Alexander Larman

When I last wrote about the banned old Duke of York, following his voluntary decision to stop using his titles, I suggested that many will now be wondering why the last step of throwing him out the Royal Family altogether cannot be taken. Over the past week, something that would have been unlikely – even unthinkable – has now moved into mainstream discourse. It has become increasingly obvious that the Firm’s actions, masterminded by Prince William and executed by the King, have not gone far enough to stem the tide of public outrage.  It now seems a virtual given that Andrew will have to leave Royal Lodge.

In any other week – or month, or year – King Charles’s visit to Rome would have been a truly seismic occasion, laden with symbolism and religious importance. Some may have recalled the unexpected significance of that great Father Ted line, ‘That would be an ecumenical matter’, when the news was announced that the King would be praying with Pope Leo XIV.  The moment where the monarch and the pope came together in the Sistine Chapel in worship, and thereby celebrate the Papal Jubilee, was an unprecedented one. In this, as in many other regards, Charles’s reign represents a break from tradition Not since Henry VIII created the schism between the Church of England and the Catholic Church has there been such a meeting of ruler and pontiff.

When did you last go to a Pizza Hut? It’s one of those curious groups of fast food establishments – ‘restaurant’ seems rather too grandiose a term – that fell through the reputational cracks several years, perhaps even decades, ago, and has yet to expire. It was too expensive and fancy for those who wanted a Dominos or Papa Johns, not middle-class enough for the Pizza Express habitués and, of course, its pizzas – large, American-inspired creations that were served without particular flair or engagement – could not even begin to compete with the new vogue for Neapolitan thick-crusted delights that were ushered in by the arrival of Franco Manca in Brixton nearly two decades ago now.

It has not been a good year to be the Duke of York. Firstly, Andrew Lownie’s devastating joint biography of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson, Entitled, splashed allegations of the grim antics of the prince over its unforgiving pages, to bestselling effect. In a few weeks, Virginia Giuffre’s posthumously published memoir will also be published. It will likely be hugely embarrassing for Andrew as Giuffre is expected to have detailed precisely what she alleged occurred between her and the duke several years ago.

The death of the actress Diane Keaton at the age of 79 was greeted with an understandable mixture of sadness and surprise. Sadness, because the death of one of the leading ladies of the Seventies and Eighties (and beyond) robs the film industry of one of its true originals, and surprise, because nobody had any idea that she had been unwell. Yet it is somehow typical of Keaton – perhaps the only woman in history to have dated the wildly disparate likes of Woody Allen and Warren Beatty – to depart the set in a wholly inimitable way. Nothing about her life and career was in any way typical or predictable, so it is equally fitting that her end should be equally confounding, too.