Spectator Life

Spectator Life

An intelligent mix of culture, style, travel, food and property, as well as where to go and what to see.

After Lupin: 8 French dramas to watch this weekend

Netflix’s reimagining of the Arsene Lupin franchise has been quite the success, with an estimated 70 million households streaming the series last month. But with some months to go until the next batch of episodes, Francophiles will need something to tide them over. Here are our suggestions: Le Bureau https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTkMm5DtZEU " France’s rather brooding answer to Spooks follows an elite unit within the country’s intelligence services charged with managing complex undercover missions in unfriendly territories.

What’s Bill Gates’ beef with flatulent cows?

'Fart for freedom, fart for liberty – and fart proudly', was how Benjamin Franklin put it shortly after founding the United States. It’s an injunction the cows of the developed world appear to have taken seriously: a strategy for liberation, executed brilliantly you have to say, that seems finally to have brought them to the brink of emancipation. Last week, billionaire and long-time committed burger eater Bill Gates became the latest champion of the cows’ cause (namely: please stop eating us). He said the time had come for inhabitants of all wealthy nations to cease enjoying beef and instead to make do with a synthetic substitute. According to him, it’s the only way to prevent civilisation ending in a cow-fart fireball apocalypse. Or something like that.

MC Hammer is philosophy’s new champion

Philosophy has a new champion. MC Hammer, hip hop artist and record producer, known for songs like 'Can’t Touch This', used Twitter to respond to someone who dismissed philosophy as mere 'flirtation with ideas', and who claimed that science alone is 'commitment to the truth'. Hammer hammered him. 'You bore us', he said, pointing out that science has a dubious history, and needs philosophy to keep it in check, adding the wise words: 'When you measure, include the measurer.'  In fact, this will come as little surprise to his regular followers. His Twitter platform is rife with intellectually stimulating debate, and it’s a not a matter of a few pretentious fans wondering whether ‘Can’t Touch This’ refers to the question of immaterial transcendence.

The problem with renaming London’s streets

In Taksim Square, the busy central hub of Istanbul, a large, viril monument stands. In the centre is Mustafa Kemal Attaturk, the father of modern Turkey (although, perhaps not the contemporary one). When Attaturk came into power, he immediately set about changing the country from Empire to Nation. This meant progressive Western values, the alphabet; a dismissal, in some cases, a blanketing of the culture and customs before it. Almost by accident, this sparked a nostalgia for the Empire that is potent in today’s Turkey. In the hotel nearby, the Kurdish receptionist gets to work. 'Did you see the monument?' he says to me bleakly.

Assassins on screen: from Phoebe Waller-Bridge to Samuel L. Jackson

After Killing Eve, Phoebe Waller-Bridge goes back again to the contract killer well with her upcoming TV re-boot of the 2005 Brad Pitt/Angelina actioner Mr & Mrs Smith. Waller-Bridge will write and co-star with Atlanta’s Donald Glover, who also featured with her in the underwhelming Star Wars prequel Solo (2018). Could this be third time lucky for a TV take on the uxorious assassins? We’ve already had a 1996 series that predated the movie (starring Scott Bakula and Maria Bello) and a 2007 show that never went beyond Doug Liman’s (who also directed the 2005 picture) pilot movie – with Martin Henderson and Jordana Brewster as the titular couple.

British comedy needs a new Brass Eye

Britain has always prided itself on the rich diversity of its comedy output, from trouser splitting farce to cerebral satire but our genius for tickling the world's funny bone has reached a crisis point - something has gone terribly awry. A new report on the BBC's TV output from regulator Ofcom has classed comedy as an 'at risk' genre.  Over the last decade, the amount of original comedy on BBC channels has dropped by more than 40 per cent. This is partly to do with the cost and risk factors involved in making such a subjective art form but the problem runs deeper than mere economics. Comedy has hit a brick wall, and I don’t mean in a comedic way.  Producers, writers and performers appear to be all out of ideas especially when it comes to creating daring satire.

Books that take you abroad

With foreign holidays off the cards for some time to come, armchair travel has never been more tempting. Here are some of the best books to take you beyond your living room. The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim Four women answer an advertisement in The Times, ‘To those who appreciate wisteria and sunshine. Small medieval Italian Castle on the shores of the Mediterranean to be let furnished for the month of April.’ What follows is a delightful holiday in picturesque scenery as the women escape the monotony of everyday life. Don’t deny yourself the opportunity to share their views of ‘the Judas tree and an umbrella pine […] the freesias and the lilies,’ and vistas ‘across the tranquil clear green water of the little harbour.

