Samuel Beckett’s writing the scripts for Keanu now, and even he couldn’t better the latest news from the Magic Circle

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.

After the apparent defanging of the once critical talkshow host, can the president get more stars onside? Some nuts will be tougher to crack than others

If President Trump invited you to the White House, would you go? This is the question US hacks and other media personalities have been asking themselves since the inauguration, an American version of that self-flattering British perennial: when Buckingham Palace calls, will you be buying a fascinator to accept the OBE? In both cases, no matter how pluckily anti-establishment an individual may have been to that point, the answer is often a resounding: you bet!

First, the rationalisations. In the US context, respect for the “office of the president”, for which there is no British equivalent that doesn’t prompt sniggering, is taken seriously enough that if the president calls, you don’t turn him down. There’s the standard argument in favour of engagement over boycott as a more constructive path to account-holding. And there is, for hacks, the perfectly reasonable rationale of pursuing the story. Of course, you’re going to say yes if Trump calls. How could you not?

Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist