The Vikings Game: How a Digital Longship Full of Loot Boxes Conquered the Planet By Our Man in Every Airport Lounge at Once In the year of our bandwidth 2024, the phrase “Vikings game” no longer evokes frostbitten reenactors in a Norwegian field whacking each other with rubber axes. Instead, it summons 1.3 billion thumbs…
Who Called Charlie Kirk Ignorant—and Why the Whole Planet Should Pretend to Care By Our Correspondent on the Perpetual Lecture Circuit PARIS—In the grand bazaar of global indignation, few stalls attract longer queues than the one labeled “Stupidity Allegations, American Edition.” This week the vendor of honor was Charlie Kirk, the 30-year-old U.S. conservative influencer…
When the American Cornerstone Institute debuted in 2020, much of the planet was busy baking sourdough and arguing over whose mask had the more fashionable nose-bridge crease. Meanwhile, in the United States—where every week feels like a mid-season plot twist—former Housing Secretary Ben Carson decided that what the world really needed was yet another think…
Max Brosmer and the Great Global Quarterback Shortage By Our Resident Cynic-at-Large, filing from an airport lounge that still smells of last week’s despair The planet is running out of quarterbacks. Not metaphorical ones—actual 6-foot-something Americans who can fling a leather ellipsoid sixty yards while evading 300-pound men with the ethical flexibility of payday lenders….
From the vantage point of a café in Sarajevo—where the Wi-Fi is free but the existential dread is extra—one name keeps popping up across the planet’s fractured infosphere: Benny Johnson. To the average Berliner, he’s a punchline; to a Manila call-center worker on his third Monster, he’s background noise; to a retired autocrat in Minsk,…
Ronde Barber, the Man Who Tackled the World (and Barely Bruised It) If you whisper “Ronde Barber” in a smoky bar in Lisbon, the bartender will probably slide you an espresso and ask whether you mean the guy who single-handedly reminded Europe that American football exists or the balding deity who once ended the Philadelphia…
Gatwick: The Last Honest Place on Earth (Until the Wi-Fi Drops) There are two kinds of international travelers: those who have slept on a Gatwick bench at 03:47, and liars. Tucked improbably close to London yet closer still to existential dread, Gatwick Airport—code LGW, motto “Please Continue to the Next Available Queue”—has spent seventy years…
Fever vs Aces: How a Niche Sports Showdown Became a Global Thermometer By the time the “Fever vs Aces” WNBA Finals rematch tipped off in Las Vegas last night, bookmakers from Manila to Manchester had already moved more money on Caitlin Clark’s three-point percentage than most central banks shift in a week. What began as…
PARIS — Somewhere between the Seine and the shuttered Starbucks on Rue de Rivoli, Whoopi Goldberg has become a diplomatic incident. Not in the literal sense—no French ambassador has been recalled over The View’s latest hot take—but in that more exquisite, modern way where a daytime talk-show host in New York ricochets through WhatsApp groups…
Barça Game: The 90-Minute Global Séance Where Four Continents Scream at a Ball By the time the Camp Nou clock hit 21:05 CET, the planet had already synchronized its pulse. In Lagos, a generator coughed to life so a barber shop could keep the TV humming; in Seoul, office workers who’d “gone for a smoke”…
FPL Price Changes: The Only Global Market Where a Hamstring Twitch Can Crash the Bolivian Boliviano Dave’s Locker — International Desk Geneva, Tuesday, 02:14 a.m. CET — While the Swiss haggle over cocoa futures and Singaporean quants nurse their ulcers over crypto spreads, a quieter, more ruthless market is open 24/7 and speaks every language:…
The Curious Case of Tyler Bowyer: How One American Operative Became the World’s Reluctant Barometer of Democratic Decay By Our Man in the Cheap Seats, Reporting from Everywhere and Nowhere PARIS — In the grand bazaar of global influence-peddling, where lobbyists outnumber pigeons and the air smells faintly of burnt reputations, Tyler Bowyer has improbably…
