Jasmine Paolini, the 5’4″ Italian who punches above her weight class and below the net-cord, is presently the best proof that the universe occasionally enjoys a good underdog story—provided it’s scheduled between a geopolitical meltdown and a climate catastrophe. While diplomats in Brussels bicker over whose turn it is to save the euro and the…
The World’s Newest Luxury Export: Shamelessness, Freshly Unwrapped Daily by Diego Márquez, roving correspondent, still jet-lagged since 1998 There was a time when the word “shameless” carried the faint whiff of social opprobrium, like stale cigarette smoke clinging to a diplomat’s lapel. No longer. In 2024 it has become the hottest commodity on the planet,…
Malvern, Worcestershire – population 30,000, two Michelin-starred restaurants, one hill that looks like a sleeping dinosaur after a long lunch – has spent centuries pretending to be a quiet English spa town. The illusion is useful: while the rest of the planet busies itself with coups, crypto crashes, and whatever Elon is renaming this week,…
Windhoek, Namibia — In the grand, absurdist theater of international affairs—where billionaires race to Mars while half the planet still lacks clean water—two nations you probably last Googled during a pub quiz are quietly auditioning for the role of Africa’s “next big thing.” Namibia (population: sparse, GDP: diamonds and existential dread) and Kenya (population: bustling,…
The Geopolitics of Chest Hair: How Peter Andre Became an Unlikely Soft-Power Asset for a Post-Brexit Britain By the time the sun rises over the marble colonnades of the European Parliament, negotiators in Brussels are already whispering about “The Andre Doctrine.” Not, as one might hope, a radical new trade policy, but rather the quiet…
AJ ODUDU AND THE GLOBAL PARADOX OF FAMOUSLY ALMOST FAMOUS PEOPLE By Our Slightly Jet-Lagged Correspondent There are 195 countries on the planet, give or take a disputed micro-state or two, and yet the same name is currently trending from Lagos to Lisbon to Los Angeles: Aj Odudu. If you blinked during the 2021 season…
Chris Farley: The Global Export Nobody Negotiated, Yet Everyone Signed For By Our Correspondent in a Hotel Mini-Bar Somewhere East of the Dateline Somewhere between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the rise of TikTok, a 300-pound Wisconsinite in a too-tight Oxford shirt became an unwitting instrument of soft power. Chris Farley—who once described…
The Curious Case of Tallon Griekspoor, or How a Dutchman Became the Canary in Tennis’ Multinational Coal Mine Dave’s Locker – International Sports Desk If you mention the name Tallon Griekspoor in a bar on the Rue Oberkampf, the average Parisian will assume you’ve ordered a craft beer by accident. In Melbourne they’ll think it’s…
The Tree of the Year 2025 Is a 47-Year-Old Lebanese Cedar That Survived Three Civil Wars, One Port Explosion, and the World’s Most Expensive Parking Lot By Our Correspondent, Beirut, with additional reporting from places that still pretend trees matter BEIRUT—In a ceremony that felt equal parts Arbor Day and war-crimes tribunal, the International Union…
The Astros’ latest middle-infield prodigy—let’s call him “Señor Swing” to preserve the illusion of journalistic impartiality—has just signed a contract that, if converted into humanitarian aid, could vaccinate half a continent. In Houston, a city whose skyline looks like a committee of drunk architects tried to one-up Dubai on a dare, this is treated as…
From the neon canyons of Shibuya to the half-lit favelas of Rio, the phrase “FC 26 PS5” is currently being whispered, screamed, and autocorrect-mangled in more languages than Esperanto ever managed. On the surface it’s just the next annualised instalment of EA Sports’ football sim, freshly varnished for Sony’s shiniest black monolith. But beneath that…
A Brit in the Basement Who Knows What You’re Thinking By Our Man in the Ether, filing from somewhere with shaky Wi-Fi and questionable morals LONDON—In a city that still pretends the Empire is just having a long smoke break, a modest firm in the unfashionable end of Westminster has quietly become the planetary confessor….
