The Rest Is Entertainment - What A Time To Be Alive! - Marina Hyde [EXCLUSIVE EXTRACT]

Episode Date: September 24, 2026

The Rest Is Entertainment presents an exclusive chapter from Marina Hyde’s new book ‘What A Time To Be Alive!’ which is out now. Welcome to the dystopian soap opera of modern times. Travel to space with Lauren Sanchez and Katy Perry, let the waters close over you as Bear Grylls baptises Russell Brand in the Thames, and experience the full body impact of the Gwyneth Paltrow ski massacre trial. Lettuce also remember Liz Truss, meet – and bid farewell to – the guy they called ‘No-Drama Starmer’, and celebrate the inaugural winner of the Fifa Peace Prize as he threatens to annex countries and follows all the way through on starting wars. Experience the magic of Donald Trump’s cavalcade of henchmen, watch with nothing but optimism as our Silicon Valley overlords hit their imperial phase – and let your jaw drop as Brooklyn secedes from the Beckhams. Truly, these are times that make you want to put your hands over your eyes, even when your hands are already over your eyes. The only thing to do is read Marina Hyde’s Guardian columns and howl with laughter.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi guys, this is Marina. I hope you're all very well. My new book, What a Time to Be Alive, is out now. And I'm really excited to say that on this feed, we have a chapter from the audiobook. Obviously, I have picked one with lots of celebrities and entertainment in it. So we have Brooklyn seceding from the Beckham's, the Gwyneth Paltrow Ski Massacre Trial. I very much hope you enjoy it. But as I say, the book's out now. But if audiobooks are more your thing, there is a big extended interview with me on that format as a bonus. conducted by none other than my beloved Richard Osmond. So anyway, there you go. What's the time to be alive. Out now. Chapter 1. Media Spectacles, spectacular and otherwise. Television adhered to the decree of Duchess Megan and allowed us to experience wonder in every moment. From the no-stakes legal maelstrom of the Gwyneth Paltrow ski trial to Princess Dye's ghost hamming away furiously in the crown, the possibilities of the medium were explored in dazzling fashion. Strictly come dancing continued its long stint as the prime piece of formatted entertainment across which all UK culture wars must be fought, while Sir Sharonan failed to understand the assignment

and said something interesting, unprepared and unexpected on a chat show. Ideally, it won't catch on. Speaking of things unlikely to catch on, car manufacturer Jaguar unveiled a peak-woke advert precisely two weeks after the watershed moment of Donald Trump's re-election, after which you couldn't sell a single share in woke, much less a pink car with a six-figure price tag. Meanwhile, our long-time alternative royal family, the Beckham's, caught a nasty case of the Windsors.

Did Gwyneth Paltrow ski into a retired optometrist? I couldn't care less, but the farce is unmissable. 28th of March, 2023. A starstruck lawyer, a neutrals clad wellness guru, this has to be the lowest stakes court battle of all time. To Park City, Utah, currently seen of one of the great pleasures of modern life, a court battle that you'd be intensely relaxed for either side to lose. Yes, it's the Gwyneth Paltrow Skiam Massacre Trial. Take your seats for a preposterously camp battle between a well-to-do retired optometrist, who says the High Priestess of Fanny steaming skied into him. him, and her Vagestie herself, who says he skied into her. Why is this not happening at the Hague?

Sorry, but no sense of occasion. Before we go any further, I want to make a deeply serious point. Something happened that day. Something happened on that mountain in that luxury ski resort, up there in God's Cathedral, and, like anyone who was watched either the plaintiff or the defendant on the stand at any length, I literally could not care less what it was. I mean, this is a This is as low stakes as it gets. Asked about what had been taken from her by the events on the Deer Valley slopes, Paltrow delivered the sociopathically straight to meme line. Well, I lost half a day of skiing.

Bear in mind this is a woman who claims that water has feelings. For his part, Terry Sanderson's lawyer put things into perspective by declaring, After the crash, he's no longer charming. We'll come on to the charmicidal maniac slash wronged wellness guru in a moment. First, a reminder that Mr. Sanderson is seeking $300,000 in damages, which, to us, country mice on this side of the Atlantic, feels a little eye-catching. Of course, we have only an outsider's grasp of the Baroque flourishes of the US legal system. But we surely know that any citizen of that great nation, making some kind of personal injury claim, understands that this is America and asks for at least $30 million just as a point of principle. Then again, having watched him, I think I'm on the verge of understanding why Mr. Sanderson

values his lost charm at a mere $300,000. In reality, so well-adjusted is our early 21st century system of social capital that there are a few better ways to accrue charm than from starring in the Gwyneth Paltrow's ski trial. This seems to have been something once dimly grasped by Mr. Sanderson, who emailed his daughters in the immediate wake of the accident, with the possibly unfortunate subject line, I'm famous, at what cost? As for whether the collision put him off skiing ever again, on Monday he revealed he tried not to go back,

but eventually overrode himself and took several skiing trips, albeit dressed in slightly traumatised pause, this ungodly looking red fluorescent outfit that I bought. Stakes, dear boy, stakes. Arguably Terry's most compelling proof that he suffered a brain injury is his choice of lawyer, who makes lines. Colonel Hutz looked like Cicero. At one point in the proceedings, Kristen Van Ornan almost squealed, I am so jealous, I have to wear four-inch heels just to make it to five-foot-five.

