Tottenham Tickets: The Global Passport to Controlled Chaos By our Special Correspondent for Gladiatorial Commerce It begins, as all modern tragedies do, with a push notification. Somewhere between Jakarta and Johannesburg, a phone vibrates: “General Sale – Spurs v. Bayern – 15:00 BST.” The recipient, a risk-consultant from Singapore who has never set foot in…
Singapore: The Tiny City-State That Outsmarted the Planet – and Still Worries About Parking Tickets By Our Correspondent with a Sunburn and a Sense of Irony SINGAPORE—Somewhere between the 14th time you’re reminded not to chew gum and the 15th “No Durians” sign on the MRT, it hits you: this whole country is a deliberate…
Gallup, New Mexico isn’t where you expect to find the pulse of the planet, yet the very name has become shorthand for “what humanity is thinking, give or take three percent.” From its windswept high-desert perch, the Gallup Organization dispatches pollsters like caffeinated missionaries to 160-odd countries, armed with questionnaires and the touching belief that…
**The Eagle Has Landed (Again): Angela Eagle and the Global Art of Political Resurrection** While the world obsesses over whether Donald Trump will attempt a comeback more dramatic than a Netflix revival series, Britain’s Labour Party has quietly staged its own resurrection drama featuring a familiar face from the political cemetery. Angela Eagle—yes, that Angela…
The Weather in New York: A Global Spectacle of Snow, Stocks, and Existential Dread By Dave’s Locker International Desk If you ever want to watch the planet’s collective anxiety crystallize into a single snowflake, just wait for a forecast in New York. A city that already believes it is the center of the universe suddenly…
Arundhati Roy, India’s One-Woman UN General Assembly with Better Hair If the world were a slightly fairer place, Arundhati Roy would be collecting frequent-flier miles for every border her mind has crossed without a visa. Instead, the 62-year-old writer-activist collects court cases the way philatelists hoard stamps—methodically, obsessively, and with a faint air of amusement…
Roxanne Perez and the Global Gladiator Economy by L. Marín, Senior Correspondent, Somewhere Over the Mid-Atlantic If you squint hard enough from the window of a red-eye leaving JFK, you can almost see the entire planet orbiting around a 23-year-old in neon kneepads. Roxanne Perez—born Carla Gonzalez in the Rio Grande Valley, now billed from…
The Empire Strikes Back (With a 404 Error): How gov.uk Quietly Became the World’s Most Influential Government Website —————————————————————————————————————— LONDON—While Washington spends its evenings rage-tweeting and Brussels labors to keep 27 toddlers from scribbling on the Treaty of Rome, a modest domain ending in “.uk” has been busy colonising the planet with ruthless efficiency. gov.uk—once…
Personal Injury Attorneys: The World’s New First Responders They say every society gets the ambulance-chasers it deserves, but in 2024 the ambulance itself is optional. From Lagos to London, the humble personal-injury attorney has metastasized into a borderless species of legal velociraptor—equal parts grief counselor, venture capitalist, and late-night infomercial star. Slip on a grape…
Jason Bateman: The World’s Most Reliable Export Since Filter Coffee By our man in the departure lounge, still clutching a boarding pass to nowhere If nations are brands, Jason Bateman is the Switzerland of screen talent: neutral, efficient, and implausibly tidy. While other Hollywood exports arrive with fireworks, sanctions, or at least a meme-ready scandal,…
BBC Newsround: The Empire’s Kindergarten Desk Explains the World While the World Burns By Our Man in the Departure Lounge, somewhere between duty-free and existential dread In the grand bazaar of global news, where war correspondents growl over satellite phones and oligarchs purchase entire front pages like impulse gum, BBC Newsround remains the only stall…
Aldi Shopper Avoids Dishwasher Tablets There but Buys Them at Sainsbury’s Instead: The Geopolitics of Suds and Self-Deception By the time you read this, somewhere in the post-industrial sprawl of northern England, a man named Gary—forty-something, fleece-clad, haunted by the memory of interest rates he once understood—has once again completed the weekly sacrament: Aldi for…
