cosy public outings
After forming a close bond in the Celebrity Big Brother house, JoJo finally confirmed earlier this month that she and Chris are officially an item and that she's started calling him her boyfriend.
In an interview with Capital Radio, JoJo said: 'I'm sure it's no secret to people, I am in a lovely relationship with a sweet boy named Christopher Hughes.'
She also gushed about her blossoming romance with Chris in an interview with The Guardian when asked whether things between them were still platonic.
'It's not platonic anymore, and it's been a beautiful development, a beautiful connection, and I'm absolutely head over heels for him and he's the same way,' she told them.

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The Independent

an hour ago

• The Independent

Coldplay to reissue albums on records made from recycled plastic bottles

Coldplay are to reissue nine of their previous albums on clear records made from recycled plastic bottles. The EcoRecords are claimed to reduce carbon emissions during the manufacturing process by 85% compared with traditional vinyl production. Jen Ivory, managing director of the band's label Parlophone, said: 'We are incredibly proud to partner with artists such as Coldplay who share our commitment to a more sustainable future for music. 'The shift to EcoRecord LP for their releases is a testament to what's possible when innovation meets intention. 'It's not just about a new product, it's about pioneering manufacturing that significantly reduces environmental impact, providing fans with the same high-quality audio experience while setting a new standard for physical music production.' Each 140g LP is made up of approximately nine recycled bottles, after they are cleaned, processed into small pellets and then moulded into records. Coldplay will re-release debut album Parachutes (2000), A Rush of Blood To The Head (2002), X&Y (2005), Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends (2008), Mylo Xyloto (2011), Ghost Stories (2014), A Head Full Of Dreams (2015), Everyday Life (2019) and Music Of The Spheres (2021) in the series. The band's latest album Moon Music, released last year, has already been released on an EcoRecord LP. It comes after Coldplay claimed they had exceeded their climate change target while attempting to put on one of the greenest tours in history. In 2024, the group claimed its CO2 emissions were 59% less for the first two years of their Music Of The Spheres Tour compared to their stadium tour from 2016 to 2017, surpassing an initial 50% target. The group used rechargeable batteries fuelled by renewable sources for the shows along with other efforts. Coldplay have long campaigned for climate action, with frontman Chris Martin saying in 2019 they would not launch a globe-trotting tour for their album Everyday Life due to environmental concerns. In October last year, Martin claimed his band would stop making albums after their 12th record, with Moon Music being their 10th. All of the London-formed band's albums have reached number one on the UK albums chart and the group have also had two number one singles in Viva La Vida and Paradise. The latest series of reissues will be released on August 15 with pre-orders open on Coldplay's website.

Times

an hour ago

• Times

Gabby Logan: ‘I was told I was too competitive for a woman'