They're very nice, lied Gwyneth. You're not trained in accident reconstruction, ran another gambit. Me? asked Gwyneth. No. Neither am I, chortled Kristen. A few years ago, Gwyneth stopped acting to focus on her lifestyle brand goop, and I would be overjoyed if she now stopped that, to focus on starring in court cases serving up this level of farm-to-table hilarity. Private security for my client wanted to bring in treats for the bailiffs for how helpful they've been, announced her lawyer one morning, so I wanted to do that transparently and see if there are any objections. Alas, there were some objections. That basic bitch Lady Justice apparently says Madam can't treatbasket her way out of this one. But you can't keep a good wellness entrepreneur

down. Every aesthetically challenging day in that hideous orange Utah legal facility, Gwyneth has swept in wearing Category 5 neutrals, hopefully drawn from her own brand's courtroom casuals line. Though all Gwynnith's garments are made from the neckhairs of these really incredible Himalayan goats to whose shedings are normie like you could never have access, do be reassured they will be lovingly ripped off in Neverpill Nylon and available later this year as Halloween costumes. Just as Goop is a place where food is never eaten, but instead grabbed or reached for, so it is that one of the best things Gwyneth's website can say about any outfit is that

it takes you effortlessly from one part of your day to another. In this case, from pursing your lips in court to making that evening's waiter give you the resume and achievements of every ingredient in the biodynamic salad before pursing your lips once more and hissing, no thank you, I'll just have broth. As for any lessons that might be drawn from this appallingly entertaining courtroom dramedy, I'm afraid I can only return to an oldie but a goody. Never litigate. Never litigate unless you absolutely positively have to, and as far as anyone can see, Mr. Sanderson didn't have to. We already know what Gwyneth Paltrow's like. But we now know, from Terry's own testimony, that he ordered his former girlfriend to leave him

after he began his legal journey as, I knew she didn't buy into it. My interaction with my family has been difficult, he reflected yesterday. Something is wrong with my essence and what I bring to the table with them. Earlier, one of his daughters had testified that he was obsessed with the trial, while another's deposition declared he was emotionally abusive and quick to anger before the 2016 collision. Whatever the thread count of this dirty linen, is it worth it? For anyone other than the countless mind-boggled spectators, the answer can only be no. Diana's ghost in the crown, darling, what's new? She's the hardest working spectre in showbiz.

17th of October, 2023. Thanks to psychics and Hollywood actors, she's never wanted for work, and she'll be a real vision in Netflix's prestige drama. There is spine-tingling supernatural news from The Crown, a TV show that takes itself considerably more seriously than the actual royal family. This has never been a program that wears the prestige TV label as likely as have other jewels of the era, preferring instead to drag it like a 10-ton weight into every scene, while some of the finest actors of their generations pretend to be things like sad about the news or Princess Anne. Giggling away with a drink and a packet of crisps, I often wonder if I am its only disloyal subject.

Surely not. For a long time, I really couldn't believe anyone took it seriously and assumed it must be in on the joke itself, a Nicholas Cage of a show, if you will. I can't quite decide whether this position has been bolstered or undermined by the high-camp news that the forthcoming final series is to feature the ghost of Princess Diana. According to reports, and it's not out yet, so the usual caveats, the ghost appears to both Prince Charles and the late Queen. The Queen sees her while planning the funeral arrangements and starts crying, having been told she, taught us what it means to be British. To Charles, who is apparently shown sobbing over her body in a Paris morgue, Diana's ghost reportedly says,

Thank you for how you were in the hospital, so raw, broken, and handsome. Ooh. I'll take that with me. You know I loved you so much. So deeply, so painfully, too. That's over now. It will be easier for everyone with me gone. Can this genuinely be the dialogue? I certainly hope so. Having said all that, I have kept a close eye on the appearances of Princess Dyes ghost since her death. I'm not her talent agent or anything. Indeed, the post-death CV I am about to showcase might cause you to wonder if she even has reputable theatrical representation in the afterlife. But once you start, patterns do begin to suggest themselves. One of the most regular jobs Diana's ghost takes, for example, is appearing to actors who are going to play her to communicate how completely okay she is with their decision. And, dare they hint, kind of honoured. Kristen Stewart, who was Diana in the 2021 film Spencer, felt some spooky spiritual feelings making this movie. I felt there were moments where I kind of have got the sign off. It was the same for Naomi Watts, who gave us her Diana in an eponymous

2013 film. There were definitely moments when I felt Diana's presence, explained Watts. I found myself constantly asking for her permission to carry on. There was one particular moment where I felt her permission was granted. Hmm. Elsewhere, Diana's ghost has an eye for an occasion. Before this crown booking, she most recently appeared to, or rather, was heard by. Some viewers, of ITV's broadcast of the Queen's funeral. As the hearse headed out of London towards Windsor, a woman's voice could be heard saying, the death is irreversible,

and the fact that she's trapped, before a male commentator hastily cut in. Really a very competitive booking from ITV there, who do suffer with people reflexively watching the big events on the BBC. Speaking of big events, Diana's former psychic and energy healer, Simone Simmons, is still able to hear her ghost, even over the sound of cash registers. I know a lot of people aren't going to like it,

hazarded Simmons in 2017, but she said we've got to vote for Brexit. Britain was great economically and production-wise before we joined the EU. She was interested in the referendum and suggested I vote to leave because Britain was really great before the EU. Righto.

