Strictly on Tonight: A Planet-Watches-Dancing-Slightly-Anxiously Dispatch by L. Marchetti, roving correspondent, Dave’s Locker Somewhere between the Greenwich meridian and a bar in Lagos where the satellite feed is always three seconds behind, humanity is once again asking the same urgent question: “What time is Strictly on tonight?” The inquiry, typed in 137 languages and whispered…
Robert Carlyle, the Scottish actor who looks like he’s been personally wronged by every decade since 1979, has quietly become the planet’s most reliable barometer for global despair. From the heroin-scarred housing schemes of Trainspotting to the mushroom-cloud melancholy of 28 Weeks Later, Carlyle’s face has mapped the world’s slide from post-Cold-War optimism into whatever…
Shane Nolan: How a Pub-Booked Crooner Became the Canary in the Global Coal Mine By the time Shane Nolan’s rendition of “My Way” ricocheted off the stained-glass windows of a half-empty Dublin pub and landed—via a shaky vertical phone video—on a Brazilian meme account, the world had already agreed on two things: first, that the…
Glenn Close, the woman who has made a career of staring into the abyss until the abyss politely asks for an autograph, turns out to be our most reliable global barometer of how spectacularly we’re failing as a species. From her perch in whatever time zone currently hosts the nearest film festival jury, she has…
Grace Dent: How One British Critic Became the Canary in the World’s Deep-Fryer By Our Somewhat Stuffed Correspondent, Geneva GENEVA — While the planet busies itself with nuclear brinkmanship and algorithmic overlords, an unlikely barometer of global anxiety has emerged: the gastric fortune-teller known as Grace Dent. The Guardian’s restaurant critic and MasterChef regular has…
