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Wednesday

Travis Aaroe

The spies who are loved

One consequence of Trumpism has been the open entry of America’s national security state into politics. Former spies and generals such as Mark Milley, James Comey, Elissa Slotkin, Robert Mueller and Alexander and Eugene Vindman are all offered to us as stately and apolitical figures who have, in extremis, bestirred themselves in defense of the republic. America’s governing class increasingly relies on such people to lead it, as Virginia’s new Governor Abigail Spanberger shows.  They have evolved a distinct rhetorical style. With the exception of Milley these people pose as scrupulously neutral bureaucrats who have, in a quivering way, finally raised a voice in protest. “This president is unethical, and untethered

james comey spies
finland
Patrick West

Finland’s sad secret to happiness

In recent years it’s become a hackneyed truism that Nordic nations have found the key to happiness. The Danes, who often take first place in global rankings for mental wellbeing, pride themselves on hygge, that feeling of coziness evoked by wrapping oneself in blankets and being surrounded by candles. The Swedes promote lagom, the concept of the optimal medium. And while the Finns also appear to be satisfied with their lot – Finland came first in this year’s World Happiness Report for the ninth time in a row – they have no well-known term that encapsulates their attitude to life. In the spirit of Nordic one-upmanship, however, that could be

Monday

Rob Crossan

My Chernobyl holiday

There are few things that look sadder than an abandoned sports field. I spent longer than I meant to sitting on a decaying bench looking out over the forest that was once the intended playing surface for the Stroitel Pripyat soccer club. The sky above was cerulean, cloudless and entirely still. The only life came from my hand-held Geiger counter which spluttered and crackled, telling me that I was in a territory that wasn’t fit for a stroll, let alone 90 minutes of lung-bursting athleticism.  This is the only place in Europe where we can, firsthand, witness what a post-nuclear conflict world would look like Stroitel Pripyat ceased to be a club 30 years ago, just as they were about to move into the purpose-built Avanhard Stadium where I sat that afternoon. It was only

Tuesday

Catriona Olding

Why gingers have more fun (genetically at least)

Contrary to what we redheads have been led to believe, we are not disappearing. Our numbers have increased in the past 10,000 years, according to a recent Harvard study. What’s more, researchers found, being ginger may actually be desirable as far as natural selection is concerned because “having red hair was beneficial 4,000 years ago.” The reason why has yet to be discovered. But it’s good news for the class bully, producers of sunscreen and those – like me – who’ve had a love-hate relationship with the variants in their MC1R gene which leads to red hair and pale skin. I was an extreme redhead as a child growing up

William Atkinson

Britain should take Prince Harry back

“It won’t last,” my schoolfriend Albert told me, as we staggered down London’s Embankment one summer evening in 2018, a few pints into his birthday pub crawl. I wasn’t sure as to what he was referring. The evening twilight? His youthful good looks? Our ability to walk in a straight line? He expanded: “Harry and Meghan. She’s not right for him. They’ll be divorced within five years. Just you wait.” Then he burped. I was surprised by Albert’s comments. I, like tens of millions of other viewers, had been taken in by the royal wedding weeks before. Yes, the presence of Oprah Winfrey and an over-enthusiastic American preacher had been

Thursday

Gavin Mortimer

The populist, the princess and a very French love story

Princess Maria Carolina de Bourbon des Deux-Siciles isn’t a name that rolls off the tongue – but it’s now on the lips of every socialite and political pundit in France. The 22-year-old Italian aristocrat, who is the elder daughter of the Duke of Castro, was splashed across the cover of gossip magazine Paris Match last week, gazing into the eyes of her new beau. Was he notable for being a duke, a prince or another such member of the hereditary elite? Not at all. The suitor in question was Jordan Bardella: the right-wing powerhouse whom polls suggest will succeed Emmanuel Macron as French president next year.  In an interview with

Wednesday

Gary Dexter

Meet the humans training robots at the ‘arm farm’

