Ensemble Modern/Gruber/Giunta/Amarcord (Ensemble Modern Media) From Hindemith’s jazz-age energy to Schoenberg’s existential angst, and Kurt Weill’s biting satire to Korngold’s neo-Romanticism, this lively recording is a perfect example of the kind of music the Nazis couldn’t abide. If this live recording from Ensemble Modern and HK Gruber represents an eclectic snapshot of musical Germany between ...
Ensemble Modern/Gruber/Giunta/Amarcord (Ensemble Modern Media) From Hindemith’s jazz-age energy to Schoenberg’s existential angst, and Kurt Weill’s biting satire to Korngold’s neo-Romanticism, this lively recording is a perfect example of the kind of music the Nazis couldn’t abide. If this live recording from Ensemble Modern and HK Gruber represents an eclectic snapshot of musical Germany between 1920 and 1933, it’s also a perfect example of the kind of thing the Nazis couldn’t abide. “Too modern, too jazzy, too Jewish,” they cried. No surprise then that all four composers ultimately wound up in the United States. Premiered in 1922, Hindemith’s Kammermusik No 1 was condemned by one critic as having “a lewdness and frivolity only possible for a very special kind of composer”. Gruber embraces its neo-classical spikiness and jazz-age energy in a performance of almost cartoonish glee. Korngold, as epitomised by his 1920 music for Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, is Hindemith’s polar opposite. In a lively reading, Gruber leavens the composer’s Viennese neo-Romanticism with a pinch of acerbic wit. Continue reading...
In this week’s newsletter: The public stranding of a young humpback exposes tensions between animal rights activism and other choices around biodiversity • Don’t get Down to Earth delivered to your inbox? Sign up here Timmy the whale is lost at sea , presumed dead. In normal circumstances, the loss of a young humpback whale would be a sad yet unremarkable part of the circle of life. Dead whales he...
In this week’s newsletter: The public stranding of a young humpback exposes tensions between animal rights activism and other choices around biodiversity • Don’t get Down to Earth delivered to your inbox? Sign up here Timmy the whale is lost at sea , presumed dead. In normal circumstances, the loss of a young humpback whale would be a sad yet unremarkable part of the circle of life. Dead whales help sustain thousands of marine species – and are part of the global carbon cycle. Smuggled in syringes: how Nairobi became a nexus for the black market in giant harvester ants Don’t reach for the bug spray: scientists find insects may feel pain after crickets nurse sore antennae Labour must fulfil promise to introduce clean air act, charities urge Continue reading...
Exclusive: Contract changes mean Post Office outlets inside TG Jones stores would be easier to close, with up to 60 possibly affected The owner of WH Smith’s former high street business is aiming to change contracts with the Post Office to make it easier to close outlets within its stores, increasing fears that communities will become “postal deserts”. TG Jones operates 180 post offices and it is ...
Exclusive: Contract changes mean Post Office outlets inside TG Jones stores would be easier to close, with up to 60 possibly affected The owner of WH Smith’s former high street business is aiming to change contracts with the Post Office to make it easier to close outlets within its stores, increasing fears that communities will become “postal deserts”. TG Jones operates 180 post offices and it is understood that as many as 60 could be closed under a restructuring plan by Modella, the private equity group that renamed the WH Smith high street chain as TG Jones after buying it last year . Continue reading...
Bond Place and Desmond Crescent have been named in honour of the 007 franchise after some scenes were shot nearby in the 90s – why stop there? James Bond fans have endured a rough few years. Ever since No Time to Die walloped off Daniel Craig, we’ve been stuck in a weird kind of limbo. There will eventually be a new James Bond film, directed by Denis Villeneuve, the most exciting director in the f...
Bond Place and Desmond Crescent have been named in honour of the 007 franchise after some scenes were shot nearby in the 90s – why stop there? James Bond fans have endured a rough few years. Ever since No Time to Die walloped off Daniel Craig, we’ve been stuck in a weird kind of limbo. There will eventually be a new James Bond film, directed by Denis Villeneuve, the most exciting director in the franchise’s history. But we don’t know when it will come out, or who will play Bond, or if 007 under Amazon will even be recognisable. In summary, we need something tangible to ground our anxieties. What we need is to pack up our things and head to north Swindon, to the site of the former Motorola manufacturing facility, where a new housing estate has just named a bunch of roads after James Bond. Continue reading...
This fascinating novel about 18th-century privateer Alexander Selkirk, abandoned on a tiny island in the South Pacific, becomes a revelatory meditation on humanity It’s hard to think of many superficial affinities between Frank O’Hara, the queer poet and art critic whose urbane voice is synonymous with 60s Manhattan, and Alexander Selkirk, the 18th-century Scottish privateer whose marooning on a t...