During COVID, Diana's ghost seems to have fallen in with an Australian anti-masker. Then, in 2018, a Japanese spiritual leader announced the deceased princess had been in touch to reveal that, England will experience another revolution. Also, I prefer Islam. Then again, Diana's a great lover of pubs, frequenting the England's Rose in Oxfordshire, formerly the Feathers, and several others, even if her chat tends towards the predictable. Like many with their gift, is it, psychics frequently reveal that she has told them that Kate is perfect, but she can't be doing with Megan. Not that her royal spectralness is always welcome. A parson was reportedly called to Sandringham in

2001 after the servants refused to work in one chamber. The parson said, wrote the male's long-time royal correspondent Kenneth Rose in volume two of his diaries, 1979 to 2014, that the oppressive or disturbing atmosphere may have been because of Princess Diana. A poor show, but it must be said that workwise, the 2000s for Diana's Ghost, had the humiliating flavour of John Travolta's 1980s. 2003 found her appearing in a pay-per-view seance in the US. The DVD of this television horror show is emblazoned with the words, banned in Great Britain, which would sadly have limited the presumably much-needed royalties

available to its naturalised American presenter, former Avengers star Patrick McNee. McNey certainly looks to be thinking of the paycheck as he watches psychics compete to get the best content from other side die. For someone who in life could pick up the phone to the likes of Elton John or Liza Minnelly for a sensational gossip,

it must feel a bit of a come-down having to spend eternity with only ghastly old chances like these to nata-toe. Diana supposedly appears to one medium couple at the seance who say she's met Mother Teresa. Funny way to put it, given she and Mother Tea met several times in life, but perhaps they'd shared a drink from the River Leithy. Or maybe Mother Tea was just being standoffish about the fact that Diana's death,

five days before her own, ended up completely overshadowing it. That seance came before the era of Prestige TV, of course, meaning it was not inherently classy. Strange now to think back to that benighted time, when actual culture secretaries somehow thought they had better things to do than write to Netflix. I fear a generation of viewers who did not live through these events may mistake fiction for fact, feared Oliver Dowden about the previous series of the Crown. For my part, I fear he is now Deputy Prime Minister.

It would be wonderful to know Diana's view on both that incidental detail and her upcoming appearance in the Crown. And, since she's the afterlife's greatest showbiz trooper, it surely won't be long before we find out. One day, all matters of state will be decided through strictly come dancing. That day seems near. 15th of October, 2024. The Saturday Night staple is no longer just a dance show.

It's a battlefield where political fights and culture wars are waged. Within two years, maybe one, the preeminent mode of political discourse in our society will be things that did, or were things that did, or were. or didn't happen on Strictly Come Dancing. This imperial phase for our culture was actually predicted by Edmund Burke in a sealed section of a vindication of natural society, viewable only by those with a pure heart and the sophisticated conviction that Ballroom has always been war by other means. I think Burke also foresaw Greg Wallace, who will come to in a sec.

As you may know, the top-rated BBC Saturday Night Show has once again been fitted with its row suffix. The latest incident to rock strictly, in the parlance of these things, concerns pro-dancer Katia Jones and Wyn Evans, the guy who plays the opera singer Geo-Compario in the go-compare adverts. And if you gave in to even a twitch of a smile at the thought of contemporary sexual politics being litigated via those proxies, then you should be immediately reclassified into that least-escapable modern category, part of the problem. As for the problem, Is it very bad to have spent two days scrutinising the footage, watching the Rao Mushroom, studying the two separate apology videos for something the pair and insist was a joke,

and still be distinctly unclear on what did or didn't happen? If so, I can only apologise. To briefly summarise, footage from Saturday shows Wynne's hand slightly creeping around Katia's waist, and her moving it back. There also seems to have been a declined high-five. As mentioned, both have since posted video apologies, e-pologies, if you will, saying it was just a silly inside joke. And look, I have a huge amount of time for formal statements containing the words, We were just messing around in the claudatorium.

Likewise, today's official corporation statement about something said in a Mrs. Brown's boys' rehearsal, which declares the BBC against all forms of racism, and sounds like something Derek Zoolander might have on a t-shirt. The Strictly Row has drawn forth all the forces of the pre-industrial woo-woo complex. Take body language expert Judy James, doyen of this venerated science, who is somehow yet to receive the nod from the Nobel Committee. Judy was on hand in the Daily Mail to reveal the true meaning of the pair's joint apology for the joke.

Wyn's smile looks awkward and becomes a teeth-bearing gesture when he opens his mouth to try. to speak, she decrees. His yes, sorry, looks penitent and he finishes with a lip clamp with his mouth pulled down at the corners in a denial ritual. Katia leans into the camera with her brows raised and finishes with clenched teeth. Not to be in a denial ritual, but sorry what? I'm certainly looking forward to Judy being let loose on the concurrent Greg Wallace videos. The Master Chef host also seems to be in some kind of, yes, hot water over on-set jokes and has consequently felt the need to set the record straight. Has he succeeded?

Well, we can probably all agree none of us would wish to have been sitting on our home study yesterday with a selfie stick while saying the words. These allegations were investigated by the BBC six years ago and my comments were found to be not sexual. This sort of thing is normally the prelude to joining substack. Then, this morning, Greg could be found yomping across the field with that same selfie stick, revealing he was stressed but sticking to my healthy lifestyle choices. I really like a mango, I really like a pineapple, I really like a bowl of blueberries.