AI is set to take over all cognitive tasks in the next few years. Your hard-won career as a paralegal, data analyst, radiologist, coder or novelist is about to be hacked out from under you. So far, so apocalyptic. But what about the jobs that are primarily embodied? Sous-chef, rehabilitation nurse, plumber, dog-trainer? These are expected to lag behind, awaiting the next generation of robots. But there is an important further question. Who will train these robots? Answer: you will.  This is the concept of the arm farm. On an arm farm, practitioners of the aforementioned jobs – chefs, nurses, plumbers etc. – wear Go-pro helmets, pressure-sensitive gloves, even full motion-capture rigs, and do the

Thursday

Michael Evans

Get ready for Epic Fury Part II

It could be the shortest negotiation in history. The United States and Iran, with their respective peace plans, are so far apart that it’s difficult to see how their differences can ever be squared.  A two-week ceasefire, which has already been broken, brought relief after five weeks of war and steadied the oil and stock markets. But the agreed ceasefire is looking fragile, as US Vice President J.D. Vance admitted. There had been “legitimate misunderstanding,” he said yesterday, over whether the ceasefire extended to Israeli action in Lebanon. Iran is beginning the peace negotiations by ignoring the realities of what Trump has achieved in the past five weeks If there

Tuesday

Gavin Mortimer

Céline Dion doesn’t do politics

It’s the most talked about comeback in France since Charles de Gaulle came out of retirement in 1958. The general may have launched the Fifth Republic, but Céline Dion is limiting herself to ten evenings at the Paris La Défense Arena between September 12 and October 14. Dion is French Canadian, but the French have adopted her as their own, as they did with the Belgian Jacques Brel and Britain’s Jane Birkin.  Dion has been plagued by ill-health in recent years – suffering from an incurable autoimmune condition called Stiff Person Syndrome – and hasn’t sung live for six years. She made an exception for the 2024 Paris Olympics, appearing briefly to sing “Hymne à l’amour” at the Opening Ceremony, but the ten dates

Friday

Cockburn

DC’s rat genocide

Like Amsterdam, like New York City, Washington is a rat city. Old buildings and moisture create the conditions for them to thrive. Rats provide the midsized city with classical urban charm. On the other hand, they’re vermin. As of this week, it’s official: DC Health is putting rats on the pill. The agency is planning to put “edible fertility control bait in areas prone to large numbers of rats.” Cockburn wonders if putting rodents on birth control is a little like attempting a regime change in a foreign nation. How much do we actually know about the delicate balance of the ecosystem? If we sterilize the rats, what comes next?

Tuesday

Cockburn

Happy Trans Day of Visibility, Bryon Noem!

Kristi Noem has just started her new role as Special Envoy for the Shield of the Americas. She might need even more protection than a mere shield. The Daily Mail (who else?) this morning published bombshell photos and messages of her husband Bryon, wearing humongous prosthetic breasts and women’s leggings. While his wife was serving as President Trump’s Homeland Security Secretary, Bryon was exchanging “hundreds of messages” with at least “three women from the ‘bimbofication’ scene – where porn performers transform themselves into real-life Barbie dolls by pumping colossal amounts of saline into their breasts.” The Mail has the images. Cockburn is opting not to publish them. Needless to say, the selfies suggest Bryon prefers actual

Tuesday

Cockburn

Zohran struggles with the Irish question

Lá Fhéile Pádraig sona duit! There’s an Irish lilt to proceedings in Washington today. Vice President J.D. Vance and Second Lady Usha hosted Taoiseach Micheál Martin at the Naval Observatory for breakfast this morning (Cockburn hopes both black and white pudding were served). The Taoiseach then jigged down to the White House for a bilateral meeting with President Trump – and will be hosted alongside the Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland for the ceremonial “shamrock bowl” presentation this afternoon. The festivities have been much more delicately handled than up in New York City, where Mayor Zohran Mamdani has been walking a tightrope over Irish sovereignty issues. A reporter asked him