Do we really want lockdown to end?

Despite it being highly unfashionable to change your opinion, my lockdown stance has shown agility. For most of last year I was a ‘lockdown sceptic’. Not quite retweeting Piers Corbyn’s views on 5G, but equally not thrilled about spending every morning doing star jumps with Joe Wicks. I suspected lockdowns may ruin our children’s future forever, but was keen to not to be called a granny murderer. However, there was something about the words ‘deadly new strain’ which had an effect on me. Say what you want about epidemiologists, they know how to scare people. So I settled into being what I’d call a Covid ‘Centrist Dad’.

Can Sir Tim Berners-Lee save our privacy?

‘Every move you make, every bond you break, every step you take, I’ll be watching you.’ – a 'nasty little song', as Sting himself called it, about a romance turned creepy, but also a grim if fitting description of what most of us know by now: that our lives, including our moods and movements, spending habits, fitness and fears are almost continually tracked, recorded, and analysed. Our data is scraped for profit and, often, for hidden purposes. Privacy is undoubtedly under heavy attack today. There is increasing unease about this state of affairs. Governments and regulators on both sides of the Atlantic, are trying to rein in the power of Big Tech.

10 literary teachers who are worse than you

When my early efforts at homeschooling faltered amidst bitter recriminations and shouts of 'You are literally the worst teacher in the world!' (from a six year-old), my husband stepped up. Rubbing his hands, he declared, 'This is going to be just like Dead Poets Society'. Yet cries of 'O Captain! My Captain!' were not forthcoming. Within five minutes came the sound of doors slamming and roars of 'Will you SIT DOWN and SHUT UP!' We aren’t meant to teach our own children and attempting anything alongside that other business of trying to earn a living is farcical. But however badly you’re faring, one look at this lot should reassure that you’re doing just fine.

On this day: what do Gordon Brown and Jack Straw have in common?

Every weekend Spectator Life brings you doses of topical trivia – facts, figures and anecdotes inspired by the current week’s dates in history. 20 February Gordon Brown (born 1951). Brown is blind in his left eye. Jack Straw is deaf in his right ear. When Brown was Prime Minister, Straw (the Lord Chancellor) sat to his left in Cabinet, meaning their awareness of each other was severely limited. Many said this was appropriate, given their strained relationship. Image: Getty 21 February Drew Barrymore (born 1975). When the actress (then six) was filming E.T., she found it impossible to look the puppet in both eyes at once, as they were so far apart. So director Steven Spielberg told her to concentrate on just one eye.

What to watch on Netflix this spring

With lockdown looking set to continue for weeks on end, more of us have become resigned to more time indoors - reluctantly or otherwise. Thankfully Netflix, as ever, is ready for the occasion, with a slew of new releases scheduled over the next two months. Here's our guide to what's coming up: Sky Rojo, 19 March https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eD0i_1BWhYM " As tens of millions of addicts await the final instalment of his smash hit Money Heist (expected to land on Netflix later this year), Spaniard Alex Pina bridges the gap with the inaugural series of his latest show - a mile-a-minute glitzy thriller about three escaped prostitutes taking on pimps, patriarchy and everything in between.

The perils of the royal interview

Imagine, if you will, that there existed a television interview with Henry VIII. Sprawled in one of his Royal palaces with the interviewer nervously perched amongst the discarded chicken bones and giant dogs, what would he say? Would he be repentant about the beheadings, the adultery, the abject violence? Would he make us believe that his quest for an heir lay rooted in a deep and fervent respect for his bloodline? Definitely not. For the Tudors were monarchy proper; mysterious and shadowy, sheathed in transcendence. Monarchy before the mystery was replaced by the dull sheen of celebrity and its Instagram accounts, television interviews, zoom appearances and podcasts.

Bumble’s ‘feminism’ is half-baked

In 1965, a trio of Harvard undergraduates launched Operation Match, a computer dating service for horny undergraduates at New England’s single-sex colleges. A journalist for Look Magazine came to cover the sensation. ‘Call it dating, call it mating, it flashed out of the minds of …Harvard undergraduates who plotted Operation Match, the dig-it dating system that ties up college couples with magnetic tape,’ he wrote. Dig-it, it may have been, but Operation Match didn’t last out the decade. Dateline, Britain’s premier computer dating service, was soon launched using the same technology, feeding customer questionnaires into a large mainframe computer which would spit out half a dozen matches for a fee.