Greg has himself done strictly, of course, such as the nature of light entertainment cross-pollination. He subsequently revealed of his stint on the show, I was having a really tough time. The side of my face broke out into a rash, like cold sores, but up the side of my face. Unable to go on stage one Saturday night, he summoned a third. therapist to the studio, I got parking for her, only for her to fix him with the words, Greg Wallace, as important as you think you are, nobody gives a shit what you dance like, mate. This wasn't the line he went with after elimination, of course, but arguably she had a point. Yet for something meant to be a bit of fun, strictly can have the flavor of some totalitarian

country's state television, with its nutso apparatus of fervently expressed joy and gratitude, underpinned by beady-eyed artist chaperones and mandated apologies that typically resemble hostage videos. It is getting to the stage this season where I can almost imagine a contestant giving their mind of the slip and defect into I'm a celebrity in the dead of night. Press conference on the Gold Coast Airport tarmac, in which they denounce the warped ideology of the glitter ball, and reveal the existence of a network of tango re-education camps. Perhaps this is one of the downsides of the post-streaming wars world. There is just less television that people gather around at the same time now.

Aside from sport, the formats that still retain the power to bring the nation together in serious numbers, live, also frequently seem to polarise it, or at least become freighted with vastly more meaning than they can possibly bear. Strictly's unasked-for status as the show across which most culture wars must be waged increasingly reminds me of those shudder-inducing stories about battery chickens. These unfortunate creatures are intensively farmed in order to scale them up at unnatural speed, but they still cheap like chicks and have legs that are unable to support the weight of their bodies.

Without wishing to call it too soon, is it just possible that a dancing show is being forced to bear too much cultural weight? I don't expect Stone Cold Truths from a chat show, but Sir Sharona delivered one. 29th of October, 24. The men on Graham Norton's sofa found self-defense a hoot. I'm sure most women have found themselves in that conversation.

In a development that absolutely must not catch on, something interesting has happened on a TV chat show. What a precedent. I'm desperately hoping the entertainment industry rallies round to prevent it ever happening again. We can probably count on it. The dance of all chat shows these days is almost entirely mechanized. You go on, you do your rehearsed anecdotes.

The news that the late Michael Parkinson is being relaunched as an AI barely raises an eyebrow because it's all so synthetic anyway. Therefore, the moments when it isn't take on outsized significance. As you may have guessed, we are talking about last Friday's episode of the Graham Norton show, on which the Blitz star Sir Shoronan appeared as a guest, alongside Gladiated two actors Denzel Washington and Paul Mescal and Day of the Jackson. leading man Eddie Redmayne. We join the sofa as Redmayne is doing an anecdote about how his jackal preparation involved him being trained in self-defense in order to do what Team America would call his acting. Not how Eddie put it, obviously. And yet the reality. Redmayne's revelation that he was shown how to use a phone as a weapon if attacked proves quite the hoot with Mescal riffing on the

absurdity. Who's actually going to do that, though? Norton chiming in and Denzel laughing along. Ronan is trying to say something, but she gets honked over before managing to cut through with a line for the ages. That's what girls have to think about all the time. Oof, the look on the other actor's faces, after Sersha has detonated this chatterside bomb, is hilariously mesmerising, as is the sudden silence, which is split second, but also seems to last 27 years. Ronan obligingly diffuses it by provoking the audience's applause with a rallying, am I right ladies? And then everyone moves on. Well, everyone except the internet, which has been picking over the entrails ever since. The clip itself will be familiar to any woman who has ever wondered

if they can be asked interrupting some self-styled comedy gold happening around them to say something that matters to them. As mentioned, Sersha herself has at least one failed attempt at interjection, before waiting, as one must, and trying again, at which point the guys are having such a rip-roaring time doing their bit that initially they don't appear to realise she has opted not to respond with the time-worn improv gambit, yes, and. Possibly the best part of the entire thing is the moment after, surely a shoe-in for the best silence Oscar. Personally, I'd have liked it to have been broken by Denzel thundering, where is your improv now? But for some reason, such lines, desert are leading men. Court unawares, Red Main offers a sort of one, yes, queen, nod,

but the applause for Ronan is seized on as a natural break, and the conversation moves on without anyone at all discussing by far and away the most fascinating things said on the sofa thus far. But look, I know what you might be thinking, is all this unfair? I mean, they're only on a flipping chat show, aren't they? The trouble is that there are so few of these sorts of moments in the obsessively controlled world of contemporary showbiz, that we are left with the somewhat absurd situation of twats like me, remorselessly analysing this tiny clip, like we're huddled in the White House Situation Room, watching live footage of some sealed team raid on a stronghold and holding our breath for the kill order. And yet, this one proves no less satisfying each time you see it.

Ladies and gentlemen, she got them. No one is suggesting that the male actors and presenter involved deserve some huge backlash for this. What people are saying is that the moment was telling. When clips like this go viral, it's for a reason. For this many civilians to share them, this many female civilians, let's face it, means they instantly saw something they recognized. Most, if not absolutely all women, have been in a version of that conversation in their time, and almost all have not found the precise words to say in the moment it was happening. instead coming up with them either while stewing on the way home or two weeks later in the middle of the night, still stewing. For the right words to be found in the moment on primetime television is a fantasy arguably more powerful than any of the ones the chaps are currently promoting in their movies and prestige TV projects.

