Alexander Larman

Alexander Larman is an author and the US books editor of The Spectator.

Yesterday

Alexander Larman

What do changing emoji trends tell us about society?  

When did you, Spectator readers, last send an emoji in a text, DM or, gasp, email? I’ve just looked through the last messages I’ve sent and I sent a weeping smiley face to my wife last night while we were discussing Colin Firth’s singing in the film of Mamma Mia! (To be honest, anyone who has suffered through Firth murdering “My Last Summer” might use considerably stronger emojis than that.) Yet as a 44-year-old man, I can also concede that my own usage of emojis in my written communications is not as prevalent as that as my 10-year-old daughter Rose, who is an ardent user of them whenever she gets hold of my or her mother’s telephone.

emoji emojis

Tuesday

Alexander Larman

A heady cocktail of coquetry and extortion: The Millionaire Waltz, by Anthony Quinn, reviewed

From our UK edition

Anthony Quinn’s deliciously dark, theatrical-set murder mystery Curtain Call announced the former film critic as a popular novelist of the first rank after his earlier books failed to receive the appreciation they deserved. Since then he has published seven books, wildly varying in style and settings, but featuring a core cast of characters. Memorable among them is the James Agate-inspired figure of the portly, bibulous, louche theatre critic Jimmy Erskine – surely one of the great literary creations of modern times. Erskine reappears in The Millionaire Waltz and is given many bon mots, but he is not the protagonist here.

Friday

Alexander Larman

Amanda Knox should not do comedy

I am a great believer that there should be no unbroachable topic in comedy, as long as the person broaching it does so in a funny enough fashion. This, however, does not mean that this person should always be entitled to do so. Had Jimmy Savile launched into a new stand-up career eulogising the joys of paedophilia and necrophilia, I am not sure that he would have been playing to enthusiastic audiences, no matter how good the jokes, and while Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor proved to be inadvertently hilarious while discussing everything from Pizza Express to sweating on Newsnight, I am not sure he would be cheered to the rafters at an open-mic night at his local Jongleurs.

Tuesday

Alexander Larman

The wicked exploitation of Ariana Grande

By rights, the 33-year-old singer-songwriter and actress Ariana Grande should be at the peak of her profession. She won acclaim for her performances in the Wicked films – the first one of which she was Oscar-nominated for – and has consistently released successful albums, including last week’s new record petal. Under normal circumstances she would be looking forward to continuing her world tour, Eternal Sunshine. And next year, she was slated to make her London stage debut opposite her Wicked co-star Jonathan Bailey in Stephen Sondheim’s Sunday In The Park With George. There is, however, one rather significant issue with this, which has been discussed in the media with a mixture of prurience and genuine concern.

ariana grande petal

Monday

Alexander Larman

The agony of the villa holiday

From our UK edition

There are those Spectator readers who are fortunate enough to own their own luxurious villas in some suitably picturesque European locale. For the rather less well-heeled remainder of us, the closest that we are going to get to these places is either putting hand in pocket and hiring an Airbnb or, if we are extremely fortunate, being invited to stay with our affluent chums. On paper, at least, it’s a mutually beneficent arrangement. The villa-owners get to be entertained (and entertaining), offering their largesse in exchange for suitable gratitude. Their guests, meanwhile, get a free holiday somewhere wonderful, away from cares and responsibilities, and spending time with dear friends into the bargain. What could possibly go wrong?

Friday

Alexander Larman

Is this the end of Argos?

From our UK edition

It seems incredible, in the year of our lord 2026, that Argos still exists. And no, I don’t mean Odysseus’ dog; I mean the chain of catalogue-based stores that throng our high streets, although in considerably smaller quantities than they once did. The comedian Bill Bailey aptly referred to their ‘laminated book of dreams’, the huge, printed catalogues that used to be displayed in their stores. Every shopper of a certain age will remember the tortuous process of having to find the item they wanted in the catalogue, filling in a form with a little blue pen, paying for their purchase, and then waiting to collect it after being given a number.

Monday

Alexander Larman

There’s only one reason Meghan went on MasterChef Australia

Picture the scene. You have bravely battled onto the set of MasterChef Australia, hoping that your strawberry pavlova or similar hero dish is going to be the one that sends the judges into gasps of culinary ecstasy. Then the producers and host smile conspiratorially at you and reveal that the stakes (as opposed to steaks) have been raised. There will be a guest judge, they tell you, a figure who is 'a global icon, a philanthropist, a humanitarian, a woman known around the world for her heart, her voice and her deep love for home cooking'. You draw a deep breath. Who on earth is this multi-faceted hyphenate, you wonder, an all-in-one combination of saint, queen and legend?

