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Monday
I did what a lot of people did on hearing news of the death of Pope Francis on Monday: I watched Conclave. The Oscar nominated movie, adapted from the Robert Harris novel, unpacks the process of electing a new pope and between Sunday and Monday, it enjoyed a 283% surge in streaming figures. I’d like to say it deepened my understanding of life in the Vatican, but the truth is it just made me wish we could have Ralph Fiennes for pope, while reminding me – I’m not alone in this – that we’ve seen quite enough of Stanley Tucci for the time being.
The Pope’s demise was foreshadowed by an event that, like a plague of locusts, should trigger anticipatory dread in any context, which is the appearance of JD Vance. Vance, the US vice president and a Catholic convert, was granted a brief audience with the Pope on Easter Sunday, after what People magazine described as his “brushing off” by the pontiff the day before. After the vice president’s departure, the Pope delivered his Easter address via an aide, which included the line, “how much contempt is stirred up at times towards the vulnerable, the marginalised, and migrants!” – surely a one star Yelp review directed at the second most powerful man in the world.
Now we must wait; for the funeral on Saturday, followed by the puff of white smoke to indicate the election of a new pope, a reminder that the Catholic church never short changes on theatrics. Among the handful of lead contenders we are, of course, feverishly hoping for success for the candidate with the name that’s a small but perfect gift from God: Italian cardinal and top Vatican official to the Middle East, Pierbattista Pizzaballa.
Tuesday
Sometimes life rewards us with just the thing we need at exactly the point when we need it and this week it’s the announcement that Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter will revive their turn as Bill and Ted, only this time in a Broadway production of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot.
The double act, over 30 years on from the original Bill and Ted movie, are surely perfectly suited to play Beckett’s absurdist characters Vladimir (Alex) and Estragon (Reeves), a whimsical piece of casting for a play that will open at the Hudson theatre in New York in September for a limited run through January. I last saw the play over 10 years ago on Broadway in a production starring Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart. It was mainly very good, while also suffering from a phenomenon that occasionally strikes when very famous actors take to the stage: that is the delight the actors took in the delight of the audience occasionally poked a hole in the drama. Let’s hope John Wick-does-Beckett – a premise I couldn’t love more – avoids too much smirking self-reference.
Wednesday
Where do the words “the Magic Circle” take you? If you’re under 40, probably nowhere. But for anyone older, news this week of a long overdue resolution to a 34-year-old injustice among this country’s professional magicians, summoned an avalanche of images.
In 1991, a woman called Sophie Lloyd disguised herself as a man to trick Magic Circle examiners into admitting her into the male-only society. Later that year, when the Magic Circle changed its rules and admitted its first woman member – Debbie McGee! Wife of Paul Daniels! – Lloyd unveiled her deception, and the Circle elders were so furious they ejected her. Until this week, that is, when the Circle tracked Lloyd down, apologised, and presented her with membership.
Lloyd was delightful on the Today programme and the entire episode has been borne along on winds of eccentricity Samuel Beckett himself couldn’t have improved upon. And while there’s no explaining to the uninitiated what it all means, I urge the young and curious to find the nearest person with bags under their eyes, say the word “Wizbit” and watch them go. (“Ha ha this away, ha ha that away” – sad to imagine what had to be displaced in my psyche in order for this to hang on for four decades like knotweed).
Thursday
Kristi Noem, famous for killing her dog and also being Trump’s head of Homeland Security, had her bag stolen this week from under her chair in a restaurant in Washington DC and the startling detail is it contained $3,000 in cash. (The bag also contained her drivers’ license and a bunch of blank cheques). Brilliantly, none of the Secret Service agents present in the room noticed the theft.
Via a spokesman, Noem, who recently visited a prison facility wearing a $50,000 gold Rolex, explained why she had such a large amount of cash on her person. “Her entire family was in town including her children and grandchildren. She was using the withdrawal to treat her family to dinner, activities and Easter gifts.” This is all very well but, as we know, were Noem a random Salvadoran man with tattoos living in Maryland with this kind of cash on her, she’d currently be sitting in a notorious prison in El-Salvador.
Friday
Do you remember in 2016 when Priscilla Chan, wife of Mark Zuckerberg, opened a tuition-free private school in Palo Alto dedicated to serving low income kids from communities of colour? It was called the Primary School and was, per reporting in the New York Times, committed to “identity development, diverse cultures and ideas,” as well as social justice and a DEI task force.
Anyway it’s closing. Flabbergasted parents were summoned to a meeting this week and told the school wouldn’t operate beyond the summer of 2026, while being given no reason. “Mommy, the guy who’s been giving money to our school doesn’t want to give it to us anymore,” one kindergartner was reported as saying, a reminder that in this current vibe shift there is no target too little.
