The Kate saga exposes the madness of modern America

Absurd conspiracy theories about the Princess of Wales have poured out of the gutter of US social media

The last thing the world needs is another column about the Kate photo saga, I told myself: famous last words. Of course, it’s true. Enough armchair experts have spent the past week or so picking apart every aspect of what is or isn’t a hand. But as so often with the teacup storms of the news cycle, the reaction was more interesting. For evidence that the world has gone mad, you could do worse than take a deep dive into the lore now surrounding the wider story.

Theories have ranged from the boring to the bonkers: there was speculation that the Princess of Wales had employed a body double to go to the farm shop. Others wondered if Catherine had converted to Islam and gone into hiding. “Inshallah they find her,” prayed one social-media user. The “Lizardmen” brigade’s time had come.

On one level, this is nothing new, given the royals’ unique ability to inspire nutty conspiracy theories. Wacky ideas about them have been stock in trade for centuries. From

“Anne Boleyn had six fingers’’ to “Diana wuz murdered” or the sublimely farcical “James II’S baby was smuggled into the birthing chamber in a bedpan”: people have always believed the unbelievable, the unlikely and the downright weird about the royals.

But this has felt subtly different. The internet – and especially Americans on the internet – have taken things to the next level. There’s an irony to where many of these conspiracies originate, recalling Samuel Johnson’s quip about the US War of Independence – “How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?” We might say: “How is it that we read the most deranged tweets from people who claim not to care, or want, a Royal family?” Perversely, the global interest in the saga indicates the institution’s abiding soft power. Few politicians can command a fraction of this obsession.

Supposedly respectable people are getting in on it, too. Neoconservative writer Bill Kristol jokingly (I hope) called for “a total and complete shutdown of the Royal family until we can figure out what’s going on”. An academic at Penn State University speculated about whether the Prince of Wales had ordered the murder of his wife, My Last Duchess style. As a friend remarked, “they must choose professors differently in the States”.

To most of us, this represents “rolling around in your own urine in a Tube carriage” levels of insanity; no longer the homegrown slightly camp delusions of yore but violently bonkers suggestions which make Q-anon look like the Royal Society.

Much of this indicates the brain rot that has infected many issues in America. But the serious side to this includes our vulnerability to attempts to delegitimise the British state or even the Crown itself. The Russians spread conspiracy theories that the King had died on St Patrick’s Day, in what was presumably a deliberate effort to destabilise a key ally of Ukraine and perhaps, inflame tensions in Ireland, too. The reaction also reveals a real problem in the online world; where spitefulness and schadenfreude dominate and the self-righteous usually prove the most abusive.

Kate will return, the Crown will survive, but the way this has morphed into a grubby obsession shows the internet at its sewer-like worst. Unhinged as these theories may seem, we indulge them at our peril.

 Is that a puff of white smoke from the Eon Productions chimney? Aaron Taylor-johnson, the star of Kick-ass and noughties classic Angus,

Thongs and Perfect Snogging, has reportedly received a firm offer to be the next James Bond. I am mostly grateful that Taylor-johnson is slightly older than me. It is a sobering moment when you realise that most footballers are not only younger than you, but can’t remember 9/11 or the Teletubbies.

Like all actors working nowadays, Taylor-johnson is incredibly hench. We rarely see that once-prized body type, the English gentleman, in the mould of Roger Moore, Timothy

Dalton or David Niven. They were svelte rather than stacked, with a physique that implied a level of healthy exercise rather than living in a windowless room pumping iron. They favoured proper tailoring, too: you wouldn’t catch them bulging out of an ill-fitting suit on the red carpet.

Alas, that ship has probably sailed. With the exception of Timothée Chalamet, Hollywood’s new normal is to be unfeasibly jacked. Sean Connery probably wouldn’t even be considered muscular nowadays, despite once being a bodybuilder.

But these are secondary concerns. What I most want to see in a new Bond is someone with a deep appreciation of the franchise. Recent outings have unpicked the series to deadening effect. Charlie Higson’s Bond remake novel recasts the character as a dreary centrist dad who frets about diversity and his gut biome. Cary Fukunaga, who directed the cinematic sludge known as No Time to Die, branded Bond a rapist. Dr No Means No, apparently.

Witnessing a beloved series in the hands of people with nothing but contempt for it recalls Evelyn Waugh’s dismissal of Stephen Spender: “To see him fumbling with our rich and delicate language is to experience all the horror of seeing a Sèvres vase in the hands of a chimpanzee.” It is like when people who clearly loathe classical art are hired to curate iconic national exhibitions.

So forget the pecs and eye-watering stunts, here’s the multi-million pound question – does the new Bond actually like Bond?