Melanie McDonagh

I saw the new James Bond last night, but after reading today’s reviews I’m not sure I watched the same film as the critics. Perhaps the glitz of the Royal Albert Hall and proximity to the stars make reviewers better disposed towards a film. Those of us watching in the Odeon, Leicester Square, eating Joe and Seph’s 007 Dry Martini popcorn (transmuted into caramel coating with five per cent vodka) were perhaps less carried away. The Bond of No Time to Die is, you’ll have gathered, terrifically in touch with his emotions.

Notice anything about the coverage of the new Texas abortion law in Britain? I mean, quite apart from the fact that we’re obsessing about it in a way that confirms that culturally, Britain is more or less an offshore US state (the US is another country, no?). But on the actual issue, Texas has changed its abortion law to ban the procedure if there is ‘a detectable fetal heartbeat’ — in effect, after six weeks. The US Supreme Court has just upheld this in a very tight 5-4 vote. The justices are also due to hear an appeal against a 2018 Mississippi law that bans abortions after 15 weeks. South Carolina is moving the same way, passing its own ‘fetal heartbeat’ Bill in February.

Sometimes, a nutter is just a nutter, even when he's a homicidal nutter. In the case of Jake Davison, the Plymouth killer who murdered five people, then himself, the indications are that he was a sad, bitter, angry man with a grudge against society in general and women in particular. He didn't have a girlfriend, and, like every other sad case nowadays, from cannibals to neo-Nazis, he found company and a label online. At any other time, we'd be content to call him an evil creep, a sadistic coward or possibly a homicidal loon, and confine ourselves to the valid question of how his shotgun licence was renewed.

What, do you reckon you’d get from Princess Eugenie in 40 minutes, always supposing you were a woman trying to return to work, after furlough, or a baby or something? What insight would this amiable royal have to offer the rest of us? Sheryl Sandberg might conceivably have more to say but probably nothing you wouldn’t get from that fascinating book, Lean In, which I haven’t read but have read all about. Or Hilary Clinton? One would welcome her advice on marriage, obviously. Or how about Amanda Gorman, the attractive young woman whose very bad poem was the highlight of the Biden inauguration. Whatever, it wouldn’t be to do with mugging up on the basics, like grammar, before embarking on poetry.

Turn aside if BBC Radio 4 isn’t your thing, still less its panel games. But for those of us who grew up with ‘Just a minute’ there was one obvious and outstanding candidate to replace the late Nicholas Parsons, who gave every indication that he was immortal until he was actually cut off at the age of 96. And it wasn’t the person who actually got the job. The obvious candidate was Gyles Brandreth – though if you’d put in a case for Andy Hamilton, the other genuinely funny man on radio, I’d give it serious thought. But Gyles didn’t get it, nor did Andy. Sue Perkins did. Brandreth is measurably better and more mellifluous than Perkins Perkins is, of course, a decent performer. She's also articulate and bossy.

The other day, I came across a description of afternoon tea written by Alfred Douglas in 1920: ‘Two kinds of bread and butter, white and brown, cucumber and tomato sandwiches, cut razor thin, scones, rock buns and then all the cakes — plum, madeira, caraway seed — the meal had about it the lavishness of a Victorian dinner.’ There are a few things about this feast which I find striking. It includes two kinds of bread and butter. Sliced bread and butter never features on the modern table but a century ago, people used it to fill themselves up; it took the edge off your appetite. Note also the simplicity of the cucumber and tomato sandwiches. Both are excellent if they’re made from good stuff. The crucial thing was that they were cut thin.

Meghan Markle isn’t one to think small. In a statement on her Archewell website to thank those who put her book, The Bench, at the top of the New York Times' children’s picture book list, she wrote:  'While this poem began as a love letter to my husband and son, I’m encouraged to see that its universal themes of love, representation and inclusivity are resonating with communities everywhere. In many ways, pursuing a more compassionate and equitable world begins with these core values’. You’d never, think, would you, that this is a picture book for children. And one of the reasons why any sensible tot will hurl it from the cot is that it has an elephantine agenda.