Alexander Larman

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.

The recent fires in California have had many tragic effects. Many have lost their homes, possessions and livelihoods, and it has been a stark reminder that even the wealthy and privileged are not immune from a truly awful, life-changing event. Regrettably, however, the disaster has attracted a small but vocal number of people who ostensibly have offered their time and resources to provide much-needed assistance – but in reality seem more interested in creating #content to share on their social media. It is easier, for the sake of our collective mental health, to think as little about Meghan Markle as possible Meghan Markle, predictably enough, belongs to that category.

In the inimitable words of The Smiths (or, indeed, Carry On Cleo, where they borrowed it from), stop me if you think you’ve heard this one before. For her first official solo engagement outside London since her cancer treatment, the Princess of Wales was photographed visiting the Ty Hafan children’s hospice in South Wales. She has become a patron of the hospice, and to this end interacted with the no doubt awestruck children with the ease and grace that have become a hallmark of all her public appearances since she married into the royal family.