No offence to the Roman gladiator, former Roman gladiator turned arms dealer and public school assassin with whom Sersher was sharing the sofa, but Mescal and Washington just got totally colosseumed, while Redmayne took an absolute burn bullet to the forehead. Even now, their publicists will be frantically workshopping reflective answers for pending interviews in which they may be asked about Ronan's point. What makes it somehow more darkly amusing is that these particular three male actors are always projected as being among the good guys of showbiz. And I'm sure they are.

But what they can't do, even with all their combined decades, of acting is think their way into the part of literally any woman in any place, walking home after dark, or going down an almost deserted route on just another day in a lifetime of knowing she could be prey. You get quite good at thinking about how boring little things like phones or keys might be able to defend you in those moments, as any woman will wearily concede. We all dream of the future without this forever hum of fear where we too can join in the absurdist joke. And yes, of course it was all just a joke, but consider the real-life context in which this tiny little sofa vignette occurred. We are a week off a US presidential election in which

the fact that the bookie's favourite has been accused of multiple sexual assaults over multiple decades has not even been an issue. Even with my expectations adjusted to meet the times, it will never not blow my mind that we are going to get to the end of this presidential campaign and the fact that at least 26, 26 women have accused one candidate of sexual assault has not even remotely dominated the news cycle. There has not been one week or even one day in which that message has caught far and everyone has talked of absolutely nothing else. It is just what?

Accepted? Expected? Priced in? Boring? Either way, perhaps it helps explain why many women are not in their best take a joke mood right now. Hats off to Jaguars' inclusive new branding, now people of all backgrounds won't buy its cars. 22nd of November, 2024. In the aftermath of Trump's victory, the ad already looks like a period piece. But aside from that, I mean, seriously? There are many

eve of the offensive conversations I would love to have been a fly on the wall for. Inside the Trojan horse, say, with that ancient Greek SAS unit bantering the day away before busting out for their daring small hours raid. Or inside the Jaguar Marketing Department on the night before their new rebrand, as these crack experiential troops prepared to release this week's new ad on an unsuspecting luxury car market. Picture the champagne corks popping as the socials are time to post the video at the appointed hour. I hope the pre-order guys are ready for an onslaught because we've got Eight capital D diverse models in Category 5 tool, busting out of a pink planet lift, wielding a hammer, and precisely no cars.

Let's make some sales history. Anyhow, arguably it's gone slightly worse than the wooden horse, which, when you think about it, was one of the most successful high-performance vehicles in history slash mythology. Sure, it was oversized, over-reliant on heritage materials, and probably took corners like a supertanker. and yet I defy you not to take your hat off. No one said urban warfare couldn't be quirky and design-led.

Back in the present day, meanwhile, marketing folklore is already building up around the Jaguar campaign, which made its debut this week to reactions ranging from vocal bemusement to vocal derision. As far as I can make out, the best this ads defenders can come up with is that the internet is talking about it, which feels like one of those mad missing a step start-up meme. It's Uber but for socks. It's Airbnb, but for salads. It's SpaceX, but for a weird car you can't buy yet. Not that there aren't various people saying obdurately that they completely love it,

even though it's obviously tired and boring and about as brave as using your platform at the Oscars. But the one thing we can be absolutely sure of is, not a single one of those defenders will be buying a single one of these cars. and, regrettable newsflash, selling cars does remain the core mission of a car company. In fact, hilariously, there aren't even any cars to buy for a while, because Jaguar will now halt output entirely for at least a year, with three new EVs not due for sale till 2026. Those will cost almost double what a current JAG does, with a firm claiming this ad announces its intention to reach younger, richer people, whom it idealizes as cash-reau.

rich, time poor. Hence this, breaking away from the category tropes, which for some reason reminds me of those political activists who tell you that they don't need those old voters, they can get new, better ones. In Adweek, the chief strategy officer of Interbrand was one of those going all counterintuitive, praising Jaguar for showing up like a creative business rather than a car manufacturer. Hmm, this feels like praising a bottom-of-the-table team for showing up like a creative business rather than a football side. The big question is, how on earth did this all happen? Remarkably, there is no rogue outside agency that can be blamed for going off-peast and persuading fusty old Jaguar executives, painfully aware that they are outsold six to one by their Tata Motors' stablemate Land Rover,

to take a last-ditch big swing. Nope, this was all done in-house. But the main culprit is timing. Swings this big take months to be signed off, and back when the concept of this campaign was approved, it must have seemed perfectly of its moment. Various media outlets have dredged up a clip of its mastermind accepting an award just one month ago,

in which he announces, with a distinct air of self-congratulation, that Jaguar has established a full 15 DEI group. Righto, there is something ludicrous about a guy who is poised to roll out cars that are going to start at 100 grand, boasting about being mega-inclusive. It reminds me of the time when Cootte debanked Nigel Farage, stating that they were, above all, committed to being an inclusive organisation. To which the only reply is, you're a private bank where people have to have at least £3 million in cash savings to open a current account. what are you talking about? Do you include low income, middle income, or even the vast majority of high income people? Then honestly, pipe down. Alas, Jaguar seemed to have got the piping down memo too late, declaring this week that this is a reimagining that recaptures the essence of Jaguar,

returning it to the values that once made it so loved, but making it relevant for a contemporary audience. We are creating Jaguar for the future. restoring its status as a brand that enriches the lives of our clients and the Jaguar community. Okay. Although, Counterpoint, you're releasing a tired mess, two weeks post-A Donald Trump election victory, and amid the undeniable sense that there has been a vibe shift in the era of woke capitalism that has perplexed and delighted consumers for the past few years in distinctly unequal measure. In some ways, the timing of this ad calls to mind all.

those Sunday newspaper columns viciously slagging off Princess Diana, that, print lead-in times being what they were, appeared just as the world was waking up to news of her death. There had, to restate the point, been a vibe shift. The effect is to render Jaguar's new ad an instant period piece. Or, to put it another way, while it might have been infinitely less iconic in terms of design, there is a sense in which that lift in the advert really has turned out to be a secret weapon. Trouble is, it's pointing the wrong way. Jaguar have Trojan horse themselves.