Gabby Logan is posing in a pair of form-hugging PVC trousers and killer heels, with her shoulders adorned in fur. And as her last photo is taken she delivers a diva punchline to bring the house down: 'Well, that's my Match of the Day outfit sorted then.' If only. Logan takes the helm of the BBC's TV institution in August (along with Kelly Cates and Mark Chapman) following the recent departure of Gary Lineker. I dare you to wear that outfit, I say. 'The BBC don't say anything much about clothes, but they might say something about an outfit like that. So I don't think I'm going to rattle the cage,' she muses as we sit down to talk. MOTD is the longest-running football show in the world. To paraphrase Labour campaign watchers, she is about to walk across a highly polished floor holding a Ming vase. Is she nervous? 'Before any broadcast, I get just nervous enough to give a good performance. Before I had children I was quite superstitious. I'd wear the same coloured pants or walk the same route through the corridor to the studio for luck. But kids take you out of yourself. Now it's about being totally prepared so you feel adrenalised, excited.' Did Gary leave her a note, maybe some crisps? 'No. But our initials are the same so the door sign is the same.' When Logan was recruited by Sky TV back in the Nineties, her new bosses sent her out on the town with a fashion stylist. They drank champagne and then spent £5,000 on Prada, Armani and Kenzo clothes. Does MOTD do the same? 'Would it surprise you to hear the answer is no?' OK, one more, this time more serious: Lineker was the highest-paid BBC presenter, on £1.35 million a year. Has Logan demanded equal pay? 'That's all sorted,' she says. What does that mean? 'It's sorted.' A bumper summer of women's sport Her response is a swift reminder that we are not here to discuss MOTD but something possibly even bigger. Logan is about to front an unprecedented summer of women's sport coverage on the BBC. Women's football (the Euros begin in July), rugby (the World Cup is in August), not to mention cricket, tennis, athletics (the World Championships are in September) and netball. 'No sidelines, no second billing,' says the official Beeb announcement. There will be a grassroots campaign to get more girls and women participating too. 'Names will be made,' they predict. 'Think back to the women's Euros in 2022,' Logan enthuses. 'Lots of people didn't know who Alessia Russo, Chloe Kelly, Ella Toone or Ellen White were and it was such a joy to see them emerge as household names. Heroes, basically. And there are so many more to come.' Who might be the new stars? Look out for Aggie Beever-Jones (the England international and Chelsea star who recently scored a hat-trick against Portugal in the women's Nations League) and Ellie Kildunne (the England rugby union star and 2024 World Rugby's women's player of the year). 'A lot of these women are already very well known within sporting circles, but they really deserve wider recognition. And that means both women and men watching. With football particularly, I think sometimes the narrative can be: 'No men's Euros or World Cup this summer — it's going to be a quiet one.' It's really not. Across all these sports, there is amazing female talent waiting to be discovered.' Logan is of course a former international athlete herself — she was a gymnast for Wales at the 1990 Commonwealth Games but retired due to injury aged 17. Her father is the former Leeds United and Wales international footballer Terry Yorath and, as a young girl, she loved that game too. Could she have made it as a player with the right encouragement? It's easy to forget the FA actually banned women from using its facilities between 1921 and 1971. 'I was thinking about this recently,' she muses. 'Could I have made it? I would love to have played alongside England's all-time greatest, Kelly Smith. [The former England international was so determined to play football as a girl, she joined a boys' club in Watford aged seven. She became the top scorer, but was then kicked out after the parents of opposing teams complained.] But the determination you needed to succeed without facilities or media interest was incredible.' I spoke to Logan two years ago when she commentated on the women's World Cup final in Australia. At the time Neymar, the Brazilian star of the men's game, had just signed a deal worth £129 million a year playing for the Saudi Arabian team Al-Hilal; Cristiano Ronaldo, meanwhile, earns more than £170 million a year at another Saudi Arabian club. Logan remarked that the men's game seemed 'a bit broken'. Can the women's game avoid that? 'This is the balancing act the women's game has got. They want the same brand deals as the men's game to bring more money in and grow the sport but without losing the connectivity with fans. I don't think anyone would disagree that the men's game has lost a little bit of that. You always see the women go to talk to the fans after a match. There are some amazing men too but it feels as though the stakes are so much higher — there's the whole 'talking behind the hand' thing because of lip-reading which is everywhere now. It feels harder to connect. But I would add: the fans in the men's game still care passionately. I have spoken to Sunderland, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest fans recently: the passion is still incredible.' Is any player worth £170 million a year? 'You're worth what someone decides to pay you. There's a lot of debate about players taking the money to play in Saudi Arabia but you can't walk in their shoes. You don't know if they're giving that money to the town they came from or building schools. So many players do that but it doesn't get the coverage because it's not exciting. And in terms of entertainment, would you apply that to the music industry and say Elton John isn't worth that money? Or that movie star isn't worth it for a film?' 'I want as many people to participate in sport in a safe and fair way' OK, women's sport can feel refreshingly wholesome — except perhaps in one area. It's been two months since the Supreme Court ruled that under equalities law, a woman is defined by biological sex, not gender identity. What is Logan's view on the ruling and what effect will it have on women's sport this summer? 