The desert wind that usually carries nothing but sand and the faint smell of hubris picked up something extra on Monday night: the collective groan of 20,000 Pyramids fans discovering that even limitless petrodollars can’t buy you a last-minute equalizer. Al-Ahli Saudi’s 2–1 victory over the Egyptian side in Jeddah wasn’t just another AFC Champions…
Bruce Arians, the septuagenarian pirate who once coached Tom Brady like a rented yacht, has been spotted in a new port of call: the NFL’s front office. Last week the league announced that Arians will serve as a “special advisor on diversity, equity, and inclusion”—a phrase that, in lesser hands, sounds like a mandatory HR…
Dani Dyer and the Global Algorithmic Circus By Our Man in the Departure Lounge of Terminal Boredom From the vantage point of a rickety bar stool in Heathrow Terminal 5—where the gin is overpriced and the Wi-Fi is a metaphor for modern hope—one can observe the curious export of British reality-TV offspring ricocheting around the…
North Berwick, Scotland – a postcard-perfect seaside town where the gulls scream like unpaid interns and the North Sea breeze delivers exfoliation services free of charge. To the 7,000 locals, it’s simply “the burgh.” To the rest of the planet, it is either a dot on Google Maps or a cautionary tale about what happens…
The Elder Scrolls VI: A New Empire of Digital Escapism Rises While the Old One Burns Byline: Geneva, Wednesday, 3 a.m.—because insomnia, like Bethesda bugs, is now a global feature. Somewhere between the collapse of a regional banking system and the re-election of a septuagenarian strongman, humanity received word that The Elder Scrolls VI is…
Physint: Kojima’s New Espionage Opera Proves the World Still Loves a Good Wiretap By Dave’s Locker International Desk If you were hoping 2024 would finally be the year humanity outgrew its addiction to clandestine snooping, Hideo Kojima has some unfortunate news. Fresh off Death Stranding’s existential parcel-delivery simulator—and Norman Reedus’s increasingly sentient beard—the Tokyo-based auteur…
Zac Robinson and the Quiet Globalization of the Backup Quarterback By Our Man in the Press Box, Somewhere Over the Atlantic Somewhere between the hash marks of international intrigue and the hash browns of a Frankfurt hotel breakfast, Zac Robinson—yes, that Zac Robinson, the one who once threw spirals for Oklahoma State like a man…
Udinese vs Palermo: A Mediterranean Derby for the Age of Collapse By Dave’s Locker International Correspondent The world’s attention this weekend pivots—well, tilts slightly—toward Udine, a tidy Friulian outpost whose greatest export is still Enzo Bearzot quotes and whose greatest import is the quiet dread that the Alps might notice it’s there. On Saturday evening,…
Louis Tomlinson and the Curious Case of the Planet-Sized Boy Band By Our Man in the Departure Lounge If you’ve flown anywhere in the last decade, you’ve heard him—leaking from a duty-free headphone display in Dubai, soundtracking a hen party in Kraków, or auto-tuning the frozen-margarita blender in a Mallorcan beach bar. Louis Tomlinson, the…
When Jerome Powell cleared his throat in Washington last week, Tokyo traders paused mid-slurp on their 3 a.m. ramen, Frankfurt algorithms twitched in their sleep, and a bleary-eyed pension fund manager in São Paulo muttered a prayer to St. Jude—the patron saint of lost yields. The Fed Chair’s semi-annual testimony before Congress was billed as…
The Curious Case of Jaxon Dart: How a Quarterback’s Transfer Portal Odyssey Became a Global Metaphor for Our Times By L. Marlowe, International Desk, Dave’s Locker Somewhere between the Sea of Japan and the Gulf of Mexico, the name Jaxon Dart ping-pongs across encrypted group chats, offshore betting sites, and late-night sports bars that smell…
Illenium Sphere: When the World Stops Orbiting Reality and Starts Revolving Around a DJ’s Beach Ball By Rufus “No Fixed Address” Halstrom, Senior Correspondent, Dave’s Locker Somewhere between the collapse of the Turkish lira and the re-election of Argentina’s favorite economic crash-test dummy, humanity decided that the most pressing geopolitical question was: “How big can…
