Alexander Larman is an author and the US books editor of The Spectator.
From our UK edition
It has not been a good year to be the Duke of York. Firstly, Andrew Lownie’s devastating joint biography of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson, Entitled, splashed allegations of the grim antics of the prince over its unforgiving pages, to bestselling effect. In a few weeks, Virginia Giuffre’s posthumously published memoir will also be published.
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The death of the actress Diane Keaton at the age of 79 was greeted with an understandable mixture of sadness and surprise. Sadness, because the death of one of the leading ladies of the Seventies and Eighties (and beyond) robs the film industry of one of its true originals, and surprise, because nobody had any
From our UK edition
Whether you consider World Mental Health Day an important and necessary means of drawing attention to often overlooked issues, or a gimmicky fad that somehow manages to overlook the other 364 days a year that such matters are equally important, there is no doubt that the royal family have been doing their bit to raise awareness. Never
The ‘Tron: Ares’ star represents a cautionary tale for our times
He struggles to chart a new course in The Smashing Machine
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You’ve got to feel sorry for Prince Harry. After some of the best headlines he’s had in years during his well-received return to Britain last month, that goodwill has swiftly been dismantled under a blizzard of bad publicity. There was the accusation that he or someone around him leaked sensitive information about his brief meeting
The much-missed musician is the beneficiary of a new, bespoke space inside the Victoria & Albert Museum’s East Storehouse outpost
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The Pet Shop Boy Neil Tennant once remarked that every successful musician has what he called ‘an imperial phase’, during which they can apparently do no wrong. In the case of Taylor Swift, the most successful and famous musician on the planet, her imperial phase has lasted from 2012, when she released her breakthrough album Red, until
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When I found out about the death of Dame Jilly Cooper while waiting for a train, I said, out loud, ‘Oh no!’ with such vehemence that several of the commuters around me shuffled away, clearly frightened by their proximity to a madman. Cooper’s death at the age of 88 – a good innings, but also
It’s gotta be really, really good if it wants to stay even slightly relevant
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For many, it is hard to overstate the appeal of Greggs, one of those rare high street chains that provides good-quality food at affordable prices. When it comes to such hero items as the steak bake or the sausage roll – whether with actual sausage or the vegan equivalent – it has inherited the Lyons
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It is the fate of any actor or actress who is inextricably associated with one major role that, when they die, the obituaries will lead with their best-known part rather than any of their other accomplishments. So it has proved with the great classical actress Patricia Routledge, who has died at the grand old age
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Of all the people who might be expected to get revelatory public comments out of the Prince of Wales, the beetle-browed actor Eugene Levy would not be high on the list. Yet during the Schitt’s Creek and American Pie thespian’s new show, The Reluctant Traveler, Levy ticks off a series of ‘bucket list’ experiences –
Who says a memoir has to be true?
The shock and awe is done – the details are not
It might be time to take the show out to pasture
From our UK edition
There has been a recurring theme when it comes to meetings between the Duke of Sussex and his now estranged family in recent years. If he has any such meeting, sympathetic media outlets (if such a thing exists) will somehow learn of the contents and a (typically pro-Harry) story will appear shortly afterwards. Unsurprisingly, the
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When ITV executives commissioned The Hack, the new drama series dealing with the News International phone hacking scandal, they surely hoped they were getting another Mr Bates vs. The Post Office. Not only did it star that show’s Toby Jones as – bizarrely – Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger, complete with ludicrous wig, but it was
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It is tempting to imagine Prince Andrew and his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson enduring a mutually resentful existence in Royal Lodge. Like an aristocratic version of Roald Dahl’s The Twits, perhaps. Or, to be vulgar, one might call them The Twats instead. The less-than-grand old Duke of York has now spent several years beset by stories linking him to disgraced paedophile financier Jeffrey
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The news that the once-beloved, now-beleaguered coffee chain Starbucks is to fire nearly a thousand staff and close dozens of shops in both North America and Britain may not come as a surprise to many. Like many other relics of the Nineties – such as the Friends theme tune, Cool Britannia and vodka Red Bulls