'I'm not going to talk about that,' she says firmly. I am surprised. Logan has previously supported the former British Olympic swimmer Sharron Davies's stand on trans women in women's sport. 'I think we need to protect women's sport. That's why I think it's good what Sharron Davies is doing at the moment, in terms of talking about it,' she told a newspaper in 2019. 'We're dealing with science here. This is not about attacking a community; it's about saying: how can we make this a fair place for women to compete?' Is it fair to quote that as your rough position? 'I think that pertains to a conversation as much as anything,' Logan says. 'People having a forum to debate and have a conversation about something. I want as many people to participate in sport in a safe and fair way, whatever that looks like.' It feels like the Supreme Court ruling should make this issue easier to discuss. Why is it still so political and polarising? 'You tell me. Maybe there's a vacuum somewhere that's allowed it to become so polarising, which is disappointing.' We are sitting in a quiet corner of a photo studio. These exchanges feel like a half-hearted game of ping-pong in a very rundown youth centre. I get it. Logan is here representing the BBC and broadcasters are incredibly nervous about the gender debate. Days after we speak, the tennis legend and TV pundit Martina Navratilova is censored on ITV's X channel after posting comments about the controversial Algerian boxer Imane Khelif. But it's a shame because on social media and in her 2022 memoir, The First Half, Logan is often both funny and bolshy. On X she has variously questioned Brexit, trolled Melania Trump's fashion choices, denounced Donald Trump and come out in support of Marcus Rashford's campaign for free school meals during the Covid pandemic. 'I found the people opposing Marcus Rashford totally baffling,' she says, rallying. 'This is a kid who knows what it's like [Rashford was brought up by a single mother] trying to use his position in a positive way. I grew up when football players were constantly being bashed for their lavish lifestyles, so the 'stick to football' attitude was very disappointing.' 'After my brother died, I promised him to live my life for two people' The 'wild west' of social media is where you find no-nonsense Logan. In fact, swagger into Gabby's Bar with a bad attitude and you are probably leaving through the window. In her memoir she calls the BBC broadcasting legend Des Lynam 'the master', but is more than ready to put him straight now. Last year Lynam said he had 'no gripe' with female presenters but that, 'When you're a pundit and you're offering opinions about the game, you have to have played it at the level you are talking about — ie, the men's game.' 'It's really strange for Des Lynam to be coming at it from that angle when he's never played the game at that level, has he?' she says. Elsewhere the billionaire former Spurs chairman Lord Sugar expressed concern that, while women pundits often comment on the men's game, there were no men covering the women's 2022 Euros tournament. 'Given the viewing figures for the women's Euros and the excitement around the whole tournament, I think perhaps Sir Alan misjudged that one,' she says. That's Logan all over. She is diligent and head-girlish, but then she's had to be. Her early life was happy, exciting even. With her mum, Christine, and siblings — sister Louise and brothers Daniel and Jordan — she moved around while her dad played in Leeds, London, even Canada. But the day 15-year-old Daniel died suddenly while playing football in the back garden (he had an undiagnosed heart condition, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy), things changed overnight. Daniel and his father were very close and, heartbroken, Terry Yorath's life spun out of control; he became depressed and drank to excess. The marriage eventually fell apart. Meanwhile, 19-year-old Logan pulled herself together. In the funeral parlour, seeing her brother for the last time, she made him a promise: 'I am going to do everything I can to make your life count.' 'Yes, to live my life for two people,' she says today. The tragedy and her sporting instincts drove her to achieve and yet Logan has learnt that competitive women ruffle feathers. The moment of truth, she says, came while appearing with her husband, the former Scotland rugby international Kenny Logan, on Strictly Come Dancing in 2007. While Kenny was lauded as the game bruiser twirling through the pasa doble in a kilt, she was seen as trying too hard. Kenny came 5th, Gabby Logan was eliminated early in 11th place. It really hurt her. In The First Half she says the day she left she cried, 'People really don't like me,' into her sofa. Why did it hurt so much? 'Because I was kicked out! And it was a harsh lesson, learning that sometimes not everyone likes you. You realise the parts of your personality that you thought were attributes as a sportswoman are not valued. I was told I was being too competitive, whereas I was thinking, 'I thought that was good. That's what I did in sport — and it worked — and that's what my husband is doing.' I actually reckon there was a societal shift between that show in 2007 and 2012. At the 2012 Olympics we started to appreciate tough, competitive women. We made heroes of them. But in 2007 I wasn't playing the game expected of a woman.' What would a woman 'playing the game' look like? 'Oh, it would have served me to say,' — she bats her eyelids and smiles — ' 'Oh gosh, whatever, that's fine! I'm just happy to be here!' rather than trying hard. But you have to decide if that's you, and that's something I'm not compromising on.' There was another significant fallout from Daniel's death: the disrupted relationship with her father led her into an unhealthy pattern when choosing men. 'For a few years I sought the company of not very appropriate, older men,' she writes in her book. Most notable was Gary Staines, a long-distance runner who took a shine to her at the 1990 Commonwealth Games in Auckland, New Zealand. She was 16. Staines was 26 and engaged. A year later his marriage ended and Logan moved into his London flat. Logan ended the relationship once she was at Durham University, where she read law. But by her early twenties, despite having cut her teeth on local radio and making a name for herself as a presenter at Sky Sports, Logan was feeling lost. With her husband and Prince Charles at a reception for the Prince's Trust, 2013 PA 'I didn't like myself very much,' she says. 