Spectator Life

What better way to get shoppers back into London's West End than by, er, building a large hill in the middle of it? That's the latest plan from Westminster City Council, who hope that the Marble Arch Hill will lure people back to the area with the promise of stunning views around the city from its 25 metre high summit. The mound, designed by an architectural firm MVRDV, will boast a winding path with trees and plants, along with a hollow centre for exhibitions. It will tower over Marble Arch, and visitors could be charged a small fee for scaling its heights by Westminster City Council. The BID's chief executive Kay Buxton describes the hill as a 'clarion call to the recovery of London's hospitality and leisure sector, in an enduring, world-renowned destination'.

As the nation waits with bated breath for Sunday's broadcast of Oprah Winfrey’s already notorious interview with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, here's a smorgasbord of royalty in the movies, both real and fictional. With the success of Netflix’s, The Crown at the Golden Globes (granted a semi-seal of approval from Prince Harry) and the threat of yet another biopic of his mother (this time starring Kristen Stewart), the appetite for on screen depiction of ‘The Firm’ shows no sign of lessening.

It is the third day of Women’s History Month, and instead of talking about a range of female accomplishments and achievements; everyone is instead, once again, talking about Taylor Swift. Swift tweeted yesterday, criticising the Netflix series Ginny and Georgia for its 'lazy, deeply sexist joke' which apparently is 'degrading hard working women.' The joke comes from the series’ finale, when 15 year old Ginny argues with her 30 year old mother and cries, 'What do you care, you go through men faster than Taylor Swift!' A lazy joke? Yes. A deeply sexist one? I’m not so sure. After a decade of mass tabloid coverage of her relationships, it’s understandable that Swift might be tired of her love life being a punchline.

While we weren't looking, the countries we used to patronise for their charming but niche 'World Cinema', started making movies often classier, more interesting and definitely less woke than we do in the English-speaking world. Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than in South Korea.South Korean directors have mastered the horror genre, with classics such as Train to Busan (featuring the modern ‘fast zombies’ on steroids) and nail-biting The Wailing. And thanks to Bong Joon-Ho, they've cracked the commercial mainstream, too. Cinephiles have known he was great for sometime. But in the West, until Parasite won a triple crown of Best Picture, Director, and Original Screenplay in 2019, Bong was certainly no household name.

MeToo may have fundamentally shifted the way men and women interact, but that hasn’t stopped a musty, old turn of the century relationship manual from making a surprise comeback. In Sherry Argov's 2001 bestseller Why Men Love Bitches, the journalist offers tips on how to bag a man. Her principal premise is a surprising one: that women should hold off having sex. And a new generation seem to be heeding her advice: the book has been a favourite subject of Gen Z TikTok videos as well as making a reappearance on the Sunday Times bestseller list. Argov's book emerged out of the barely recognisable age before online dating, slut shaming and revenge porn.

'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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.