Julie Burchill

Spare us the girls’ weekend, Meghan

I almost spat out my toast (smothered with the As Ever, The Raspberry Spread Trio – “Made To Keep On Hand And Enjoy Often,” $42 – naturally) in pure molten anticipation when I read that my role model in spreading jam to flour, sorry, speaking truth to power, will be hosting a women-only weekend “retreat” in Sydney during her forthcoming Australia jaunt, with tickets “a steal” at $2,699 AUD ($1,930 USD). I already had my credit card in my hot little hand until I remembered that, though I love to lunch tête-à-tête with one lady, being in the company of many women at once – with not one awful toxic man around – makes me feel like drawing

Friday

Cockburn

The short attention-span war

It’s day seven of “Operation Epic Fury” – and the White House is posting through it. The war in Iran that Team Trump wants to show us is tailored for the short attention spans of the vertical video era. Consider this clip posted on X by the official White House account last night, which intersperses declassified footage of US drones hitting their targets with scenes from Gladiator, Iron Man, Braveheart, Top Gun: Maverick and Yu-Gi Oh. Or the video from earlier in the week that cuts between planes and bunkers being blown up and… SpongeBob SquarePants. The Israel Defense Forces’ X account has been equally out of pocket, while UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s TikTok aping the White House style is, like Starmer,

attention

Wednesday

Gary Dexter

Your AI Grandma will speak to you now

There’s a trend on YouTube at the moment for videos in which older people give advice. They speak directly to camera, frankly and without pretension. One can almost sense the care home staff hovering in the background, coaxing their barely extant charges into making one last testament of their time on Earth. The videos have titles such as “Things I’d tell my 30-year-old self,” “Harsh realities of being an 85-year-old woman.” “A girl and a woman talk about life,” “Lessons learned” and “How to deal with loneliness.”  The commenters below the videos respond, largely, with gratitude and a surprising lack of trollery. “I’m terrified of dying,” one commenter writes. “I fear many things, but nothing scares me

Friday

Freddy Gray

Has the Supreme Court just ‘SCREWED’ Trump’s administration?

“If the Supreme Court rules against the United States of America on this…  WE’RE SCREWED!” said Donald Trump on Truth Social last month.  Well, the Supreme Court has finally now ruled, and it is indeed a very serious blow to Trump’s economic agenda. The International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which the White House used to impose his sweeping levies, “does not authorise the President to impose tariffs,” said the court.  Quite what this setback means for Trump’s tariffs remains unclear. There’s already much talk of the United States having to pay back duties to foreign companies, but that is a fraught legal question. Another highly contentious subject is what now

Flora Watkins

Andrew, Queen Elizabeth and the pitfalls of ‘gentle parenting’

It was the sort of elaborate birthday surprise that Andrew – practical joker and fond of a fart gag – might have arranged to prank a friend. Six unmarked police cars roaring up to the farmhouse where he had been living on the Sandringham estate at the unseemly hour of 8 a.m yesterday. Only these cops were real and the ‘ex-UK prince’, as one international news network described him, was arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office before being released under caution around 12 hours later. ‘I’m just glad the Queen didn’t see this day,’ wrote one commentator on X. ‘It would have broken her heart.’ Yet the root

Thursday

Ross Clark

Europe is addicted to American energy

There is no member of the Trump administration with greater clarity of thought than Energy Secretary Chris Wright. While opponents rage at Trump’s climate policy, Wright gave a speech to the International Energy Agency this week in which he explained the rationale behind America’s sharp deviation from Europe. In the minds of many people, the world is in the midst of a vast, unstoppable green energy revolution. The age of fossil fuels is over, they assert, leaving behind vast subterranean vats of “stranded assets.” In its place, the world is adopting wind and solar power at breakneck speed. They cite huge investments by China, whose own ventures into renewable energy