The Curious Diplomacy of Erin Andrews: How a Sideline Reporter Accidentally Became a Global Rorschach Test By Dave’s International Desk Paris—In a world where heads of state can’t reliably keep their Zoom cameras off, Erin Andrews has improbably become a one-woman foreign-exchange program. The American sportscaster—once best known for asking sweaty linebackers how they feel—now…
CBS Fantasy Football: How an American Pastime Became the Planet’s Most Efficient Sleeper Cell By the time most of Europe is debating whether to raise the retirement age to 75 or simply replace pensions with TikTok dances, a quiet army of 12 million global managers—yes, that is the officially sanctioned euphemism—has already spent the pre-dawn…
Karolína Muchová: The Czech Enigma Who Makes Tennis Cosmopolitan Again By Dave’s Locker International Desk | June 2024 Prague, a city that still smells faintly of Kafka, Pilsner, and the 1989 velvet that refused to get bloody, has coughed up another absurdist protagonist for the global stage: Karolína Muchová. She is currently the only Czech…
Jesse Watters and the Global Export of Performative Outrage A field report from the international desk By the time Jesse Watters’ latest prime-time monologue ricocheted from a Fox studio in Midtown Manhattan to a phone screen in Lagos, then to a bar television in Warsaw, and finally to a group-chat in Manila, the clip had…
Kurt Zouma and the Cat Heard ’Round the World A dispatch from the frontline where football, felines and global outrage collide By the time the grainy Snapchat clip reached Jakarta, the cat had already achieved what most UN envoys only dream of: unanimous, cross-continental condemnation. In a split-screen universe where grainy war footage from Mariupol…
Amanda Anisimova and the Absurd Ballet of Modern Fame By Dave’s Far-Flung Correspondent, nursing jet-lag in three time zones The world first noticed Amanda Anisimova in Paris, 2019, when she cannonballed into the French Open semifinals at seventeen, an age when most of us were still perfecting the art of missing curfew. She beat the…
Lisbon, City of Light and Dimming Futures By our correspondent in existential real-estate, still waiting for the tram that never comes If you stand on the Miradouro da Senhora do Monte at dusk, the Atlantic bruises the horizon while the Tagus River reflects the last euro your landlord just hoovered out of your wallet. Below,…
Countdown: Season 2 – When the World Holds Its Breath, Again By Dave’s Locker Foreign Desk Geneva—If you listen very carefully above the hum of espresso machines in the Palais des Nations canteen, you can hear it: the low, collective murmur of diplomats rehearsing the phrase “red line” in sixteen languages. Countdown: Season 2 has…
Julia Bradbury, the erstwhile queen of British rambling television, has unwittingly become the global canary in our collective coal mine. While she once merely guided middle-class English pensioners through Cotswold cowpats, her recent public battle with breast cancer has transformed her into an unlikely geopolitical barometer—proof that even the most anodyne celebrity can’t escape the…
The Gloria Funicular: Lisbon’s Vertical Escalator to the Human Condition By our Special Correspondent, still waiting for the elevator to self-respect If you stand at the foot of Calçada da Glória on any given afternoon, you will witness a tableau so perfectly absurd it could be commissioned by the United Nations as a cautionary exhibit….
Rachel Reeves and the Art of Global Fiscal Schadenfreude By Our Man in a Grey Cloud Somewhere over the North Sea There are moments, usually around 3 a.m. in a hotel bar in Frankfurt, when one realises that the entire planet is simply a vast, badly-run hedge fund with mood lighting. Enter Rachel Reeves, the…
Florida’s Surgeon General, Joseph Ladapo, has quietly become America’s most efficient exporter of confusion—an impressive feat in a country that already ships reality TV, deep-fried butter, and unsolicited military advice to every corner of the planet. While Washington haggles over debt ceilings and Beijing perfects the art of the passive-aggressive communiqué, Ladapo has cornered the…
