Alexander Larman

When one of your favourite filmmakers dies, it is hard not to feel a deeply personal sense of loss; the punch in the viscera with the knowledge that someone who has created some of the most iconic pieces of cinema from the past half-century will no longer be bringing his inimitable and unforgettable personal voice into film. And so it has been with the dreadful news that the director David Lynch died on Thursday at the age of 78: not a young age, but when the likes of Ridley Scott and Clint Eastwood are still making major work in their eighties and nineties, it is an enormous shame that he will no longer be a presence in Hollywood. If, of course, he ever was.

Who do the Duke and Duchess of Sussex think they are? Since their quasi-abdication from the royal family five years ago, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have seldom found a publicity angle that they were not prepared to exploit for their own personal (and commercial) gain. But the sheer effrontery of the statement that they have put out this week, criticising Meta for scaling back its fact-checking initiatives from public posts, takes some beating. Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg declared that fact-checkers “have destroyed more trust than they’ve created, especially in the US”. But this is not good enough for the Sussexes, and they have responded with vigour.

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 regret of the previous night was beginning to dispel, the Duchess of Sussex decided that the perfect moment had come to relaunch herself into public consciousness. Out of nowhere, a 28-second video appeared on her hitherto dormant Instagram account, which is now branded simply as “@meghan”.

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” for the not-so-grand old Duke of York. Yet today’s news that an alleged Chinese spy, who has now been banned from Britain, had close personal and financial links to Andrew is still, even by the standards of his previous behaviour, something of a marmalade-dropper. Yet again Andrew’s judgement has been tested and found lacking The facts are both predictable and outlandish.

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 Starr, anyone? And so the absence of a KBE from Beckham’s considerable roster of trophies and honours seems almost unfair. Whatever you make of him, Beckham is one of the most famous living Englishmen, a man who has acted as an informal ambassador for his country for decades. Surely Beckham is worthy of the recognition that he clearly craves?

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 King, Prince and Princess of Wales and Keir Starmer, amongst many other dignitaries, has been precision-designed to make sure that the Emir has as enjoyable and eventful a visit to the country as possible. Tamim is a resolute Anglophile, who was educated at Harrow, Sherborne and Sandhurst, and Qatar remains a vital investor in British infrastructure.