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A few weeks ago, a friend asked if I had watched the Newsnight interview with Prince Andrew. That interview, yes — the one with all the sweating and the pizza in Woking, in which he definitely didn’t meet Virginia Roberts Giuffre but he did single-handedly crash his reputation, and Emily Maitlis, like the Medusa of journalism she has since become, just let him tie his own noose. Of course I’ve watched it. I’m a journalist. And a twenty-first-century citizen. Who hasn’t? My friend, for one, though she pointed out that she can just watch the three-part Amazon dramatization of the whole affair, A Very Royal Scandal, which is even juicier than the interview. (“I’m the son of the sovereign,” bellows the Duke of York, played by a soapy Michael Sheen.

What was neoliberalism? In its most recent iteration, we think of the market seeping into every minute corner of human existence. We think of privatisation, off-shoring and the parcelling out of services to the highest bidder. Neoliberalism takes the proud liberal individual – in pursuit of his or her happiness, rather keen on freedom – and shreds them through a mean-spirited calculator to come up with some sort of shrunken market midget, an efficient risk-evaluating robot. Neoliberalism takes the proud individual and shreds him or her through a mean-spirited calculator Yet even though the market is supposed to be the arbiter of everything, repeated state intervention appears to be necessary to sustain this otherwise perfect economic vision.

On the 100th birthday of Federico Fellini, Martin Scorsese reflected on his love of the iconic Italian filmmaker in a cover essay he wrote for Harper's magazine. The essay begins by pushing back against a particular excess of the modern film industry, which is “content.” Following his criticism of the predominant Marvel Cinematic Universe as “theme park movies,” Scorsese aims at streaming services for relying on automated algorithms to determine what viewers want to watch. He then praises platforms that emphasize more curation. One of them is the Criterion Channel, a service that is part of the Criterion Collection, a physical media boutique that specializes in the restoration of classic and contemporary cinema.

“Ours was no chance meeting. Not fate, nor destiny,” Galadriel says. “Nor any other words Men use to speak of the forces they lack the conviction to name.” The line is a bit pompous, but then so is the hotheaded elven warrior (Morfydd Clark) who speaks it in Amazon’s Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. Pomposity aside, Galadriel’s words reveal why the work of J.R.R. Tolkien is unique in a crowd of fantasy competitors. Anyone can give us elves and dragons and wizards. But few can match the anguished, longing note of hidden Providence in Tolkien’s Middle-earth. The Rings of Power has not yet achieved such depths of feeling — perhaps it will not be capable of doing so — but it has shown prudence in its stewardship of the story’s heart, which is encouraging.

Amazon’s much-heralded Tolkien prequel The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power began by answering a question that has puzzled humankind — and possibly elves — these many millennia. Why is it that a ship floats and a stone doesn’t? The reason apparently is because "a stone sees only downward," whereas a ship has "her gaze fixed upon the light that guides her." And this, I’m afraid, set the tone for much of the dialogue that followed in the two episodes released so far — as, to their credit, the characters managed to exchange an endless series of ponderous aphorisms without giggling.

I receive a lot of books in the mail. Perhaps you do, too. Some of these I order. Most come from publishers or authors hoping for a review. A few are gifts. I prefer to buy books at used bookstores. You never know what they might have on hand, and there’s nothing better than discovering a gem of a book by a writer you’ve never heard of. Plus, the price is always right. Independent bookstores are great, too. I’m no snob. I bought a book just the other day at the gamified Barnes and Noble in town — the atrociously overrated Call Us What We Carry by Amanda Gorman, who read at Joe Biden’s inauguration (more on that at some point, perhaps). But I prefer independent bookstores because, like at used bookstores, there’s an element of surprise in the store’s stock.