It's with love Megan, not just a TV show, but a landmark piece of art, and not in a good way. Fourth of March 2025. A whole political and cultural era is passing, and who better than the Duchess of Sussex as a symbol of all we have left behind? Are Pianney's a life philosophy? Are life philosophies even philosophy? I have to hold on to the idea that they aren't, even in the face of a decade or so of Instagram Blitzkrieg,

most currently in the form of Duchess Megan's new eight-part TV show, which dropped on Netflix first thing this morning. With love, Megan seems to have migrated fully formed from Mark Zuckerberg's social media platform onto Ted Sarandos's streaming service, powered by the hashtags that bypassed the need for joined-up sentences, let alone thinking. Or as her grace explains,

everyone's invited to create wonder in every moment. This is an offer not even promised by most major religions. The mildest way to describe this show is as a ghastly artefact of a particular cultural era that recently met its apocalypse. But more on that later. to anyone who says it's just meant to be fun, bullshit. Netflix reportedly paid $100 million, $78 million, to Prince Harry and the Manic Pixie Dream Duchess, for an overall deal.

So for the streamer, it's meant to make back at least a small amount of the big amount of money they lost when audiences failed to connect with the Sussex author documentaries about Global Justice activists and Polo. For Megan, it's supposed to assist her transformation into a domestic... guru. If you don't mind arching an eyebrow at the lifestyle lunacies of fellow Montecito resident Gwyneth Paltrow, then at least have some consistency and give yourself a pass on this one. This show is sensationally absurd and trite, and if you watch it, you'll know it. Language is either Category 5 Tui or has been reduced to non-sentient baby speak. Good vibes, good hives. Clean, clean, clean, clean. Single skillet spaghetti. I won't labour the 1% of the 1% mood, though someone driving through one of America's most

rarefied billionaire's communities to buy a few hundred dollars worth of flowers while telling you it's the little things that count is obviously ridiculous. As is referring to a bucket as a garbage vessel. Nor will I, as a woman, do more than note that you don't see successful men spending forever on all this stuff. Zuckerberg and Sarandos presumably decided a very little. long time ago, that part of the goal is to not even know where your kitchen is. Of much more interest is how these Insta-Perfect worlds have grabbed people by the throat

and siphoned away so much of their valuable time and attention in recent years. Scrolling the platform or watching Megan's show, they are almost identical sensory experiences, you note how much of the language is explicitly religious. Time is described as sacred, practices are rituals, people are continually feeling blessed. Snacks are an offering, and the emphasis is on honoring this or that. It becomes hard not to see all the flower frogs

and rosemise briggs and garbage vessels as holy kit arranged in esoteric fashion as if to summon a form of peace, or rather hashtag peace. But peace through retail always, even if the product turns out to be you. It's amusing to learn from publicists and Megan herself, that the Duchess's artisan this and that's will be available in the Netflix brick and mortar stores opening this year. Other eras have had their Epicureans or

hedonists, of course, who lived and sometimes died for the ideal of simplicity or pleasure in an epic kind of way. But today's gazillion-strong influencer community has zero intellectual underpinning to it, which is why it's so often the unwitting butt of its own joke. I'm trying to picture Oscar Wild being told that Netflix is going to sell limited edition artisan Oscar Wild buttonholes in its shop, and him just fainting at the obvious horror of it all. Sorry to press an unmodernised yet perfectly adequate word into action, but of course all this stuff is perfectly nice. It's nice if the table is laid nicely. It's lovely if the flowers are lovely. It's caring of you to make people feel cared for, whatever that really means.

I wonder if the truly selfless table-scape actually exists. Megan's entire MO feels desperately compliments to the hostess. As I say, it's all nice, but it's neither a long nor an interesting conversation. At best it should serve as a backdrop to one. And yet, over the past rise of the influencer decade, it seems to have become the conversation. Decades often seem to be about certain things before another defining things sneaks in under the radar. The 2000s seemed to be about celebrity culture and Islamist fundamentalism, but in retrospect, the 2008 financial crash, both its causes and the failure to deliver justice in its aftermath,

was the key event. The 10 years we have just lived through might have seemed to be about social media and what came to be summarized as woke culture, but a global fracturing was stealing in under the radar. It certainly isn't anymore. In fact, watching with love men, Megan early this morning already felt like a past washing over me, so much so that I decided that maybe, and please stay with me for this hot take, maybe Megan has made a landmark TV series after all. Immerse yourself in it for an episode or eight, and you instinctively feel that both the show and the Duchess embody the age that has suddenly become bygone.

