3 hours ago
3
Monday
I was going to start with the Middle East, but let’s give ourselves a break and, instead, do the final of Crufts from last night. Crufts! As soothing as the Olympics but with lower stakes and cuter contestants. When I was in my first year of high school, my best friend and I used to “play Crufts” – look, it was a different time; at least we weren’t pretending to be on horseback – which entailed someone being the presenter and someone the dog lady, and when the presenter shrilled, “and it’s the Westie! The Westie has won Crufts 1990!” the dog lady had to take off around the living room, leash held high while the crowd went wild.
I hadn’t really watched Crufts since then, but on Sunday night I had it on in the background and we all got sucked in. My kids had never seen a dog show before, let alone the GREATEST DOG SHOW ON EARTH, and what a moment it was for them, being put through their paces with the invitation to say things like, “oh, look, a pomeranian”, and ask the question all new initiates to the dog show must ask: “Why is that man running like that?” Because, my darlings, it’s Crufts; they all run like that.
By the way, for years after we grew up, my mother and I would still, when triggered, exclaim, “and it’s the Westie!” to each other; that is the enduring power of Crufts and I couldn’t be happier to have found my way home. The championship title this year went to that right big fluffy one that the crowd loved and we loved him, too, and when the presenter boomed, “and it’s the clumber spaniel! The clumber spaniel has won Crufts 2026!” we shrieked with joy. What a time to be alive.
Tuesday
Hat tip to Krishnan Guru-Murthy for his reference on Tuesday night to Iran’s new “nepo-ayatollah”, not a bad joke for the news and eked from extremely unpromising material. While the carnage grinds on and the war footage piles up, so too does that other staple of television news during any sudden conflict in a country where Brits go on package holidays: shots of hapless tourists, yanked back from the beach by the intrusion of geopolitics into their week in the sun, and jumped on by cameras at arrivals.
Here we are at Luton airport, where TV reporters capture a stream of returnees dragging their wheelie suitcases across the concourse and looking startled to report the sight of rockets flying over their hotels. Not only were these poor Brits caught up in a war, but they returned home to the sudden sea change in public opinion towards people who travel to or live in that part of the world.
Once a high-end-seeming destination of choice, now here’s Ed Davey in the Commons referring to expats living in Dubai as “washed-up old footballers and tax exiles”. And the average punters haven’t entirely escaped, either; there is a lot of chat going around about the gormlessness of holidaymakers who travel to Dubai on the assumption it’s exactly like Greece or Spain, except cheaper. Turns out – who knew? – it was actually in the volatile Middle East the whole time!
Wednesday
Oh, Chalamet; now what have you done? In a recent event with Matthew McConaughey he made the remark that ballet and opera are niche interests that “no one cares about any more”, adding that get-out-of-jail-free afterthought that always works when you’ve said something insulting: “All respect to all the ballet and opera people out there.”
The response has been more enjoyable than Marty Supreme and, thanks to the young people in charge of the US’s largest cultural institutions’ social media feeds, it just keeps going. At the Metropolitan Opera in New York, a video uploaded to Instagram showed off the efforts of hundreds of people backstage before a major production, while the words “all respect to the opera (and ballet) people out there” flashed across the screen. It racked up almost half a million likes and 6.5m views, while in the comments, up popped the Guggenheim, the Brooklyn Museum and one of the stars of Operation Mincemeat on Broadway.
Meanwhile, over at the Seattle Opera, this post on social media: “All we’ve got to say is … use promo code TIMOTHEE to save 14% off select seats for Carmen.” My favourite pushback, however, was from Afonso Coelho, a dancer with the Royal Danish Ballet, who posted a 30-second clip of himself doing the most beautiful, mind-blowing ballet, like a representative from a superior branch of humankind. “Your turn,” he wrote, to Chalamet.
Thursday
New updates in the Carolyn Bessette/JFK Jr discourse in the form of an angry diatribe published in the New York Times by the actor Daryl Hannah, who is depicted in the first half of the Hulu series as JFK Jr’s girlfriend before he met Bessette, and to call the role unflattering would be an understatement. In the show, which has been causing uproar in the US, mostly for good reasons – the fashion, the 90s innocence – Hannah is portrayed as a grasping coke addict who Jackie O can’t stand.
“The actions and behaviours attributed to me are untrue,” writes Hannah. “I have never used cocaine in my life or hosted cocaine-fuelled parties. I have never pressured anyone into marriage. I have never desecrated any family heirloom or intruded upon anyone’s private memorial. I have never planted any story in the press. I never compared Jacqueline Onassis’ death to a dog’s.”
Friday
Rigorous Oscars prep in the form of a thorough snack audit – reminder to get in more Jaffa Cakes before the ceremony on Sunday – and a last-minute effort to catch up on the films I haven’t seen, including Hamnet and Train Dreams (although, shamefully, I’m more in the mood for F1). Everyone, meanwhile, should watch every movie in the documentary category, but especially The Alabama Solution and The Perfect Neighbour, and spend the weekend kidding themselves, as I will, that they’ll stay up long enough to see even the first five minutes of the opening monologue. Happy Oscars!
