Alexander Larman is an author and the US books editor of The Spectator.
After the excitement of the Platinum Jubilee, complete with emotional tributes to ‘mummy’, Prince Charles might have been forgiven for wishing to avoid the limelight for the summer. But the heir to the throne is once again in the news. Following the recent revelation that he is said to find the government’s policy of flying
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Baz Luhrmann’s new biopic is fun but too cartoonish to capture the legend
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It’s become an exercise in high-budget pointlessness
By and large, the Platinum Jubilee celebrations were a success. Barring the odd moment of inexplicable poor taste, it was a well-choreographed blend of pageantry, ceremony and fun, and the deservedly viral clip of Paddington taking tea with the Queen seemed to epitomise a spirit of generosity and togetherness. Yet Her Majesty might be forgiven,
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Its version of the Eighties is oddly benign
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A Zimmer score is seldom less than a pleasure to listen to, as has been the case for decades
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Audiences are increasingly wise to knee-jerk manipulation
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Cannes is back, bébé
Picture the convivial scene. You have been invited into the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s palatial £11 million mansion in Montecito, California as an honoured guest. Once you have removed your shoes, been frisked for weapons or recording devices and been offered a kombucha smoothie, you are ushered into the inner sanctum of the world’s
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Our world could do with more like them
Meghan Markle has starred in a Netflix show and married into the Royal Family, but has she got her eyes on even loftier ambitions? Since quitting the UK and moving to the United States, the Duchess of Sussex has involved herself in various soft-political campaigns. She’s asked Congress to legislate paid family leave. She has also placed
One of the cruellest and most accurate remarks made about Prince Charles is that he is less king-in-waiting and more the perennial prince, forever hanging about in his mother’s shadow and increasingly desperate to assume the throne. Yet he is now 73 years old, and will be the oldest monarch to ascend the throne since
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The age of Captain Jack Sparrow is over
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Viola Davis calls them out for their smugness while sounding a bit vainglorious herself
The predictable yet somehow still hilarious news that Elon Musk is to acquire Twitter for $44 billion has been greeted with the usual chorus of anguished hand-wringing. The left seems appalled that such an unconventional and apparently ungovernable figure now has control of the most volatile social media platform in the world. (It’s hard to
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As rumors about ‘Wisteria’ swirl, the director is being typically mysterious
It had been, for a change, a good few days for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. Not only have they managed to make an atypically low-profile and successful visit to Windsor Castle for an air-clearing meeting with the Queen – which, unlike virtually ever other appointment they have had in recent years, appeared in
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A certain sector of the Harry Potter fandom has decided that the author is the devil incarnate
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Let’s hope the latest film in the series is the last
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It’s not funny, but it’s terrific