Why alpha males don’t wear ties

Claire Robinson, in (where else?) The Guardian, this week, announced that 'the phallic necktie is an outdated symbol of white male rule in New Zealand's parliament': 'The necktie echoes the shape of the codpiece… designed … to emphasise a European nobleman’s importance through his large phallic size. It is arrow shaped and directs the eye of an onlooker down towards a man’s groin.' Blimey. Newly elected Māori Party co-leader, Rawiri Waititi, meanwhile, refused to wear one in Parliament, referring to it as a 'colonial noose'.  Waititi carried the day. Ties are no longer obligatory law-maker apparel in the happy, Covid-free home of the Bungee Jump and Cloudy Bay. The kind of men who do like to assert alpha status no longer use ties.

Bryan Fogel on turning Jamal Khashoggi’s murder into a film

Bryan Fogel seems to have done it all. It’s hard to think of a showbiz figure with a more varied career. He began as a stand-up and moved to play-writing and then to directing movies. In 2013, he reinvented himself as the producer of hard-hitting documentaries that focus on international scandals and cover-ups. He talks to me via Zoom from Los Angeles about his latest movie, The Dissident. ‘I was seeking what my next film was going to be – something that spoke to human rights and freedom of expression. It checked all those boxes’. The subject is the death of Jamal Khashoggi, the dissident journalist who was murdered in the Saudi embassy in Istanbul in 2018. ‘He’d left his country to be able to speak freely.

The show must go on: theatre to look forward to this year

With the vaccine rollout underway, the theatre world is betting on a triumphant return in the spring - and this time for good. If, like me, you can't wait to get back to the West End, here are eight shows to book ahead for (whilst keeping your fingers firmly crossed for the vaccine rollout). Good Harold Pinter Theatre, 21 April - 17 July David Tennant stars in Good David Tennant returns to theatreland to take on the leading role in CP Taylor’s seminal play about a liberal-minded professor and dutiful husband who finds himself seduced by the rise of National Socialism in 1930s Germany.

Bezos vs Musk: who will win the new space race?

While the West gets itself into a lather on a weekly basis about the evils of past colonialism is anyone paying attention to the new empire builders in our midst? Although their ideas for space travel often read like the pages of an Arthur C Clark novel, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk have done little to disguise the colonising instincts of their space projects. Both have outlined competing intentions to mine the moon and put humans on Mars. And, with Bezos stepping down from Amazon to devote more time to his space venture Blue Origin, we could be witnessing the beginnings of a galactic power struggle - executed not by States but by corporations. Bezos and Musk are far from the only billionaires to follow this route.

The return of bad dubbing

Just a few minutes into watching the latest Netflix sensation Lupin — its biggest-ever French show — and I was giving some serious Gallic shrugs. It’s hugely popular: it has been no. 1 in the US and was the first French series to break into their top 10. Elsewhere, Lupin is vying for Bridgerton for the number one streaming spot. Inspired by Maurice Leblanc’s stories about the gentleman thief, Arsène Lupin, the show’s success has prompted fresh print runs of the books, first published in 1905. (Some had sold out on Amazon when I checked last week but have now been restocked.) But watching the show is a strangely dislocating and downright weird experience.

On this day: what was the Statue of Liberty’s original purpose?

Every weekend Spectator Life brings you doses of topical trivia – facts, figures and anecdotes inspired by the current week’s dates in history … 13 February Peter Gabriel (born 1950). The ex-Genesis singer called each of his first four solo albums ‘Peter Gabriel’. 14 February James Bond (died 1989). The ornithologist wrote the book Birds of the West Indies, a copy of which was owned by Ian Fleming, who stole the name for his most famous character: ‘I wanted the simplest, dullest, plainest-sounding name I could find, and “James Bond” was much better than something more interesting, like “Peregrine Carruthers”.’ Daniel Craig in Skyfall (Shutterstock) 15 February Clare Short (born 1946).

The death of binge-watching

On the face of it, Wikipedia’s list of the key events of 1 February, 2013 seems impressively comprehensive, ranging from Hillary Clinton’s resignation as Secretary of State to a hurling player denying he’d won €10.6 million in the Irish lottery. What’s missing, though, is something that’s surely had a bigger impact on our daily — and nightly — lives than any of Wikipedia’s choices. On that day Netflix released its first original series, House of Cards, the same way it had released its earlier bought-in repeats: by making all the episodes available at once. Now that we know how successful both the show and the format proved, it’s easy to forget how risky this was, especially for a $100 million production.

