Vince Gasparro and the Global Village Idiot Index by Our Correspondent in the Cheap Seats, somewhere over the Atlantic, wondering why the in-flight Wi-Fi costs more than a kidney on the dark web PARIS—If you have not yet heard of Vince Gasparro, congratulations: your algorithmic bubble is still hermetically sealed, your cortisol levels enviably low….
Oktoberfest, the planet’s most efficient annual demonstration of how quickly human dignity evaporates under lager-scented pressure, has once again cranked its oompah machinery in Munich. From September 21 to October 6, seven million visitors—roughly the population of Bulgaria—will descend upon a 42-hectare fairground to drink 8 million liters of beer, consume 500,000 roast chickens, and…
Abidjan, Thursday night, 23:47 local. I’m sipping a €12 mojito on the rooftop of the Radisson Blu, watching container ships queue like disciplined ants outside the new Port of Abidjan extension. Somewhere below, the lights of Treichville flicker just enough to remind the rest of the planet that Ivory Coast still exists between soccer transfers…
Côte d’Ivoire: Where the World’s Cocoa Gets Bitter and the Politics Get Sweeter By your ex-pat correspondent, still picking chocolate out of his teeth and regrets. ABIDJAN—If the planet were a badly curated theme park, Côte d’Ivoire would be the gift shop: everybody ends up here eventually, clutching foreign currency and pretending the souvenirs are…
**Sanju Samson: Cricket’s Beautiful Enigma and the Global Theater of Almost-Greatness** In the grand, often absurd opera of international cricket—where nations outsource their self-esteem to eleven men in polyester—Sanju Samson has become a recurring aria of promise, heartbreak, and selective amnesia. To the uninitiated, he is merely another Indian cricketer with a Instagram-ready smile and…
By the time the rest of the planet bothered to notice, Douglas Ross had already resigned twice—once from Boris Johnson’s government and then, in a flourish of impeccable Scottish timing, from his own leadership of the Scottish Conservatives. To most foreign desks the news landed like a weather report from Stornoway: damp, predictable, and of…
Ben Hamer: The Accidental Oracle of Our Age By our international desk, somewhere between the duty-free and the departure gate LONDON—While the planet’s 8-billion-person ensemble cast scrambles for starring roles, a 36-year-old Welsh goalkeeper named Ben Hamer has slipped into the part nobody auditioned for: global metaphor. Hamer, currently third-choice at Watford and therefore about…
**The Popcorn Rebellion: How AMC Became the World’s Most Absolutist Democracy** In the grand theater of global finance, where titans of industry once played their parts with solemn gravitas, a peculiar farce has been unfolding. AMC Entertainment—purveyor of overpriced popcorn and underwhelming blockbusters to the masses—has transformed into an unlikely symbol of economic revolution, proving…
Agnes Gund, the 85-year-old Manhattan dowager who looks like she just stepped out of a Wharton novel and into a money-laundering thriller, has decided that the best way to punish the world’s autocrats is to hit them where it hurts: their taste in art. Last week, she sold a single Roy Lichtenstein—one measly cartoon explosion…
SMR Stock: When the World Decides Nuclear is Safer than Twitter By the time European traders were sipping their first espressos on Tuesday, shares in NuScale Power—the American poster-child for Small Modular Reactors—had already gapped up six percent on the Tokyo bourse. Somewhere in London, a hedge-fund quant spilled his flat white, because the correlation…
Sacramento Weather: How California’s Valley Fog Became the World’s Most Overqualified Conversation Starter By Lucía “Lucky” Valdez, Senior Correspondent, Dave’s Locker International There are places on the planet where the weather can overthrow governments—think Caribbean cyclones, Saharan heat domes, or that moist Siberian wind that once convinced Napoleon real estate in Moscow was a bargain….
Alfa Romeo: Italy’s Beautiful, Broke, and Emotionally Unavailable Sports-Sedan of International Relations By Our Correspondent, still recovering from a Milanese espresso-induced arrhythmia MILAN—In the marble-lobbied heart of Alfa Romeo’s headquarters, you can almost hear the ghosts of fascist-era racing drivers arguing with present-day accountants about depreciation schedules. That, dear reader, is the Alfa Romeo condition:…