Saturday

Alexander Larman

The greatness of Sam Neill

The recent death of the actor Sam Neill, at the age of 78, was greeted with a mixture of surprise, sorrow and, in many quarters, unexpected grief. It is likely that Neill would have regarded the lavish tributes paid to him by actors, filmmakers and politicians with a mixture of embarrassment and quiet pride, because although he was a brilliantly versatile actor who managed to make a deep impression in virtually every role that he undertook over his five-decade-long career, he was also someone instinctively uncomfortable with the limelight.

sam neill

Thursday

Alexander Larman

Did James Patterson and MrBeast really write their book?

For Spectator readers not familiar with the cultural figure known as MrBeast, his real name is Jimmy Donaldson and he is best known for taking over YouTube and making himself a multi-millionaire in the process. And now his work can be discovered in a literary, rather than streaming, sphere. It has been announced that MrBeast will be collaborating with the bestselling thriller writer James Patterson to publish a novel entitled The Most Dangerous Games in September. It does not, in truth, sound like the stuff of high literature, or even particularly distinguished page-turning trash. The plot synopsis suggests that “In a world on the brink of collapse, one hundred players face off in a ruthless, high‑stakes competition with everything on the line. The reward?

MrBeast

Wednesday

Alexander Larman

Are the British the most evil people in history?

If you have not spent a great deal of time on the internet, you will probably know the British actress Jameela Jamil for her starring role in the popular comedy series The Good Place, or alternatively from her appearance in the Marvel miniseries She Hulk: Attorney at Law.  However, for the terminally online, Jamil is either a savior who is unafraid to say controversial things that her peers would shy away from, or someone whose batshit crazy utterances are given far too much attention given her modest celebrity status.  The latest of her pronouncements is on Brexit, ten years on, along with sundry instances of racism and horror in her home country. Jamil declared that “Britain is fucked. It doesn’t feel as though I’m going back to some haven.

Monday

Alexander Larman

Will Burnham and the King get on?

From our UK edition

Now that Britain’s latest prime minister has gone through the ritual of ‘kissing hands’ with the monarch – these days, a small bow tends to be the preferred option instead – there will be a great deal of whispering in Buckingham Palace as to what the relationship between the King and his latest first minister is going to be like. The first photograph of the two shaking hands showed the new prime minister smiling broadly and enthusiastically, and Charles, understandably, seeming rather more restrained. This may be a preview of things to come.

Wednesday

Alexander Larman

The Odyssey will take audiences by storm

The Odyssey famously begins “Tell me, O Muse, of the man of many talents,” or similar depending on which translation you prefer. There is an irony that Homer himself might have enjoyed in the way his literary work – itself about the malleability of truth, fame and reputation – has been translated into a Christopher Nolan’s film that is being pilloried for being woke, excessively revisionist, in love with color-blind and trans-blind casting, etc. This came as something of a surprise to us who had Sir Christopher down as a small-c conservative, whose films affirm the sanctity of the heteronormative nuclear family and, in The Dark Knight Rises, positively rejects the idea of left-wing insurgency.

the odyssey
Alexander Larman

Long live the working lunch

From our UK edition

Every time statistics are released about our lunching habits, I become ever more depressed. Apparently, as many as seven in ten of us fail to leave our desks during so-called ‘lunch hour’, miserably chomping on our identikit meal deal or Pret sandwiches. And, of course, very few of us ever manage to take anything like the amount of time we’re supposedly due for our lunches. A recent survey revealed that the median amount of time that we have as our midday breaks is a trifling 34 minutes. But, from a legal perspective, this is more than our due. Government guidelines declare: ‘Workers have the right to one uninterrupted 20-minute rest break during their working day, if they work more than six hours a day. This could be a tea or lunch break.