Valentine’s films: from the romantic to the surreal

The first Valentine’s Day under lockdown looks set to prove the truth of Shakespeare’s oft quoted proverb: 'the course of true love never did run smooth'. New love is nigh on impossible when couples are forbidden to meet, making technology the next best thing – in terms of communication, that is. An unusual Valentine's Day surely calls for an offbeat film choice. The oddball romance is an established staple in film. Here are some worth relishing on the 14th February: Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool (2017) - Amazon Prime & Amazon Prime Rent/Buy https://www.youtube.com/watch?

Why the Chelsea Flower Show shake-up is good news

Is it really such a bad thing that the Chelsea Flower Show has been postponed to the autumn because of Covid?  Yes, we'll be missing out on the blousy, frothiness of early summer gardens that we see every year - not so many umbellifers, alliums or delphiniums - and yes, the Floral Pavilion will be strange without the heady scent of roses from the David Austin and Peter Beales stands. But the show will benefit enormously from a shake-up that forces designers to stop using the plants listed above until it seems there is nothing else you could possibly grow in your garden.

Homer is a hard read – made easy with earbuds

Mention Homer now and most people will picture yellow, rather than bronze. But Homer Simpson’s comic status as a modern anti hero only makes sense with a knowledge, however vague, of the heroes in The Iliad and The Odyssey.  They underpin the last three thousand years of western culture. Achilles, Hector, Odysseus and Helen… these are the chess pieces that poets, painters and sculptors have been playing with ever since. Odysseus, the Trickster, is there at the dawn of classical literature – and then again, Romanised as Ulysses, at the dawn of Modernism. What a gift. Trust the Greeks. Still, there is a reason no-one reads them anymore – at least, not for fun.

Valentine’s Day reads: give anything but Normal People

So.. you want to avoid anything trite for Valentine’s Day. No heart shaped chocolates, no pink champagne…actually, no pink anything. No flowers unless they’ve been gathered from your actual garden, or someone else’s. So where does that leave the classy romantic? With books, that’s what.  Essentially, any choice that’s based on what you know someone actually likes is touching. So, if you want to please a detective story fancier, Dorothy L Sayer’s Busman’s Honeymoon, might hit the spot … bookmark the wedding night. There’s also a case for flattery…the poems of Catullus, say (and there are some racy ones), suggest you think the recipient is no dope. But make them work.

The Golden Globes: 8 of the best nominated films to watch

‘When it comes down to it, I'd rather have an action figure than a Golden Globe.' - Chadwick Boseman The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has delayed the annual Hollywood Press Association Awards by two months; for the first time the show will be a bi-coastal affair, broadcast from the usual venue of The Beverly Hills Hilton on the West Coast and from The Rainbow Room in New York City. In their fourth crack at the gig,  the Golden Globe hosts will be Tina Fey (East Coast) and Amy Poehler (West), taking over from Ricky Gervais, who took his fifth turn at presenting the awards last year, where his trademark snark was felt by some to be fast approaching its sell-by-date.

The Netflix generation has lost its grip on history

The first thing you notice about Bridgerton, Netflix’s big winter blockbuster set in Regency England, is how bad it is: an expensive assemblage of clichés that smacks of the American’s-eye view of Britain’s aristocratic past. The dialogue is execrable, the ladies’ pouts infuriating. But bad things can be good, especially when it comes to sexy period romps. Bridgerton is no different. The story follows the elder children of the Bridgerton family as they look for love in a utopian sprawl of courtly landscape and sociality.

Can Clubhouse compete with Twitter?

Everyone wants to be an influencer. Even for hobbyists like me there's a strangely addictive quality to the upward crawl of the follower count on the three big beasts: Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Now, influencers have their eye on a fourth.  Clubhouse is a new, invite-only social network beloved by the likes of Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. The format is similar to an old-school chat room, but all the rooms are packed full of ‘influencers’ (mostly small-time) where you can listen to and comment on each other's audio files. Packed full of love-heart ❤️ and thanks 🙏 emojis, it’s definitely a nice place to hang out. Expect to hear the word ‘community’ a lot, and much talk of ‘kindness’.

Why feminists should watch serial killer dramas

I connect to Netflix for yet another evening of no-choice entertainment. Well, I suppose I could take a turn around the room, mulling over the local gossip before playing a few notes on a musical instrument. But wait, there is NO gossip under this relentless lockdown, and I don’t have a musical instrument. So, as someone who is proud of my prolific TV habit I scroll through the crime section, and can’t help but notice the saturation of serial killer themed documentaries and dramas on offer. Night Stalker, Serial Killer with Piers Morgan, Confessions of a Serial Killer, Inside the Criminal mind, Mrs Serial Killer, Psychopath, Mindhunter, Evil Genius, Killer Women.