Alexander Larman

The news released last night that King Charles had been briefly hospitalised was an unwelcome surprise. A statement from the royal communications department tersely declared that: The public cannot expect minute-by-minute updates as to every aspect of the monarch’s condition Following scheduled and ongoing medical treatment for cancer this morning, the King experienced temporary side effects that required a short period of observation in hospital. His Majesty’s afternoon engagements were therefore postponed. His Majesty has now returned to Clarence House and as a precautionary measure, acting on medical advice, tomorrow’s diary programme will also be rescheduled.

Prince Harry has had an eventful couple of years. There was the controversy-studded publication of his memoir Spare and a plethora of court cases, the highest-profile of which was resolved earlier this year. After all that, the Duke of Sussex might be forgiven for wishing to keep a low profile for the rest of 2025. His relative reticence might be seen by his fleeting, last-minute cameo in With Love Meghan; literally and figuratively, he seemed to be saying that it was her show now, and that he was just a bystander. Yet if he had wished to disappear from the spotlight, the news about his charity, Sentebale, has made such a desire wholly impossible.

Earlier this week, I tried and failed to purchase a couple of items from the As Ever range that the Duchess of Sussex has been touting in her ill-fated Netflix show. I shan’t lie, Spectator readers; my dedication to bringing you the latest hard-hitting investigative news was tempered by the hope that such condiments as the 'limited edition wildflower honey with honeycomb' and the 'shortbread cookies with flower sprinkles' would end up being perfectly edible. Meghan has used the ShopMy online portal to offer 'a handpicked and curated collection of the things I love' Alas! Not only is the collection not yet available for sale – 'Be the first to know,' the website promises, ominously – but there is no suggestion that it will be available anywhere outside the United States.

‘Success’, Winston Churchill supposedly once remarked, ‘is the ability to go from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.’ If this is indeed the case, then Meghan Markle’s 2025 thus far represents a remarkable series of triumphs and victories. After her recent Netflix series With Love, Meghan received reviews that ranged from the merely sarcastic and rude to the positively vituperative, it was promptly renewed for a second series. Never mind that the second instalment was commissioned (and filmed) at the same time as the first, or that the ratings for the much-maligned show have been considerably worse than Netflix’s Harry and Meghan, there will be more of the Duchess of Sussex’s lifestyle tips and hints later in the year. Let joy be unconfined.

Whenever I’m walking down Cornmarket Street in Oxford – an otherwise unlovely thoroughfare – there is something about the spectacle of the enormous Greggs there that gladdens my soul. Compared to all the other overpriced, depressing places that sell lunchtime sandwiches in the area – I popped into Pret the other day and was astonished to be charged a fiver for some measly dried mango and a suspicious can of drink – Greggs is dedicated to giving its customers value for money that isn’t just welcome, but, in these straitened times, feels positively generous. There has been a market for a modern-day Lyons’ to come in and succeed The food is good, too.

So here it is, the undistinguished thing, at last. I had hopes that, after its postponement because of the Californian fires, Meghan Markle’s new reality show With Love, Meghan, would quietly disappear from the schedules. These hopes were, as usual, disappointed. Not only has the programme arrived on Netflix as a simultaneous worldwide premiere, but there has been a blitzkrieg of hype that reminds the unwary that the Duchess of Sussex – or ‘Meghan Sussex’ – is a very big, very famous deal indeed. There has been a gushing interview with People and a New York preview screening for her most devoted fans, some of whom have celebrated the renaming of her forthcoming lifestyle brand As Ever by getting the words tattooed onto their arms.

It is always nice to have a personal connection to the Oscars, however slight and fleeting it might be; hearing Conclave screenwriter give a shout-out to my daughter’s godfather Simon during his acceptance speech for Best Adapted Screenplay was a deeply pleasurable moment. Yet this joyful touch aside, what had initially looked like one of the most wide-open Academy Awards in history eventually proved to be nothing of the kind. Indie director Sean Baker’s twisted romantic comedy Anora, about a sex worker who marries an oligarch’s son, had won the Palme d’Or at Cannes last year. After various twists and turns, it asserted its frontrunner status once again, taking four awards for Baker personally: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best Editing.

I am not, nor ever have been, a friend of Jeffrey Epstein. Yet, after I wrote a piece earlier this week commenting on Meghan Markle’s peculiar decision to change the name of her lifestyle brand America Riviera Orchard to As Ever, this was merely one of the things I was accused of being. Within hours of the story being published, I was inundated with a level of online abuse that swiftly went from the intimidating to the unintentionally hilarious, so vitriolic and overblown was its content.