'I was probably wanting to mend something because our family was quite broken, because of my brother dying. I felt I could create something like a family, a happy place. Those were the relationships I was pursuing. But a bit of guidance from a therapist helped me recognise those patterns were not healthy. That was a good time for it to happen, because in my early twenties I realised I wasn't enjoying relationships I was in. It didn't seem like a good way to be.' 'Thank God I am married to a normal bloke' Early in 1999 Logan was on her way home from dinner with a girlfriend who suggested a late drink in a bar. Logan didn't want to go; she was still queasy from an uncomfortable New Year's Eve dalliance: 'a cigar-smoking wide boy' she'd snogged and who wanted her to do cocaine in the lavatories at a London cabaret (she didn't). Nevertheless, she and the friend slipped into London's K Bar and she was introduced to Kenny Logan. Early portents weren't great. He was drunk and thought he was talking to the former Big Breakfast presenter Gaby Roslin. Nevertheless they hit it off. 'Thank God I am married to a normal bloke who isn't an addict,' she says in her book, and is very funny about Kenny bouncing her off the water bed in her London townhouse during their early years together. 'He's still my number one,' she says. In recent years her marriage to Kenny has become something of a minor sporting spectacle in itself. Logan has been disarmingly honest about how the menopause affected her sex drive ('Is this going to become a duty?') until she took HRT. And it was a 2021 edition of podcast The that prompted Kenny to get himself checked out for prostate cancer; he tested positive. He has made a full recovery but both have been refreshingly open about the impact of the disease on their relationship: Kenny talked us through his testicles growing to 'the size of tennis balls' and the month it took post-surgery to get any erectile 'movement'. 'We decided: we have a platform — let's use it for good,' Logan says. 'We get a lot of great feedback from people who say they took action [about their health]. I'm sure our kids have been teased about it more than we know, but they also feel grateful that their dad's life was, if not saved, at least spared from something more serious.' As a teenager herself she says she was too tall and flat-chested to be fancied by boys. She didn't drink and was dedicated to her sport. No wonder, as a 16-year-old at the Commonwealth Games, she was baffled as to why male competitors wanted to hang out with her and her sister Louise — who went on to become a model — or why the Sultan of Brunei's brother, Prince Jefri, sent her a Brunei team tracksuit as a gift along with his phone number. 'I just thought, 'Oh, nice tracksuit,' ' Logan recalls now. 'I only really read about him afterwards.' Prince Jefri reportedly owned more than 2,000 cars and enjoyed entertaining on a superyacht called Tits. Why did it take her so long to realise that, in her own words, many sports people at major tournaments are 'on heat'? 'I was very young, but when you step back it's obvious, isn't it? All these very fit, healthy people who train so hard — and, if my experience is anything to go by, miss out on so many social events because they are trying to get their gymnastics right — are suddenly ready to mingle. You're done training and there are lots of other fit, lovely people around who also want to let off a bit of steam. It's no great surprise that there are romantic liaisons. I believe the French handed out more condoms than ever at the Paris Olympics. It's the swimmers you have to watch out for — their events always finish first. And if you get up at 5am to train for your whole life and you are superfit and you finish your competition, you deserve to party, right? Just don't live next to the swimmers in the village if you want a good night's sleep.' Back then a young athlete could make mistakes — she is clear the relationship with Gary Staines 'should never have happened' — but we now live in a world of social media. As a leading broadcaster, the scrutiny and abuse are intense. Logan has been told to 'get back in the kitchen' on X; and in the last year alone she has been taken to task for wishing viewers a 'happy festive season' instead of saying 'Christmas' and for using the term 'cock-up' while commentating on last year's Olympics. 'You have to decide how much it's going to invade your sanity,' she says. 'The people that matter to me, I will always listen to their opinion. I am just glad I stopped my kids having phones till they were 16 so they could at least have a taste of what I had: the chance to be in the moment, even to make mistakes.' Dress, Shoes, Earrings, ROBERT WILSON FOR THE TIMES MAGAZINE Lois is at university and Reuben a rugby player for Northampton Saints (he joins Sale Sharks next season). They are relaxed about their mum's achievements, although there was a flurry of texts when she got the MOTD job. 'It's an institution, so of course it was huge for them too,' she says, smiling. But first, this summer of women's sport will be the fruition of years of determined, unrecognised effort. There are parallels with Logan's TV career. Aged 11, she watched a VHS tape of the 1984 Olympics over and over again, noting even then that only men seemed to be presenters. In her twenties, at Sky TV, her boss told her that her career would be over when she was 28, and in her early thirties she very nearly gave up after being sidelined at ITV. She took a 66 per cent pay cut to join the BBC. She had just had children when ITV let her go. Wasn't she suspicious? 'No. That's TV. I had a real crisis of confidence. I wondered, 'Am I any good at this job?' But the truth is, sometimes people just aren't into you.' No wonder her X profile simply says, 'Still here.' 'I owe my opportunities to some quite strident women in TV before me who said, 'It's not right that we get chucked off air just because we hit 40,' ' she asserts. 'Women like Kirsty Wark, presenting Newsnight into her sixties. Like the sportswomen we will hopefully celebrate this summer, I feel I am very much standing on the shoulders of giants.'

