Alexander Larman is an author and books editor of Spectator World, our US-based edition
For the first King’s speech since 1951, the King might have been forgiven for striking a downbeat note in his inaugural address to the nation. After all, this year has seen the death of his mother, his continuing estrangement from his publicity-hungry younger son, and, for good measure, the fulfilment of his long-held desire to
It ended, as many things do these days, with a poll. Apparently on a whim, Elon Musk, while attending the World Cup final in Qatar on 18 December, tweeted: ‘Should I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll.’ Seventeen-and-a-half million people voted, and nearly sixty per cent
Not for the first time, it was Jeremy Clarkson’s fault. The weekend news, which began with a forensic dissection of the fallout from the six unrelenting hours of the Netflix series Harry and Meghan, was soon dominated by Clarkson’s extraordinary column in the Sun, in which he wrote of the Duchess of Sussex: ‘I hate
When you’re sitting on the sofa in the week ahead, stupefied into submission by food and alcohol and relatives and God knows what else, you’ll be tempted to watch something that will divert you from the gluttony. And, yes, the likes of Elf, It’s A Wonderful Life and Love Actually are all available, as they were last year. But
At the end of the sixth episode of the interminable, grotesquely self-indulgent wallow in self-pity and score-settling that constitutes Netflix’s Harry and Meghan, a single thought dominates: we’ve been had. After all the months of hype and expectation, building up to a frenzy over the past few weeks – with every trailer for the show
The first part of the Harry and Meghan show on Netflix was something of a let down. Over three tedious hours, there was a lot of sentiment and half-veiled digs at the Royal Family, as well as some philosophising about racism and Brexit, but millions of viewers got to the end of the third hour
The opening scenes of the eagerly anticipated – or keenly dreaded – Netflix series Harry & Meghan set out the couple’s stall. ‘This is a first-hand account of Harry & Meghan’s story, and told with never before seen personal archive… all interviews were completed by August 2022.’ This hint – that nothing was affected by
This week, in homes across the land, there is one guarantee: somewhere, someone will be watching one of the Indiana Jones films, and it’ll likely be the first or the third in the series. Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade are little less than perfect seasonal comfort food: witty, exciting, stuffed full of indelible
When the incendiary story about Lady Susan Hussey’s ill-judged remarks broke this week, a detail that many were quick to spot was that Lady Hussey had been the person responsible for giving the Duchess of Sussex ‘protocol lessons’ when she first became part of the Royal Family. Defenders of Meghan Markle (who do exist, if
‘Why did you want to make this documentary?’ That is the question – over portentous piano chords – that begins the trailer for the next instalment in the apparently endless Sussex saga, Harry and Meghan. The answers that the viewer might supply: publicity-seeking on a grand scale; unbelievable narcissism– are not uttered. Instead, over stylised
It’s a story that sounds as if it could have come from half a century ago, rather than today. Ngozi Fulani, the head of the London-based domestic and sexual abuse charity Sistah Space, was at Buckingham Palace yesterday for a reception hosted by the Queen Consort, with the stated aim of stamping out ‘a global
King Charles has announced, to mark his 74th birthday, that he will be asking Parliament to amend the Regency Act to increase the number of counsellors of state who can conduct official public business while the monarch is overseas or otherwise indisposed. He has asked that it now include his sister, Princess Anne, the Princess
Novels about art are often strange, vain affairs. After all, writing about artists, especially fictional ones, can seem like a strained exercise in trying to yoke together two irreconcilable mediums. It is to Anthony Quinn’s credit that his ninth novel, Molly & the Captain, not only succeeds admirably as a centuries-spanning account of the influence
The title of Prince Harry’s long-awaited memoir will be enough to make the royal family nervous. Spare, which was originally due out this year, will be released in January. ‘His Words. His Story,’ the tag-line of the book promises. The Queen’s death this year – and the coming together of the Royals in their shared
After Just Stop Oil’s recent attack on Van Gogh’s Sunflowers at the National Gallery, the group has become emboldened by the international publicity their actions have earned. This is clearly the explanation for today’s field trip to Madame Tussauds where, after buying tickets like good little anti-capitalists, two of its activists covered a waxwork model of
The fifth series of Netflix’s The Crown will soon be upon us. Scripted, as ever, by Peter Morgan, the show will cover the travails of the royal family throughout the 1990s, spanning everything from the then Prince Charles and Princess Diana’s marital difficulties and eventual divorce to the rumours of Prince Philip conducting an affair with a
The fifth series of Netflix’s The Crown will soon be upon us. Scripted, as ever, by Peter Morgan, the show will cover the travails of the royal family throughout the 1990s, spanning everything from the then Prince Charles and Princess Diana’s marital difficulties and eventual divorce to the rumours of Prince Philip conducting an affair with a
After 9/11, American comedians found themselves in a tricky situation. Make fun of any of the usual standbys of their trade – politicians, authority figures, Rudy Giuliani, anyone who wore a badge for a living – and they were liable to be shouted down in an angry chorus of: ‘Too soon!’ Yet if all the
Since the Queen’s death last month, the Duchess of Sussex has found it hard to maintain her usual vice-like grip on the world media’s attention. Rumours have swirled that relations between her and Prince Harry and the now-Prince and Princess of Wales are yet to improve — despite the surface show of amiability that was
P.G. Wodehouse once wrote that ‘it is never difficult to distinguish between a Scotsman with a grievance and a ray of sunshine.’ Much the same might be said of Prince Harry, whose ability to bear grudges – and to make it clear, publicly, why he is doing so – has been displayed with remarkable consistency
