‘Oxford or Cambridge?’: the vacation edition
Visiting university towns for a uniquely civilized — and wholly British — experience
Alexander Larman
Alexander Larman is an author and the US books editor of The Spectator.
Friday
Wednesday
The ongoing farce of Ezra Miller
Why does the actor still have such a hold on film executives?
Friday
The attack on Salman Rushdie is an ominous warning
The danger seemed to have passed but extremists continue to plague the world
Thursday
The Sandman is a confused disappointment
The problems begin in the first episode, a kind of demonic take on Downton Abbey
Friday
Why do films get canceled?
Batgirl is the latest movie to get the ax
Wednesday
Blake Bailey deserves to be heard one more time
The disgraced biographer may be ‘repellent’ but he still has a right to free speech
Monday
Arcade Fire: the last of the art-rockers?
The band’s return is not just welcome but overdue
Friday
Rebekah Vardy’s spectacular own goal
From our UK edition
Jamie Vardy is one of English football’s most prolific strikers. But thanks to his wife, his surname will be forever associated with one of the all-time great legal own goals. Rebekah Vardy has spectacularly lost her high-profile libel battle against Coleen Rooney in the so-called ‘Wagatha Christie’ case. It’s hard to overstate how damning today’s judgment
Thursday
Ron Howard: nobody’s favorite Hollywood director
He’s a careful pair of hands but little else
Homage to Sydney Kentridge, South Africa’s courtroom giant
From our UK edition
Sydney Kentridge, the protagonist of Thomas Grant’s superb legal saga The Mandela Brief, is that trickiest of biographical subjects: a great man. Grant acknowledges ‘it is rare that, on closer acquaintance, a person touted as a “great” man or woman conforms to the initial description’, but the South African lawyer has been described by countless
Friday
There’s one court where Prince Harry can’t win
From our UK edition
When Prince Harry and Meghan ‘stepped back’ as working royals, you’d be forgiven for thinking we would see and hear from them a little less. Not so. This week, the Duke of Sussex has repeatedly hit the headlines. Not content with delivering a stern (and far from well received) speech at the United Nations, in which he
Monday
Prince Harry’s clunky Mandela day address
From our UK edition
Every time that a picture of the Duchess of Sussex arriving at the United Nations is beamed around the world, it gets harder to avoid thinking the words: ‘she’s running’. Rumours of Meghan Markle’s presidential ambitions have been growing over the past few years, and she has done little to assuage them. Meghan’s every public
Friday
The latest Jane Austen adaptation is dreadful
‘It’s often said that if you’re a five in London, you’re a ten in Bath’
What is Elon Musk up to now?
From our UK edition
Did Elon Musk ever intend to buy Twitter, or was it all another piece of showboating from a man apparently addicted to the spotlight of publicity? After he announced last Friday that he was walking away from the $44 billion deal that he had previously agreed, Twitter has sued him. A lawsuit angrily states that
Wednesday
The latest Thor isn’t ‘super gay’
It’s same old Marvel, dressing up the usual in brand new drag
Thursday
The circus that was 80s literary Britain
A new book remembers all the excitement and absurdity
Bracing for the tension of Better Call Saul
The show is about to end with all the fervor we might have wished for
Friday
The rise and fall of R Kelly
From our UK edition
It’s been an eventful week for celebrity justice, especially of the entirely predictable kind. First, Ghislaine Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years for recruiting and trafficking young girls. Now, the musician and paedophile R. Kelly has received a 30-year prison sentence for sexually abusing girls, boys and women. He was convicted of the offence last
Tuesday
Kevin Spacey’s transatlantic fall from grace
The British legal system will decide his fate
Tom Cruise: the last movie star
From our UK edition
The actor Tom Cruise has recently released a new film, his first in four years thanks to Covid-induced release delays. You may have heard of it, a low-budget arthouse picture called Top Gun: Maverick. Ecstatic critics have fallen over themselves to praise Maverick not merely as superior to the original Top Gun (a mere 36