Monday
There wasn’t much to laugh to about when the Iowa caucus results came in on Monday, although the New York Post, erstwhile endorser of second place candidate, Ron DeSantis, raised a smile with the evidently vein-popping effort it had to put into finding a normal-sounding quote from Donald Trump. “Trump easily wins Iowa caucus in historic landslide, urges unity to ‘straighten out death and destruction’,” was the best they could eke from slim pickings.
Results from Iowa famously don’t predict presidential election outcomes; since 1972, when the first caucuses were held, only three winners in Iowa have gone on to become president, and only one of them – George W Bush – on the Republican side. In previous years, this observation might have been useful, but in the case of Trump, of course, citing precedent doesn’t get us anywhere. The same week of his landslide in Iowa, Trump appeared, once again, in a court in downtown Manhattan, to face E Jean Carroll in her second defamation suit against him. The first suit last year ended when a judge found Trump guilty of libel and sexual abuse and awarded Carroll $5m (£3.95m) in damages, a fact that has, apparently, had no impact whatsoever on the 42% of Americans who recently gave him a favourable rating.
Accounting for this disconnect gets harder. Reporters in Iowa on the day of the caucus threw up the now familiar conundrum of otherwise regular-sounding folk – people working in the ethanol industry, small business owners, retired farmers and insurance agents – expressing if not full-throated support for Trump, then at least a willingness to suspend disbelief. On the subject of the January 6 storming of the Capitol, an otherwise measured sounding man told the New Yorker: “It’s confusing, because the media tells one narrative, and then if you get on to any social-media platform that gives you a different narrative.” He added that he believed the last election had some voting “irregularities”. The default assumption – that Trump succeeds by making dumb people feel good about themselves – becomes a less and less credible explanation.
Tuesday
Here’s a man who never disappoints. Brooklyn Beckham, whether he’s unveiling his recipe for a bacon sandwich (bacon, bread) on US morning TV, or a gin and tonic (gin, tonic, lime) in a video on Bustle, or simply charming us with his cheerful rotation through those professions people tend to imagine – if they gave it a good crack – they would probably be brilliant at (photography, cooking). Many of Beckham’s recipes emanate from “Nanny Peggy”, his great-grandmother on his dad’s side, or from English folk history passed down through the generations and stored, in modern times, in a sacred archive on the internet accessible by Googling: “English people + favourite food”.
In partnership with Uber Eats, some of these dishes of Beckham’s will be available to the British public for two days at the end of January, as part of a “pop-up restaurant” the delivery app is offering to users in London. These include his tikka masala, his spag bol and his pork and prawn dumplings, plus of course his signature dish, Nanny Peggy’s English breakfast sandwich. How Beckham will render open source recipes for beans on toast, bangers and mash, and a cup of tea – one lump or two! – we will have to wait for the inevitable cookbook to find out.
Wednesday
If Beckham’s life in the glare of public attention is hard, it has nothing on that of the modern prince, held to uxorial standards to which his forefathers were not. At least this week Prince William knows the Daily Mail has his back. With the Princess of Wales in hospital for scheduled surgery, the loyal newspaper praised the heir to the throne for participating in his own family, observing: “The Prince of Wales will likely have a busy couple of months juggling childcare and aiding his wife”. Well, it’s all relative.
Thursday
Gambino, Genevese, Lucchese and … members of the New Conservatives and the European Research Groups, including Lee Anderson and Miriam Cates. This week the “five families” of the Tory party, self-styled like the unloved boy at school who gives himself a nickname, re-emerged after forming in December to challenge Rishi Sunak over his Rwanda immigration policy.
The organised crime families of 1960s New York had a certain murderous dash, while the five families of Westminster have the veteran Eurosceptic MP Bill Cash and something called the Common Sense Group, better known for battling “wokeness” by supporting a campaign aimed at “cancelling cancel culture”. It’s not exactly Serpico. But as the Rwanda bill came back to face a second round of votes, so the Tory dons rose, pressuring Sunak to tighten the bill’s language that it may survive any European or international legal challenges.
And while it’s true that this group of Tory MPs has grown trigger-happy, it’s mainly with nicknames; so that as well as the five families thing, the legal committee organised by Mark Francois, the Tory MP who countered German critics of Brexit by evoking the second world war, has been pompously named the “Star Chamber”. Whether Francois sees himself in this scenario as Cardinal Wolsey, or more of a John Gotti figure, is something about which I’m happy to remain in the dark.
Friday
Nobody cares about the Baftas in the US, making the concept of the annual “Bafta snub”, in which a popular US film is snubbed by Bafta, somehow even more poignant for participants. A corker this year, the Bafta Barbie snub comes hard on the heels of the Golden Globes Barbie snub, and ahead of what we imagine will, in March, be the crowning snub of the year towards Barbie, the Oscars Barbie snub.
The $1bn movie was this week only nominated for five Baftas and not in the director or best movie category, although Greta Gerwig (oh, sure, and Noah Baumbach) was nominated for best original screenplay. The endless tedium of Oppenheimer, meanwhile, was rewarded with 13 Bafta nominations, including one for Emily Blunt, which is the least the film can do for her, frankly, given that scene in the committee room with Florence Pugh – and which if you haven’t seen it, trust me, falls into a category all of its own: rank misuse of a national treasure.