Tuesday

Alexander Larman

Prince Harry has lost his most high-stakes gamble

It was always going to go this way. Every gambler eventually loses, and the higher profile that loss, the greater the eventual humiliation. But today’s judgement that Prince Harry as well as his other high-profile litigants – including Elton John, Elizabeth Hurley and Baroness Lawrence – have lost their claims completely against Associated Newspapers for unlawful information gathering, thereby bringing to a deeply humiliating and unimaginably expensive end to their crusade against the media, represents the end of the biggest gamble that this litigation-prone prince has ever taken. Anyone watching the trial will be unsurprised by the verdict.

Monday

Alexander Larman

The vulgarity of the Swift-Kelce wedding

When Taylor Swift, the billionaire pop star, announced her engagement to Travis Kelce, the rather less wealthy (although still multi-millionaire) NFL player, she chose to mark the occasion by declaring, “Your English teacher and your gym teacher are getting married.” It was rather a nice way for Swift to refer to herself and her forthcoming nuptials. Those who, like me, have always been fans of both her and her music had hopes that her wedding to Kelce would not become the usual hideous exercise in celebrity tackiness. Boy, was I wrong.

Taylor Swift
Alexander Larman

Tom Hiddleston and the pitfalls of advertising

From our UK edition

Amidst the summer’s plethora of advertisements aimed at the moronic, desperate and gullible, an especially crass one stands out. Ralph Lauren have decided, for reasons best known to themselves, that their well-heeled and preppy customers need the unholy duo of the actor Tom Hiddleston and a computer-generated ‘Polo Bear’ to advertise their product.

Friday

Alexander Larman

Kate Middleton is the royal family’s best ambassador

From our UK edition

If you had been queuing up to buy tickets at Wimbledon yesterday, then you might have been forgiven for doubting your eyesight to see none other than the Princess of Wales appear. Like a fairy godmother, she was there to distribute the first few tickets to those who had already been waiting, in some cases, for several hours that day. Princess Catherine – or Kate Middleton, as she was popularly known in her former, non-royal capacity – was wearing a suitably stylish pale blue linen suit in her quest to bring a touch of stardust to SW19 on the fourth day of the championships. She bantered with the thirsty and weary tennis fans and told them, in a splendidly English touch, that 'you must be desperate to get in and have a drink' after queuing uncomfortably in the heat for ages.

Wednesday

Alexander Larman

Why shouldn’t Queen Camilla meet J.K. Rowling?

From our UK edition

One of the many likeable characteristics of Queen Camilla is that she has a clear, full-throated passion for literature. She has taken her husband, the King, away from his usual diet of intellectually respectable but slightly stuffy authors – such as his mentor Laurens van der Post – and introduced him to the likes of Jilly Cooper, Elizabeth Jane Howard and E. F. Benson. Yet for all her bookish associations, the latest meeting that she had with the country’s bestselling – and most controversial – author is likely to arouse strong passions on both sides of the political divide. It has also prompted a particular question: is Camilla herself a Terf?  The picture that was posted on the royal family’s social media accounts yesterday was innocuous enough. The Queen met J.K.

Tuesday

Alexander Larman

Why Yesteryear is the controversial bestseller of 2026

If you’ve spent more than five minutes on social media in the past couple of years, you will probably be familiar with the tradwife phenomenon that has grown up as a reaction against the harder-edged and more strident girlboss feminism that itself threatened to become the dominant form of discourse towards the end of the last decade. Tradwifery, a form of embrace of traditional domestic roles that concentrates on the woman as homemaker, mother and carer while allowing her husband (always a husband, never a "partner”) to fulfill masculine aspects of patriarch and hunter-gatherer, has been decried by some as a right-wing coded backwards step into submissiveness. Others have described it as a welcome return to common sense and social cohesion.

yesteryear Caro Claire Burke (Riley Haakon)
Alexander Larman

The peerless Penelope Keith

From our UK edition

The news that Dame Penelope Keith has died at the age of 86 has devastated lovers of great British humour, to say nothing of Spectator readers. The two are, after all, closely linked. Keith was that rare actress who was the lead in not one but two seminal sitcoms, The Good Life and To The Manor Born. It would perhaps be an exaggeration to describe her performances as the aspirational Margo Leadbetter and the aristocratic Aubrey fforbes-Hamilton as showing thespian range. But there was no actress better at skewering the pretensions and absurdities of a certain kind of Englishwoman. Even today, if you say of someone that they are a ‘Penelope Keith type’, it is shorthand for Middle England in excelsis – even if that type is vanishing far quicker than is desirable.