The US weighs a prisoner swap with Russia. Plus: Taiwan’s armed forces step up military drills, we look ahead to Kenya’s general election and get the latest arts and culture news.
Category Archives: Stories
Home Tours: A Scottish Highlands Retreat (Video)
Interior designer Jill Macnair shows us around her home in the Scottish Highlands, a place of retreat that brings her a sense of peace, place and connection to the natural world.
“If there were a window into my soul, I think the view would be a rain-soaked Scottish landscape. Not, I hope, because I have a relentlessly bleak nature. My dad plotted family holidays all over the small but majestic country I grew up in, and while I didn’t greatly appreciate his efforts at the time – the walks were a bit too long, the cycles often too uphill – the colours and scenes etched into my memory from those trips are the ones that still restore me today. They form the palette that now underpins the design of my holiday home on Loch Tay, Perthshire.
Morning News: Fed Lifts Rates By .75%, Alzheimer’s Research Was Fabricated
The Federal Reserve raised interest rates by three-quarters of a percentage point yesterday–its fourth hike this year, as inflation remains stubbornly high.
Jerome Powell, the Fed chair, also warned that the path to cooling the economy without tipping into recession has “narrowed”. The results of an experiment fundamental to the last decade of Alzheimer’s research may have been fabricated. And the region where the gender divide in obesity rates is the highest.
Preview: London Review Of Books – August 4, 2022
Our new issue is now online, featuring Fredric Jameson on Ben Pastor, @LalehKhalili on oil, money and democracy, John Lanchester on Wirecard, Andrew O’Hagan on Dolly Parton, @davies_will on the seductions of declinism and a cover by Alexander Gorlizki: http://lrb.co.uk
TLS Preview: Times Literary Supplement – July 29, 2022
The TLS (Times Literary Supplement) for July 29, 2022 – @TheTLS, featuring @billmckibben on the future of farming; Bart van Es on Shakespeare’s life and sources; @profrhodrilewis on the sixteenth-century mind; @soniafaleiro on Geetanjali Shree; @mary_leng on straw men – and more.
Morning News: Russia Cuts Nord Stream 1 Gas Flow, SSRI Drugs, Dakar
Russia cut the gas flowing through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline by half in what many see as retaliation for Europe’s support of Ukraine. EU energy ministers fear further cuts as winter approaches.
A new research review suggests the decades-long reliance on SSRIs to treat depression was based on a false premise. And why Dakar’s plant vendors show such high levels of trust.
Preview: The Economist Magazine – July 26, 2022
Governments must beware the lure of free money
Budget constraints have gone missing. That presents both danger and opportunity
It is sometimes said that governments wasted the global financial crisis of 2007-09 by failing to rethink economic policy after the dust settled. Nobody will say the same about the covid-19 pandemic. It has led to a desperate scramble to enact policies that only a few months ago were either unimaginable or heretical. A profound shift is now taking place in economics as a result, of the sort that happens only once in a generation. Much as in the 1970s when clubby Keynesianism gave way to Milton Friedman’s austere monetarism, and in the 1990s when central banks were given their independence, so the pandemic marks the start of a new era. Its overriding preoccupation will be exploiting the opportunities and containing the enormous risks that stem from a supersized level of state intervention in the economy and financial markets.
Top Books Of 2022: The Booker Prize Longlist
Home Design: Crane Lodge In Palm Beach, Australia
A luxury getaway home settled on a unique site, Crane Lodge immerses visitors in its natural context. Designed by Secret Gardens, the landscape architecture of the home enhances the sensory experience of the outdoors.
Video timeline: 00:00 – Crane Lodge as an Experience 00:44 – The Client’s Vision 01:05 – The Garden and The Setting 01:58 – Lodged Unusually High 02:21 – The Inclusion of Amenities 02:37 – The Team Involved 03:04 – Major Site Components 03:34 – A Strong Connection to The Outdoors 03:49 – A Natural Watering Hole 04:28 – Sympathetic Materials and Beautiful Features
Located in the Sydney suburb of Palm Beach, Crane Lodge sits on an elevated site. The design brief for the landscape of the luxury getaway home centred on creating a sense of arrival whilst allowing access to the house across the terrain. Employing an inclinator, Secret Gardens instils the arrival process with a sense of anticipation and discovery.
Many endangered species of plant are championed in the landscape design of the luxury getaway home and are designed to appear slightly unkempt. Secret Gardens also includes indigenous plants for cooking and educational purposes. A smattering of boulders surrounds the luxury getaway home, contributing to the impressive character of its external environment.
Secret Gardens purposefully positions the swimming pool adjacent to boulders, creating the impression that the amenity emerged naturally. The materials chosen for the landscape architecture of Crane Lodge express a sympathetic approach to nature. As a result, the luxury getaway home entirely embraces its context, with a landscape design that captures the essence of a bushwalk experience.
Opinion: ESG Investing Is Flawed, Tory Leadership & Software Predicting Wins
A selection of three essential articles read aloud from the latest issue of The Economist. This week, why ESG should be boiled down to emissions, why the Tory leadership race should focus on Britain’s growth challenge (10:00), and how software developers aspire to forecast who will win a battle (18:20).
