Robert Jackman

British pubs are having a moment. Not in Britain: you can blame Keir Starmer’s rise in business rates for that. Instead, they are branching out overseas. Take Wetherspoons, the granddaddy of British boozers, set to open next month in Alicante airport, or BrewDog, which has opened its doors in Dubai and many other international outposts besides.  Perhaps British pub chains will prove to be our next big export market. No doubt there will be the obvious jokes about arch-Brexiteer Tim Martin opening pubs in Europe. But would you really bet against him? Whatever you think of Wetherspoons, I can assure you that you’ll never find an empty one. Just imagine the kind of trade they could do in Barcelona or Rome. Which brings me to Dubai. Did you know there was a BrewDog in Dubai?

A thought hit me when bingeing the first series of The Paper on Sky’s Now streaming service this week: how on earth did it take this long for someone to make a sequel to The Office? Don’t get me wrong, this wasn’t a glowing verdict on the comic merit of The Paper – an Office-style mockumentary set in a struggling regional newspaper in Toledo, Ohio. Rather it was a reflection on the usually mercenary economics of big television. During the pandemic, the American version of The Office racked up an astonishing 57 billion streaming minutes, despite its final episode having aired in 2013. The show premiered in 2005, inspired by the British sitcom created by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant that ran from 2001 to 2003 (and which is itself still a big hit on iPlayer).

It was a line on Poker Face (the excellent US detective drama currently streaming on Now TV) that piqued my interest. Hunched over a laptop, Natasha Lyonne’s heroine, Charlie Cale, claimed to be working as a ‘Captcha technician’ – someone who solves those fiddly, occasionally infuriating internet puzzles for money. You know – the ones that ask you to ‘Select all the squares with traffic lights’, ‘Select all the squares with bridges’ or simply tick a box to say you’re human before you can log into a website. Given the series has satirised everything from New York City rent controls to multi-level marketing schemes, I originally assumed it must be a joke.

Do you ever break the law when driving? According to surveys, quite a few of us do – three in five drivers admit regularly speeding. And if that's you, then be careful: Mike van Erp is out to get you. You may already know Mike. He’s the media-savvy cyclist (better known as Cycling Mikey) who has become a minor celebrity for his dashcam videos of rule-breaking drivers in London. Now his niche hobby is catching on. ‘There were almost 15,000 reports last year that led to the police taking action’ ‘I don’t think I’m even in the top ten cyclists reporting bad drivers in London,’ Cycling Mikey tells me over the phone. ‘There were almost 15,000 reports last year that led to the police taking action. And I only submitted 383 reports in total.

So 2022 bowed out with one last surprise. Who can honestly say they had 'crowds queueing outside Aldi at 5 a.m. for a viral energy drink' on their bingo card? The must-have product in question is Prime, a caffeine-free energy drink created by YouTube influencers Logan Paul and KSI. Since going on sale in the UK recently, it has quickly generated the sort of frenzied hype once reserved for cryptocurrencies or pictures of cartoon monkeys, with stock running out, brawls breaking out and one shop reportedly cashing in by charging £10 a bottle. On the face of it, the Prime story is baffling. But tempting as it might be to scoff at the sight of the wide-eyed obsessives rushing for their fix, I am also painfully aware that I cannot really judge them. For I myself am an energy drink addict.

Has a certain media mogul had a visit from three ghosts recently? I only ask as this year’s Sky Christmas schedule is so packed with treats and big-hitters that it can't possibly be explained by hard-nosed commercialism. An outbreak of sudden seasonal generosity seems to be the only explanation. Whatever has triggered Sky's largesse, the result is a little something for everyone – including those of us best described as jaded anti-Christmas types. I was particularly pleased to see the return of Billie Piper in the deliciously sardonic I Hate Suzie. From Succession writer Lucy Prebble, it's the chaos comedy that makes Fleabag feel like Emily in Paris. If you need an outlet from seasonal niceties, this is it.

For an industry so dependent on glitz and glamour, the West End has never quite mastered the celebrity debut. While big names might be a surefire way of shifting tickets, they have an unfortunate knack for ending up in mediocre plays – even when they’re as famous as Madonna. The problem is partly structural. A-listers aren’t exactly cheap, and their schedules are notoriously tight. Faced with those constraints, theatreland has developed an unfortunate habit of putting box office names – John Malkovich, Damian Lewis, even Lindsay Lohan – into derivative three-handers by David Mamet. They might be easy to make, but they rarely deliver. But are the days of celebrity mediocrity finally over?

From the moment Elon Musk suggested buying Twitter, users began threatening to leave – and the Tesla kingpin's erratic behaviour since he took over hasn't exactly helped his case, with thousands of workers laid off and hundreds more resigning. The MIT Technology Review estimates that more than a million Twitter users have jumped ship since Musk took the reins. Today the social network is launching a revamped version of Twitter Blue, its paid-for verification system, after a previous attempt last month was marred by a flood of imposters and fake accounts. So for those who decide not to stick around to see how this one turns out, what alternatives are out there – and are any of them any good?

With the Chancellor confirming that the energy price cap will rise in April, it seems we won’t be taking our eye off our electricity usage any time soon. But while energy saving tips have become a staple of breakfast television shows and small talk, how many of them really add up in practice? The Spectator’s data team has crunched the numbers to see what typical household devices actually cost to run. And the answers are quite surprising. Perhaps you’ve heard the warnings over the past weeks of so-called ‘vampire devices’ – those pesky contraptions which carry on costing you money when you’re not actually using them. You may even be among the almost half Britons who say they’re already making an effort to switch off their gadgets at the plug for that reason.

In his first interview since being reappointed, Foreign Secretary James Cleverly laid down some clear diplomatic water between his party and Labour – confirming that, unlike Keir Starmer, he would attend this winter’s Qatar World Cup. The Foreign Secretary won’t be alone. The Football Association expects that some 10,000 England fans will make the journey to a World Cup widely regarded as the most controversial in history (though Prince William, the FA’s president, will reportedly not be among them). So what awaits them when they get there? If the headlines so far are anything to go by, they could be in for a rude awakening.

You almost have to feel sorry for Sky. After spending 18 months building up to their big Boris Johnson drama, they end up releasing it at exactly the same time that British politics enters its own cliffhanger mode with drama that could rival any season finale. This England – which tells the story of the start of Johnson’s premiership and the first wave of the Covid crisis – begins tonight on Sky Atlantic, starring Kenneth Branagh as Johnson and Ophelia Lovibond as Carrie. But should Sky have known better than to air it now? Generally the best real-life dramas follow a simple rule of thumb: time is on your side. Rather than rush out your first draft of history, much better to wait until the dust has settled – even if you do have Branagh on board.

The news that mourners may have to line up for 35 hours to pay their respects to the late Queen has made headlines – and unsurprisingly so. They say we Brits love queueing, but surely that love affair has its limits.  Elizabeth II's lying-in-state in Westminster Hall is open to the public 24 hours a day, from 5 p.m. today until 6.30 a.m. on Monday. Last night Whitehall released the details of the military-style logistics operation that they hope will see the event run as smoothly as possible – with more than 300,000 mourners expected to form a five-mile human line stretching from SW1 along the South Bank and past HMS Belfast into the borough of Southwark.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?