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MAK E M I N E A

A F TE R PANTS AND P E RFUME , DAV I D

B EC KHAM HAS DES I GNS ON YOUR DRAM .

KAT I E G LAS S JO IN ED H IM IN RA I S I NG A

G LASS TO H I S N EW WH IS KY

nd then he kissed me. His bristles were tickly sharpon my cheek, his body warm. He smelt amazing: arich woody musk. And I thought: “I have reachedthe zenith of my career, and life. I have beenkissed by David Beckham.”Go on, admit it, you’ve thought about it. Evensensible, adult woman not normally smittenby idiotic celebrity crushes fancy DavidBeckham. Even women who don’t fall for

people just because they look good in pants, who have no interest infootball or Hello! magazine. Even heterosexual men. David, Beckham,Becks, Goldenballs (as Victoria infamously calls him) has got cross-gender, cross-sexuality, cross-country sex appeal. I think he might beour greatest British export; he’s certainly done better than PiersMorgan. Did I want to fly to Scotland and meet him? Of course I did.Edinburgh is miserable, all lashing rain and blackened Georgian

buildings, like someone’s taken Bath and submerged it in smog.We head to The Kitchin, a restaurant recommended by GordonRamsay, who was up here last night with Victoria (she flew upseparately — they always travel apart when not with the children,presumably for security reasons).This weekend we are celebrating Beckham’s new whisky: Haig

Club. He has never promoted a spirit before. For more than 20 yearsalcohol brands begged and, I assume, offered top dollar, but hecouldn’t (or felt he couldn’t) because he was a professional sportsman.Now he’s retired, he’s free to get drunk.We hover, drinking cocktails made from

Haig Club, with a nervous pre-date energy,waiting for him to arrive. Suddenly, a manwith something in his ear appears andrestaurant staff start stalking the door, likedogs waiting for their owner to come home.David Beckham is here. He shakes handswith everyone. “Hi, I’m David,” he says.Jesus H, he is good-looking. Perfect

proportions, square shoulders, not quite astall as I had imagined. Teeth white (but notHollywood perfect), hair slicked back (a bittoo far at the temples), grinning cheekily sohis eyes crease at the edges; smiling like aman who knows that you know he knows youfancy him. Less moody than on billboards, if alittle older. But then he is almost 40 now.He’s exceptionally dapper, of course — he’s David Beckham, the

man who single-sarongedly invented metrosexuality, who made itacceptable for men to care about hair. “They said it was casual tonight,but it’s a Michelin-starred restaurant and Tom’s cooking for usespecially, so I had to wear a jacket and tie,” he laughs. And I think,“Oh, isn’t he charming?”The othermen are wearing open-collar shirts.Dinner is a table of 20, but I have struck gold, because David is

directly opposite me. He seems relaxed, if a little self-conscious. Butthen imagine being Beckham in this setup, where, as much as youentertain the idea we are mates having dinner, you know everyone isyou-obsessed. He makes a short speech about how excited he is to belaunching his whisky, and, although it’s unfaltering, you sense he’squite shy. Perhaps he’s still nervous about the squeaky voice he usedto get teased over, but somehow he’s lost it, so all that remains is alight East End intonation. Then Tom, the chef, makes a quip about“feeding Victoria last night. That was... interesting.”And we all laugh,because everyone likes to hate Posh, probably because everyonefancies Beckham.Jimmy Choo is at the head of the table. He’s flown in from Paris

fashion week to support Becks, because “nowhe’s retired from football,he wants to create a new legacy”. He says Beckham is “shy” and

“hard-working”. They have been mates since the Spice Girl days, whenthey would all get together for dinner at Mel B’s house. Opposite me,Beckham is playing with his new iPhone 6. “I haven’t bent it yet, no,”he smirks (despite the viral Bend It Like Beckham meme). He’s tryingto show the girl next to him the name of some amazing sushi place inSingapore. “Super fresh.” Like Nobu? “No, better, much smaller. Moreexclusive.” Sushi is his favourite food. He also loves seafood: those littlefish you get in Spain, he can’t remember the name — “Victoria callsthem dinosaur dicks.”His grandad use to bring whelks home. “I love awinkle,” he says.Tonight’s menu is a nine-course extravaganza featuring pig’s head,

haggis, turbot and grouse. Beckham says he will eat anything: “I grewup eating jellied eels.”He left home at 16, so he had to cook for himself.When he moved to Italy (with AC Milan), he took an Italian cookerycourse, and now his specialities are ragu (“The kids love that”), saffronrisotto (“You think risotto’s hard, but it’s not. You just have to be patientwith it for the first 30 minutes”) and fresh pasta, which he makes byhand. Cruz is already a little chef: “He’s only nine, but he gets up andmakes his own breakfast and makes his sister’s breakfast.”Do you trusthim? “No! But he gets up before me, so there’s nothing I can do.”And this is what he’s like: laid-back, friendly. He has this manner,

which new celebrities find impossible to affect, where he seems totallyopen without telling you anything. Heguesses the next course will be sorbet andhigh-fives someone across the table whenhe’s right. When I ask why he hasn’t worn akilt to promote his whisky, he says: “I mightdo at some point. I do think if you’re going todo it, you’ve got to do it properly.”And, God,he looks sexy when he’s flirting.He is incredibly patriotic.The next morning

he tells me the best person he’s ever met is“our Queen”, clasping his hands to his chest.“She’s the most amazing woman. I’m a realtraditionalist. I’m a real royalist. The fact thatI’ve been able to go to Buckingham Palaceand I’ve been able to meet the Queen, that’sthe best thing I’ve ever done. She’s amazing.

My grandparents brought me up to be a real royalist. Theywould makeus sit down on Christmas Day and watch the Queen’s speech and theywould take us to the changing of the guard.” It makes me thinkdifferently about the fact he wed Posh on a pair of red thrones wearingcrowns — less piss-take, more homage.We talk about turning 40, which he says doesn’t scare him: “I

wouldn’t say I have a bucket list... I’m relatively young.” He would liketo travel. He would like to snowboard — he’s never been allowed tobecause of the insurance on his legs. Getting older has made him moreappreciative, too. “You definitely start to embrace things a lot more.”Like what? “Different hotel rooms with flowers, candles and things,” hesays, sweetly. When, during dinner, a man walks in playing bagpipes,Beckham films the whole performance on his phone. Which, givenhow much he’s done and seen in his life (and that he could affordbagpipers playing on demand daily if he wanted), makes him seemcharmingly unjaded. “I love the bagpipes,” he says, “they make mereally emotional. They make me think of my grandad.”At the end of the table Jimmy Choo is dancing. “Howmany taps can

Michael Flatley do in a second?” Beckham asks. Then tells us: “Thirty-five! Brooklyn went to see his show, and he told him. He said that eventhough it says 30 in the Guinness Book of Records, it’s wrong.”At midnight David thanks the chefs and us “for a lovely night”,

like he means it. Then he leans in and kisses me on both cheeks.And he’s gone, through the door and out into a wall of photographers’flashbulbs. And the straight man beside me whispers: “I wish hehad kissed me as well.”❖

B E C K SHE HAS TH I S

MANNE R THAT N EWC E L E B R I T I E S F I NDIM POSS I B L E TO

A F F EC T — H E S E EM STOTA L LY O P EN

W I THOUT TE L L I NGYOU ANY TH I NG

Top: t he g lobal launch ofBeckham’s Haig Clubwhisky at Gi lmer t on House,Edinburgh. Lef t : Posh andBeck s celebrat e . Right :Vict or ia wit h Jimmy Choo

DIAGEO