The Guardian

an hour ago

• The Guardian

‘You'd never make Slumdog today': Danny Boyle on risks, regrets and returning to the undead

The UK is a wasteland in Danny Boyle's new film. Towns lie in ruins, trains rot on the rails and the EU has severed all ties with the place. Some residents are stuck in the past and congregate under the tattered flag of St George. The others flail shirtless through the open countryside, raging about nothing, occasionally stopping to eat worms. You wouldn't want to live in the land that Boyle and the writer Alex Garland show us. Teasingly, on some level, the film suggests that we do. Boyle and Garland first prowled zombie Britain with their 2002 hit 28 Days Later. It was an electrifying piece of speculative fiction, a guerilla-style thriller about an unimaginable world. Since then we've had Brexit and Covid, and the looming threat of martial law in the US … The story's extravagant flights of fancy don't feel so far-fetched any more. 'Yes, of course real world events were a big influence this time around,' Boyle says, sipping tea in the calm of a central London hotel. 'Brexit is a transparency that passes over this film, without a doubt. But the big resonance of the original film was the way it showed how British cities could suddenly empty out overnight. And after Covid, those scenes now feel like a proving ground.' Where Cillian Murphy first walked, the rest of us would soon follow. Tense and gory, 28 Years Later is a fabulous horror epic. I would hesitate to call it a sequel, exactly: it's more a reboot or a renovation; a fresh build over an existing property. Newcomer Alfie Williams plays 12-year-old Spike, who defies his parents (Jodie Comer and Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and flees the sanctuary of Holy Island for an adventure on the infected mainland. Along the way, he tangles with berserker zombies and smirking psycho-killers, and encounters Ralph Fiennes's enigmatic, orange-skinned Dr Kelson, reputedly a former GP from Whitley Bay. All of which makes for a jolting, engrossing journey; a film that freewheels through a gone-to-seed northern England before crashing headlong into the closing credits with many of its key questions still unanswered. The hanging ending is the point, Boyle explains, because the film is actually the first part of a proposed trilogy. Sony Pictures has put up two-thirds of the budget. The second movie – The Bone Temple, directed by the American film-maker Nia DaCosta – is already in the can. Boyle has plans to shoot the final instalment, except that the future is unwritten and the industry is on a knife edge 'Sony has taken a massive risk,' the director tells me happily. 'The original film worked well in America to everyone's surprise, but there's no guarantee that this one will. It's all because of this guy, [Sony Pictures' CEO] Tom Rothman. He's a bit of a handful, a fantastic guy, runs the studio in a crazy way. He's paid for two films, but he hasn't paid for the third one yet and so his neck's on the line. If this film doesn't work, he's now got a second film that he has to release. But after that, yeah, we might not get to complete the story.' Good directors reflect the times they work in, but they're at the mercy of them, too, hot-wired to the twists and turns of history; up one year and down the next. And so it is with Boyle, who's travelled from the sunny Cool Britannia uplands of Shallow Grave and Trainspotting through the imperial age of Slumdog Millionaire and the London Olympics, right down to the shonky doldrums of today, when a cherished project might collapse under him like an exhausted horse. He's 68 now, and battling to get his films across the line. I don't know why he's so cheerful. Hasn't everything gone to hell? 'Well, I'm an optimist,' he says. 'So I don't despair about things the way I know that a lot of people do. Also I'm slightly more outside the media than you. That allows me a slightly different view on things. And increasingly, as I age, I become more wary of the obsessions of the media. That constant catastrophising and sense of perceived decline.' It's particularly noticeable in the US, he thinks. 'Much of Trump's dominance is undoubtedly down to his appeal to the media. He is so media friendly. His soundbites, everything about him, fit hand in glove with news and entertainment to the point where it's damaging. Whereas in this country, we're quite fortunate. We've dodged the far-right bullet for the moment and we elected Keir Starmer against the tide of what's been happening elsewhere.' He reaches for his tea. 