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Sam
Branson, musician, explorer and environmentalist
News
Article
A
Night Out With | Sam Branson - Polar Opposites,
by Ralph Gardner Jr.s - 16th March 2008
(Credit:
The New York Times)
SAM
BRANSON, the 22-year-old musician, sometime male
model, friend of Princes William and Harry and
son of the Virgin Group billionaire Richard Branson,
was on familiar turf: ordering Kobe beef tartare
at Ono, an elegant Japanese restaurant in the
meatpacking district.
That
is where his responsibilities ended. Mr. Branson’s
dinner companions, Will Steger, the polar explorer,
and Sigrid Ekran, the rookie of the year at the
2007 Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race in Alaska, took
over from there.
At
the end of the month, Mr. Steger, 63, will lead
a team of 20-somethings, including Mr. Branson
and Ms. Ekran, on a 60-day, 1,400-mile dog-sled
expedition across the Canadian Arctic as they
rally their peers to the perils of global warming.
On a balmy day, the temperature rises to zero
degrees Fahrenheit.
“It’s
like the Ice Age,” Mr. Steger said. “Very
quiet, very peaceful.” (Except when polar
bears are kept at bay with explosive charges.)
This
will be Mr. Branson’s second trip to the
Arctic with Mr. Steger. Last year he did a somewhat
less strenuous journey, and his father tagged
along for a few days.
“It
was quite funny teaching him how to take your
mukluks off and not bring snow into the tent,”
Mr. Branson said. “Which I had to tell him
about 10 times.”
Despite
the family attraction to extreme sports, Mr. Branson
saw himself as less inclined to risk, or at least
slightly saner, than his swashbuckling dad.
“I
don’t think I’d travel around the
world in a balloon,” he said, alluding to
his father’s feats of daring. “Flying
out of control in the jet stream is not really
up my street.”
Mr.
Branson’s life couldn’t be more different
from that of his dinner companions. Mr. Steger
and Ms. Ekran both live in the woods in cabins
without electricity — Mr. Steger in northern
Minnesota, Ms. Ekran in the Yukon — while
Mr. Branson divides his time among London, New
York, Los Angeles and Necker Island, his family’s
private island in the Caribbean, whose name he
has tattooed in Sanskrit on his forearm.
In
fact, the 27-year-old Ms. Ekran, who finished
24th last week in the Iditarod, had never visited
New York, tasted sushi or even been through a
revolving door until that morning.
“It’s
like I’m from the Stone Age,” she
said sheepishly, trying to wield her chopsticks,
also for the first time.
Mr.
Steger bowed out after dinner, having just returned
from a global warming conference in Norway. (He
still plans to run the expedition, literally,
rather than walk or ride — more than 20
miles a day.)
Mr.
Branson and Ms. Ekran continued on to the Rose
Bar at the Gramercy Park Hotel for a round of
pool and a rendezvous with Jamie Burke, the lead
singer of the band Bloody Social and a childhood
friend of Mr. Branson’s.
“I’m
very proud of him,” Mr. Burke said. “He’ll
trek the Arctic, no worry.”
Mr.
Burke expressed a desire to tag along to the Arctic,
but Mr. Branson would prefer that he be available
to celebrate when he returns.
“I
can envision some of the struggles I’m going
to go through,” Mr. Branson said. “I
can’t imagine some of my friends doing that.
I think fitness might be a problem for half of
them.”
Imbruglia
linked to Richard Branson's son - 13th March 2008
(Credit:
News.com.au)
Australian
pop star Natalie Imbruglia appears to have found
a new man - billionaire businessman Richard Branson's
23-year-old son Sam.
Imbruglia,
who split from her rock star husband Daniel Johns
in January after four years of marriage, has reportedly
been cosying up to Sam in London.
The
33-year-old Torn singer was one of the guests
at a £100,000 ($A216,000) ski-themed party
to celebrate Sam's planned Arctic expedition.
"They
are pretty besotted with each other and Nat is
even talking about meeting him in the Arctic,"
one partygoer told the Daily Mirror newspaper.
Imbruglia
and Johns announced in January they planned to
divorce, citing distance and career demands.
HELLO!
magazine
Sam
Branson has clearly inherited the charm of his
Virgin boss father, Richard Although the cheeky
grin and taste for flamboyant living clearly owe
something to his genes, Richard Branson's son
Sam is forging a style all his own. Having conquered
the catwalk modelling for the likes of London
style meister Ozwald Boateng, the tow-haired cutie
has now set his sights on a career in music.
When
Sam's not honing his craft, he can be found chilling
in one of the family's various homes. There's
the plush London pad, a 15th-century cottage in
Oxfordshire, and Necker Island, a paradise retreat
in the Caribbean, where the 21-year-old helps
entertain guests such as Kate Moss and Mariah
Carey. (Credit:
HELLO! magazine).
Profiles
Ellesmere
Island Expedition
Virgin
Enterprises Limited
Richard
Branson
Natalie
Imbruglia
Environmentalists
and the environment
Books
Arctic
Diary
Interviews
Sam
Branson
Websites
Kiss
Radio - Kiss The Planet
Global
Warming 101
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