And that is the exact feeling that countless people have been experiencing since this year turned, that an era is dying, or rather that it has already died, and suddenly. There were many others that Megan was as good an avatar for it as any, torn between wildly ineffective social justice activism and the narcotising retreat of the peer-need table. But this is now over, and I think we can all feel it in our bones. Rest in peace slash power slash whatever. But Godspeed to something else, something better being born. First it was family, now it's a feud.

But even in meltdown, Brand Beckham is raking it in. 15th of August 2025. Brooklyn and his wife Nicola have fallen out with the rest of the multimedia lifestyle industrial complex. Luckily, it's all being kept very private. What is Brand Beckham? I don't mean to question the very idea of a celebrity brand, far from it. In fact, part of the reason that Celeb Watching Fries is life. like The Brand and Controlling the Narrative have gone completely mainstream

is because of David and Victoria Beckham. So ubiquitous is the professionalisation of celebrity these days and so media literate is the public that it's hard to remember just how revolutionary the Beckham's were in British culture back in the day. 25 years ago, nobody except some rarefied elite publicist wanged on about narratives. But now everyone knows how to read an influencer,

Almost all celebrities are regarded primarily as people who are selling something. Furthermore, people act like mis-selling a lifestyle is worse than several major financial crimes. Anyway, back to the brand. What is the Beckham brand? Not there many specific product brands, nor the many other ones to which they lend their images for advertising. The thing I'm talking about is more like a movie star's screen persona, the unifying characteristic, the theme that permeates all their roles, the magic that fans go back for. In the case of the Beckams, the brand is really their family. Two became six. In the more distant past, this meant Victoria and David selling news of the pregnancies to OK magazine, then selling the first baby photos and so on. In the age of

Instagram, as their children have grown up, it has meant constantly tending this idyllic image by posting private family moments, having everyone show up en masse for the law. of each other's football franchises slash fashion shows slash face primers slash food lines slash 50th birthday marathons and dutifully sending

daily public messages of love, support and thanks to each other across social media platforms where others can see them. Whether it's family or business and sometimes it isn't entirely clear where the dividing line is, it's all very much the family business.

As distilled in David's Netflix documentary self-commissioned, naturally, the messages that no matter what triumph or disaster comes their way, the Beckham family are about each other. Any adversity is folded into their story and ends up being repurposed into lucrative triumph, because this is a family that sticks together and which draws its strength from that. It's aspirational and sometimes charming. It has worked. So what happens when a gaping hole is blown in the idyll? In some of the most eye-popping showbiz news of the summer, it has emerged beyond all doubt that one of the family, first-born Brooklyn, wants nothing to do with the others. If the idea of the feud was

plausibly denial back when Brooklyn and his wife, Nicola Peltz, got married three years ago, it was harder to maintain when the pair didn't show up for any of David's 50th birthday celebrations this May. It is now impossible, following Brooklyn and Nicola's decision to post to Instagram huge numbers of photos of their very recent wedding vow renewal ceremony. Vow renewals, another part of modern celeb culture that didn't really happen before they happened in magazine buy-ups or on social media. Details of the lavish big day? The ceremony was officiated by Nicola's billionaire father, Nelson, and she wore her mother's

wedding dress. Oh, and not a single member of the Beckham family was there, and it said they only found out about it by reading it online. Questions abound from various sides of the fence. To a list of occupations that already includes footballer, photographer, model, monograph, author and chef, is Brooklyn adding hostage? How can the beckhams bear the pain of rejection? Or do people really cut themselves off from highly functional families?

One of Nicola's friends, who attended the ceremony, posted in praise of her having the guts to walk away from a toxic family. Victoria's own self-commissioned Netflix documentary was due to come out this autumn, executive producer David Beckham. How on earth is it going to spin this? Anything other than four hours of open-heart's soul-searching is going to look a bit,

tractor production up in Volgagrad. The cautionary sadness is that these questions can't really be considered invasive because they relate to a show the Beckhams have eagerly invited us to watch at every possible moment. The family has so assidiously cultivated public engagement with their internal dynamics, choosing daily to live out loud across social media for better, but now for worse. It feels a little much to slap the adjective Shakespearean on a story

that involves a guy who once included the worst picture ever taken of an elephant in a coffee table book of his own photography, launch party held at Christie's London, but there is certainly a tragic irony in social media, which the beckhams have hitherto controlled so masterfully, being the place where their schisms were exposed. They were undone by a mission, given that one of the other things our first family have embodied is a complete shift in showbiz journalism.

So much entertainment coverage now comes from passing who is or isn't tagged in Instagram posts, who has stopped following who, who omitted to like this or that. And anyone can do this. this. It's a form of mass cremlinology. At the peak of their tabloid fame, or the first peak, perhaps we should say now, it became commonplace to suggest that in the modern era, the beckhams were our real royal family. They seemed a reaction against all that old blood, that nepo privilege,

that public repression of private truth. But now, well, perhaps some of the plot lines are converging. Perhaps the House of Windsor and the House of Beckham are not so different after all. It's a Brooklyn v. Beckham Inc. disaster. What happens when the elephant in the room goes rogue. 20th of January, 26. Sir David and Victoria cornered the market in selling their family's privacy for money, but there was a price to pay, and Brooklyn Pelt's Beckham has just sent them the bill. The way In 202026 has started, none of us wants to see the word nuclear in a headline, so on some level you have to feel glad that last night's news alerts announcing in real time that someone goes nuclear and launches nuclear attack related to Brooklyn Peltz Beckham.

