The Italians have a wonderful saying: ‘Natale con I tuoi, capo d’anno con chi vuoi’, which loosely translated to ‘Christmas with you and yours, New Year with whomever you like’, only of course in Italian it has a rather pleasing rhyme to it.
In other words, duty first, fun later. Brooklyn Beckham may wish to reflect on this, as he prepares to spend Christmas estranged from his parents and siblings.
Christmas is a time of year where families, even the most dysfunctional, come together. I know this can be hard, but at the end of the day, unless there’s a really good reason not to, you have to bite your tongue and make the effort.
I speak as someone who’s not keen on Christmas. All the pressure, all the fuss, all the expense: it’s absurd. As to happy family Christmasses, for some reason disaster always seems to strike.
One year, I managed to break my arm while walking the dog; this year, I’ve dislocated a rib while moving a bed, which is jolly painful; a few years ago, I spent Christmas eve in hospital with my son after he tripped over the tree and went through a plate glass window, only narrowly missing an artery: 90-odd stitches.
Elsewhere, the annals of Vine family Chrismasses are peppered with tales of excessive drunkenness, petty rivalries and general discord.
All of which perhaps explains why these days I just slope off to the pub on Christmas day. I figure that if I take the cooking sherry and carving knives out of the equation, there’s less chance of spending the afternoon in A&E.
So I must confess I have some sympathy for Brooklyn, eldest child of Sir David and Lady Beckham, who appears to have checked out entirely from his family’s celebrations.
Brooklyn Beckham with his wife Nicola Peltz Beckham in Abu Dhabi… he appears to have checked out entirely from his family’s celebrations, writes Sarah Vine
David Beckham and Victoria at a football game in the US earlier this year
The Beckham clan last year… from left to right, Cruz, Romeo, Brooklyn, Harper, Sir David, Victoria and Nicola
It’s not unreasonable for him to want a break from his family now that he’s an adult and married, especially since his new wife and his mother don’t appear to be best of friends.
I remember that awkward emotional tug-of-war only too clearly: my ex-husband and my father didn’t exactly see eye-to-eye, and it was quite hairy at times.
And let’s face it, his parents are quite overbearing. They can’t really help it, what with being who they are.
Sometimes as a young adult you just want to be your own person, not ‘child of’, or ‘daughter-in-law-of’. Perhaps the young Brooklyn, so often pilloried and criticised for being a nepo-baby, is trying to strike out on his own.
So: like I say, a degree of sympathy. But what I really can’t understand – and is quite unforgiveable – is why he’s going about it in such an awfully antagonistic way.
He is, I’m afraid, behaving like the most appallingly attention-seeking, ungrateful brat. He has blocked his entire family from Instagram.
He’s also blocked close family friends Gordon and Tana Ramsay – and won’t be attending the imminent wedding of their daughter Holly to Olympic swimmer Adam Peaty (itself shaping up to be a right ding-dong, given the in-fighting between Peaty and his parents).
And all, apparently, over a chicken. In one of his cooking videos on Instagram, he showed his 16 million followers (who all, no doubt, follow him for his own genius and nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that his parents are famous) how to brine a bird.
The Beckhams in their Christmas pyjamas
Brooklyn and Nicola in Los Angeles… is Brooklyn, so often pilloried and criticised for being a nepo-baby, trying to strike out on his own, asks Sarah Vine
And the couple at an after party for Burberry’s 2025 winter fashion show in London
His mother, as mothers do, liked his post – and then some of his followers started urging him to get in touch. So he had some kind of strop, and blocked his family.
Slight overreaction, you might think. But then apparently, he and Nicola find his family’s social media posts ‘anxiety inducing’.
According to ‘a friend’ of the couple, they ‘wake up worrying what might have been posted about them overnight’. Talk about First World problems.
If he thinks his mum liking one of his posts is some kind of micro-aggression then he really is a ridiculous flake.
Either that, or his spoilt little princess of a wife (Nicola Peltz, another nepo-baby) has got him by the short and curlies, in which case no wonder his parents are so worried about him.
The Beckhams really have given their children, and especially their eldest, every advantage.
In Brooklyn’s case, there was the photography book, the Christie’s exhibition that went along with it, the work experience with Rankin, all the many contacts they used to get him a leg up.
It’s not unreasonable for them to expect a bit of gratitude, or for that matter a bit of filial loyalty. After all, does Brooklyn really think that the young Miss Peltz would have given him a second glance were it not for his parents’ wealth, fame and connections? I very much doubt it.
Perhaps he needs a reality check. If I were David and Victoria I would stop being so nice and give him a taste of his own medicine and cut him off socially. Let’s see how long he lasts in the real world without their money or support. I’ll wager that come next Christmas he’ll be back in the fold.
A hilarious video of Cilla Black singing Lionel Richie’s hit All Night Long from 1983 has gone viral
All Fright Long! Cilla goes viral
Cilla Black has become a posthumous internet star after an unintentionally hilarious video of her singing Lionel Richie’s hit All Night Long from 1983 went viral. Swathed in what looks like tin-foil, she delivers a cheesy rendition of the original, surrounded by awkward teenagers dressed in some middle-aged producer’s idea of ‘cool’, performing zombie-like dance moves around a Christmas tree. At the time, that kind of thing seemed normal – now, of course, it looks like the opening scene of a rather disturbing horror movie.
The Government will no doubt be patting itself on the back for its U-turn on the inheritance tax for farmers (they’ve increased the threshold from £1million to £2.5million), but they’re not fooling anyone.
It’s abundantly clear they have no real sympathy for the challenges facing rural communities, or any understanding of how important certain traditions are within those communities. We now live in a world where the Journal of Medical Ethics sees fit to publish a scholarly article making the case for FGM (female genital mutilation), while historical countryside traditions such as hunting with hounds are vilified and banned.
Call me old-fashioned, but I’ll take foxhunting over slicing up little girls’ genitals any day.
‘A’ Ghislaine mystery
More Epstein revelations, including emails between Ghislaine Maxwell and a mysterious person at Balmoral whose name begins with ‘A’ relating to a desire to be introduced to ‘some new inappropriate friends’.
The same ‘A’ also complains of the loss of his valet, who has been with him since the age of two. ‘I am a little off balance as not only has my office been restructured, I have left the RN and now my whole life is in turmoil as I have no one to look after me,’ he whines.
Hmm. How many sailors do you know who can’t wash their own socks?
A Palestinian militant who livestreamed his illegal entry to the UK on TikTok and has called for the slaughter of Jews has been inexplicably released early from prison. Abu Wadee, who shares a picture of himself posing with a cigarette and a machine gun on Facebook, appears to have been an active member of the ‘tyre burning’ unit extremists in Gaza, and has voiced support for one of the terror factions that carried out the October 7 massacre.
Given his hatred for Israel and Jews, one has to wonder why he is seeking asylum in Britain – unless, of course, months of hate marches by useful idiots such as Palestine Action have somehow given this scumbag the impression those sorts of views are welcome here.
More than 1,000 pubs have barred Labour politicians in protest at increased business rates – including several in Rachel Reeves’ constituency. Pubs have been struggling over the past few years. Could this be the stroke of genius that finally gets punters flocking back?
A train driver on £80,000 is classified as ‘working class’, while a resident doctor on half that is ‘middle class’, and therefore barred from the Government’s social re-engineering projects, such as fast-tracking their offspring into the civil service. Only a Government as idiotic as this one could create a new breed of nepo-babies based on the politics of envy.