'It could be a lot worse.' In 2012, Boyle devised and directed Isles of Wonder, the opening ceremony of the London Olympics. The show was a triumph: a bumper celebration of British culture that made room for James Bond and the queen, Windrush migrants and the NHS, Shakespeare and the Sex Pistols. 'But my biggest regret was that we didn't feature the BBC more. I was stopped from doing it because it was the host broadcaster. Every other objection, I told them to go fuck themselves. But that one I accepted and I regret that now, especially given the way that technology is moving. The idea that we have a broadcaster that is part of our national identity but is also trusted around the world and that can't be bought, can't be subsumed into Meta or whatever, feels really precious. So yeah, if I was doing it again I'd big up the BBC big time.' He laughs. 'Everything else I'd do exactly the same.' Isles of Wonder has safely passed into legend. These days it's up there with James Bond and the queen. I wonder, though, how history will judge Slumdog Millionaire, his Oscar-winning 2008 spectacular about a ghetto kid who hits the jackpot. Boyle shot the film in Mumbai, partly in Hindi, and with a local crew. But it was a film of its time and the world has moved on. 'Yeah, we wouldn't be able to make that now,' he says. 'And that's how it should be. It's time to reflect on all that. We have to look at the cultural baggage we carry and the mark that we've left on the world.' Is he saying that the production itself amounted to a form of colonialism? 'No, no,' he says. 'Well, only in the sense that everything is. At the time it felt radical. We made the decision that only a handful of us would go to Mumbai. We'd work with a big Indian crew and try to make a film within the culture. But you're still an outsider. It's still a flawed method. That kind of cultural appropriation might be sanctioned at certain times. But at other times it cannot be. I mean, I'm proud of the film, but you wouldn't even contemplate doing something like that today. It wouldn't even get financed. Even if I was involved, I'd be looking for a young Indian film-maker to shoot it.' A waiter sidles in with a second cup of tea. Boyle, though, is still mulling the parlous state of the world. He knows that times are tough and that people are hurting. Nonetheless, he insists that there are reasons to be cheerful. 'Have you got any kids?' he asks suddenly. Boyle has three: technically they're all adults now. 'And I think that's progress. I look at the younger generation and they're an improvement. They're an upgrade.' The director was weaned on a diet of new wave music and arthouse cinema, Ziggy Stardust and Play for Today. He began his career as a chippy outsider and winces at the notion that he's now an establishment fixture. 'It all comes back to punk, really,' he says. 'The last time Lou Reed spoke in public, he said: 'I want to blow it all up,' because he was still a punk at heart. And if you can embrace that spirit, it keeps you in a fluid, changeable state that's more important than having some fixed place where you belong. So, I do try to carry those values and keep that kind of faith.' He gulps and backtracks, suddenly embarrassed at his own presumption. 'Not that my work is truly revolutionary or radical,' he adds. 'I mean, I'm not smashing things to pieces. I value the popular audience. I believe in popular entertainment. I want to push the boat out, but take the popular audience with me.' I suggest that this might be a contradiction. 'Yeah, of course it is,' Boyle says, snorting. 'But I've found a way to resolve it – in my own mind, at least.' If 12-year-old Spike played it safe he'd have stayed on Holy Island beside the reassuring flag of St George. Instead, the kid takes a gamble and charts his own course to the mainland. He's educating himself and embracing a fraught, messy future. He's mixing with monsters and slowly coming into his strength. That's what kids tend to do, Boyle explains. That's why they give us hope. 'Maybe hope is a weird thing to ask for in a horror movie,' he says. 'But we all need something to cling to, whether that's in films or in life.' 28 Years Later is in UK cinemas now