At the time of writing, the story about his Instagram broadside against his parents, David and Victoria Beckham, accusing them of treating him as a commercial prop all his life, was by far, far and away the best read on the Guardian website, as well as the most deeply read. Again, I'm glad this blow-up wasn't used as geopolitical cover, because if ever there was a time for Trump to invade Greenland, largely unnoticed, maybe this was it. Whoever wrote Brooklyn's Intercontinental Ballistic Instagram, and it wasn't the child-like authorial voice behind the regular, I always choose you, baby, me and you forever, baby, posts to his wife, the sentiments will be his. Here's a sample.

My family values public promotion and endorsements above all else. Brand Beckham comes first. Family, love, is decided by how much you post on social media or how quickly you drop everything to show up and pose for a family photo op. Wow, elephants. Brooklyn Beckham can't photograph them, but he sure can't address them when they're in the room. If you watch Victoria Beckham's lavishly produced Netflix documentary last October, you might have wondered why it didn't even glance at the biggest elephant in Brown Beckham's

room, the clear and agonizing no-contact rift with their eldest son that has been festering since last year and beyond. But most big documentaries these days aren't documentaries in the way previous practitioners of the craft might have understood the word. As her husband's was before it, Victoria's doc was a self-commissioned advertorial on which the subject also served as executive producer. This is the Hote version of the curated, public-facing existence that defines our dysfunctional age, but it trickles all the way down via fourth-tier influencers and that friend of yours who can't stop posting about her perfect life. The Beckham's, at the vanguard of celebrity culture ever since both it and they exploded in the late 1990s, are a part of how we all got here.

Before I go on, I should say I find this family rift desperately sad. I can't imagine the agony of being cut off by a child, and I hope I never have to even contemplate the possibility. All parents make mistakes, and all children do too. I believe the beckham's truly and deeply love their children, but, to adapt Logan Roy, they have made it hard for them to be serious people. Brooklyn has been commodified since he was a fetus. The story of Victoria's pregnancy was sold by his parents. When he was born, David and Victoria sold the first pictures of him. They sold intimate looks around their home and his nursery. They sold their wedding, staying up till 3am on the night of that big day, deciding which pictures would be featured in OK

magazine. They sold everything, mostly back then to OK. Its proprietor, Richard Desmond, wrote in his autobiography about spending what felt like every Friday with the young couple at Victoria's parents' house, where they would all plot and plan the next features we'd do. A huge check was always involved, and the beckhams wanted the limelight, all of it so much. But as time went on, David and Victoria acquired more sophisticated advisors, who understood the rapidly morphing potential of controlling image and brand, and built a vast, diversified empire for them off the back of it. When social media came along, the beckhams channeled their business through its pipes. As I've written here before, they were past masters at not simply turning to their children and telling them

they loved them, but photographing them, tagging them, and sending the message of love via social media. Alchemically lucrative, but an accident waiting to happen? I honestly think the beckoms are now so lost to this commercialised version of family life that they probably long ago lost the ability to comprehend how weird and potentially corrosive it is. I keep thinking of the line in Goodfellers, where the mafia wife Karen says, and after a while it got to be all normal. And maybe there is something rather, family with a capital F about the Beckham mob. The trouble is, with families not being meritocracies, every now and then the gene pool is going to throw up a Fredo Corleone or a Christopher

Maltesanti who just isn't suited to the weird life and can only play out as a liability. Again, as covered here before, it has happened a couple of times with that other deeply strange family business, the Windsors. The Windsors, of course, don't have a choice. The Beckham's wealth is estimated at about half a billion pounds. That is more money than even they could ever spend, and the only truly credible explanation for why they continue to live their life so remorselessly out loud is because they still crave the attention.

And, realistically, because they have forgotten how else to live. They are the unicorns of this lifestyle, but not exactly alone. Some of us have always been Instagram and Facebook Refusenix, and never publicly post pictures of our lives or families or any of it. But it's not the norm, and billions of people have entirely forgivably been sucked into a world where they are the product, where they work for free for the tech lords, who successfully devalued the idea of privacy at the altar of their big lie, that being connected via their networks is far more important than privacy, that it is a win for humanity, that it is social.

But it isn't. societies are in a mess, literacy's in a mess, young people's mental health is in a mess. The world is in far more of a mess than it was when the tech lords found it. I see Kirstama's thinking about banning social media for under 16s, so maybe someone could stick an amendment on any bill, banning parents from plastering their kids all over it from the moment they're born. Maybe they can't meaningfully consent to working in Mark Zuckerberg's content minds

any more than celebrity kids can meaningfully consent to being monetised by their parents. Or maybe all those ships have sailed. As for what David and Victoria Beckham will do, David was pictured at Davos this morning, encouraging times, but clearly they will also be locked in crisis talks, and my bet is that they'll issue a statement saying how much they love Brooklyn and always will, and something like how there will always be a place waiting for him at their family table. and I truly believe all that. As someone behind the scenes will say, as the team approves it, it's authentic.

But even that word has been corrupted, hasn't it? It has come to suggest a monetisable easy charm, an ability to make staged commercial situations seem appealing, an instinctive capability of embodying a brand or a lifestyle. We live in an age of dangerous slippage, from private to public, from living to trading, from the idea of ourselves as agents of free will to us becoming unpaid and unwitting products.

Not to interrupt his brief main character moment, but Brooklyn Beckham's the least of it.