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Friday

Alexander Larman

James Bond should be more like Paddington Bear

Denis Villeneuve, the Oscar-nominated director of such blockbuster behemoths as Dune and Blade Runner 2049, has been hired to reboot the James Bond franchise. Villeneuve is a hugely capable director, somewhat in the Christopher Nolan school of blending epic set-pieces with an intellectual and emotional core. As the first auteur to be hired to direct a Bond film – a gig he has made clear he’d like for the last decade – he promises to bring a unique sensibility to it that will, hopefully, ensure that critics and audiences alike go doolally when it’s released sometime around 2027. I will not be one of them. Much as I admire Villeneuve,

Wednesday

Flora Watkins

No, I’m not going to bloody Glasto

‘Are you going to Glasto?’ Just the name – in that smug, shortened form – is enough to set my left eyelid twitching, the way it does when I read emails from people who still include pronouns in their signature. ‘Glasto’, trailing the self-satisfied whiff of BBC executives high-tailing it from Hampstead on a taxpayer-funded jolly, of hedgies glamping in a five-grand-a-night yurt and the sort of inherited wealth that means you crash in a mate’s eight-bedroom Old Rectory within the free ticket zone, rather than camping cheek-by-unwashed-jowl with the masses. No, I am not going to Glastonbury. The last time I went – and I can tell you the

Zak Asgard

The chat show is dead

I’ve been having this recurring nightmare recently that involves James Corden. The year is 2045. Society has collapsed and London is under quarantine. There is no transport in the city, so survivors get around on foot – though, for some inexplicable reason, TfL workers are still on strike. I live in a bin and survive on a diet of eggshells and cold Rustlers burgers. In my nightmare, I am abducted by a gang of Mad Max-inspired bandits who take me to the Asda Superstore in Clapham Junction and torture me for information. My constitution is strong. I refuse to tell them where I’ve hidden my scarce supply of mango-flavoured vapes.

Ed Shaw

What we’ve forgotten about intimacy

Last year one of the big oil companies informed its employees that they had to disclose any ‘intimate relationships’ with colleagues. I remain grateful that my employer has not yet asked me to do the same, because I’m not sure I could survive the embarrassment that would ensue. I don’t just enjoy ‘intimate relationships’ with numerous male and female colleagues but would also need to confess that I enjoy intimacy with multiple other people outside of work. The fact that my life is beginning to sound like a tale of sexual perversion illustrates the point that intimate relationships are nearly always understood to be sexual ones. Intimacy is a concept,

Tuesday

Kit Delamain

Did becoming a chef make me a bad person?

I have been in charge of a pizzeria in St John’s Wood for less than a year and already I feel misanthropy taking hold. Most notably, a complete disdain for the general public; I used to think I hated them, but now I can confirm that I definitely, really, hate them. Service is the heart of the hospitality industry, but there’s a certain kind of person who mistakes the waiters and chefs for a cadre of private staff. I used to moan, but now I just numbly get on with putting ketchup in a ramekin for them to have with their sweetcorned pizza. They win – they always win. Then