The 2025 Golden Globes were an interim awards
Everyone will have their own grievances and delights as to this year’s award recipients
Alexander Larman
Alexander Larman is an author and the US books editor of The Spectator.
Monday
Thursday
Brace yourselves for Meghan Markle’s comeback
From our UK edition
As many of us lurched blearily into 2025, desperately trying to remember how, exactly, we’d managed to cause offence to our nearest and dearest in the hinterland between the old year and the new, there was another unwelcome surprise waiting in the wings. In the late afternoon of 1 January, just as the nausea and
Thursday
This has been an awful year for the royals
From our UK edition
At the beginning of King Charles’s Christmas speech this year, viewers may have been surprised when he did not immediately talk about his, or his family’s, struggles with illness this year, but instead about the 80th anniversary of D-Day. It was, in fact, several minutes until the speech made reference to how ‘all of us
Beware the middle of Lidl
From our UK edition
If you’re a regular, or even an occasional, customer at Lidl, you’ll know what to expect. Own-brand foodstuffs that shamelessly imitate better-known manufacturers and, by doing so, flirt with copyright infringement right up to the edge of legality; a selection of wines, spirits and beers that alternate between excellent value for the money and frankly
Is Paris the world’s most bookish city?
Sorry, New York: you’ve got serious competition
Wednesday
Why the King’s speech still matters
From our UK edition
Later today, the King will address the nation, as he has annually since he acceded the throne in September 2022. This year’s is expected not only to be the most eagerly anticipated and arguably momentous speech that Charles has delivered, but also probably since his mother attempted to make some sense of the chaotic, grief-stricken
Sunday
What’s up with Jim Carrey?
After showing the world how interesting an actor he can be, he has retreated deep into an unchallenging comfort zone
Friday
King Charles has a long road to recovery ahead
From our UK edition
At the end of what has undoubtedly been a true annus horribilis for the monarchy, King Charles, at least, seems to have recovered something of his joie de vivre. Over the past few weeks alone, he has been seen bravely pretending to enjoy himself at a particularly strenuous Royal variety show and bestowing much-deserved honours
Tuesday
Carry-On is a highly accomplished, if deeply silly, thrill ride
The appeal with a film like this is not in its plot twists, but in watching a piece of generic Christmas-themed schlock done very well
Monday
The Royals should ban Andrew from Christmas
From our UK edition
Sixty years ago, in the aftermath of one of the twentieth century’s most salacious scandals, the former MP John Profumo took on a role as a volunteer at the East End charity Toynbee Hall. The unpaid and distinctly unglamorous job, which saw Profumo serving meals to the homeless and cleaning toilets, became a kind of
The sad decline of the Booker Prize
From our UK edition
There was a magnificent chorus of spluttering and gasping in literary London last week when it was announced that the actress Sarah Jessica Parker was to be one of the judges for the Booker Prize. As one critic remarked, ‘Just because she plays a writer of sorts in Sex and the City doesn’t mean that
Friday
Prince Andrew’s Chinese ‘spy’ blunder is no surprise
From our UK edition
It is fair to say that Prince Andrew has always had poor taste in friends. Notoriously, and reputation-shreddingly, he consorted with Jeffrey Epstein long after the latter’s disgrace. There is a rogue’s gallery of potentates and sheikhs who have been only too happy to provide what one royal biographer euphemistically called “alternative sources of income”
Tuesday
This feels like an interim year for the Golden Globes
A quirky throat-clearer before something more straightforwardly commercial happens next year
Friday
Does David Beckham really deserve a knighthood?
From our UK edition
Sir David Beckham. Sir Goldenballs. Once upon a time, when Beckham was in his sarong-wearing Nineties heyday, the idea of this petulant, photogenic but somehow risible footballer being awarded a knighthood would have seemed utterly ridiculous. Yet we now live in an age where other similarly lightweight people can be awarded such honours; Sir Ringo
Tuesday
Was the Emir of Qatar’s visit a good idea?
From our UK edition
As the first day of the Emir of Qatar’s state visit to Britain draws to a close, all those involved in this its organisation might allow themselves a larger-than-usual measure of Christmas cheer. From Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani’s arrival in the country earlier today, the lavish pageantry of his welcome by
The new Jaguar is spectacularly hideous
From our UK edition
Winston Churchill reputedly said ‘Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.’ This adage must have been at the forefront of the minds of Jaguar’s chief executives as they unveiled the brand’s new electric concept car, the Type 00, during Miami Art Week. The company has had a torrid past few
Monday
Why is British espionage drama so in vogue?
We may not want to be on the receiving end of their attentions, but it’s hard not to be seduced, all the same
Wednesday
Shutting Smithfield shows a reckless disregard for London’s history
From our UK edition
Virtually every aspect of London has changed beyond recognition in the past nine hundred years, but there has been one certainty: Smithfield Market, the city’s most famous and longest established meat market. Now even this great feature of London life looks set to be no more. The City of London Corporation has voted to withdraw
Monday
What will Elton John learn from Tammy Faye’s flop on Broadway?
Its failure mirrors that of American Psycho
Friday
Is Cormac McCarthy finished?
He has revealed that he himself was as flawed as any of his antagonists