This fascinating novel about 18th-century privateer Alexander Selkirk, abandoned on a tiny island in the South Pacific, becomes a revelatory meditation on humanity It’s hard to think of many superficial affinities between Frank O’Hara, the queer poet and art critic whose urbane voice is synonymous with 60s Manhattan, and Alexander Selkirk, the 18th-century Scottish privateer whose marooning on a tiny island in the South Pacific would eventually inspire Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. Yet, curiously, it is a line from O’Hara’s poem Mayakovsky that Francesca de Tores refits for Selkirk’s mouth at the opening of her new novel, Cast Away. Selkirk insists that he is cast upon the island “only by the catastrophe of my personality” – “which is a sobering thing, even for a man used to being sober”. And while the O’Hara of Mayakovsky is famously content to wait “for the catastrophe of my personality / to seem beautiful again, / and interesting, and modern”, Selkirk – newly and utterly alone on “a stony blemish in the ocean”, 400 miles off the coast of Chile – spends his first three days and nights on the island blind drunk on the cask of flip left behind with him as a courtesy from his erstwhile crewmates, raging at his fate. This act of unexpected transhistorical ventriloquism is a suitably strange beginning to a surprisingly uncanny novel. Continue reading...
News will come as a shock to staff, especially at Cranfield, but the institutions’ bosses say intention is growth The announcement that King’s College London is to absorb Cranfield University came as a surprise but not a shock to England’s higher education leaders, who have been braced for sudden announcements about job cuts and course closures. But for staff and students at both institutions the ...
News will come as a shock to staff, especially at Cranfield, but the institutions’ bosses say intention is growth The announcement that King’s College London is to absorb Cranfield University came as a surprise but not a shock to England’s higher education leaders, who have been braced for sudden announcements about job cuts and course closures. But for staff and students at both institutions the news will have come as a shock, particularly at Cranfield, the smaller, highly focused postgraduate technology and management college that has its own airport. Continue reading...
From Hadrian’s Wall to the locations of Happy Valley and Hot Fuzz, readers share their top discoveries • Tell us about your favourite UK coast walk – the best tip wins a £200 holiday voucher “So this is where Officer Nick Angel [Simon Pegg] chased that swan.” As a fan of Hot Fuzz, I was excited to explore the cathedral city of Wells in Somerset, where much of the film was shot. This charming, comp...
From Hadrian’s Wall to the locations of Happy Valley and Hot Fuzz, readers share their top discoveries • Tell us about your favourite UK coast walk – the best tip wins a £200 holiday voucher “So this is where Officer Nick Angel [Simon Pegg] chased that swan.” As a fan of Hot Fuzz, I was excited to explore the cathedral city of Wells in Somerset, where much of the film was shot. This charming, compact and walkable city is awash with medieval architecture and magnificent buildings, such as the gothic cathedral, with one of the oldest working clocks in the UK (late 14th century) and the Bishop’s Palace and Gardens . Within easy reach of the Mendip Hills, Cheddar Gorge and the Wookey Hole Caves , Wells makes for a low-key alternative to tourist-soaked Bath. Alison Continue reading...
After 40 years of stardom, the cult of Kylie comes to our screens in a Beckham-style Netflix show, while the Duffer brothers bring us Stranger Things set in a spooky care home. Plus: new Bluey! Continue reading...
After 40 years of stardom, the cult of Kylie comes to our screens in a Beckham-style Netflix show, while the Duffer brothers bring us Stranger Things set in a spooky care home. Plus: new Bluey! Continue reading...
A Chinese blogger drove 1,300km to take a fellow university student to her hometown to see her dead mother for the last time before her funeral. Both students are in grade four at North Minzu University in Yinchuan of Ningxia Hui Autonomous in northern China. On the evening of May 7, the female student was told that her mother had died suddenly. The reason for the mother’s death was not released, ...
A Chinese blogger drove 1,300km to take a fellow university student to her hometown to see her dead mother for the last time before her funeral. Both students are in grade four at North Minzu University in Yinchuan of Ningxia Hui Autonomous in northern China. On the evening of May 7, the female student was told that her mother had died suddenly. The reason for the mother’s death was not released, Dahe News reported. Since the female student’s home is located in a mountainous region, she had...
Just_Super/E+ via Getty Images By Christopher Gannatti, CFA & Jonathan Flynn Step One: What Quantum Computing Actually Is (And Isn't) Let's start with the concept, because confusion here can be real and consequential. Classical computers, specifically the kind in your phone, laptop, and every data center on earth, process information as bits. Each bit is either a 0 or a 1. Everything from a spread...
Just_Super/E+ via Getty Images By Christopher Gannatti, CFA & Jonathan Flynn Step One: What Quantum Computing Actually Is (And Isn't) Let's start with the concept, because confusion here can be real and consequential. Classical computers, specifically the kind in your phone, laptop, and every data center on earth, process information as bits. Each bit is either a 0 or a 1. Everything from a spreadsheet to a streaming video ultimately reduces to long strings of binary decisions, meaning they can all be represented by a strong, sometimes quite a long string, of 1’s and 0’s. Quantum computers work differently. They use quantum bits, or qubits, which exploit the principles of quantum mechanics to exist in multiple states simultaneously, a property called superposition. They can also become entangled with one another, meaning the state of one qubit is instantly correlated with another, no matter the distance. These properties allow quantum systems to process certain types of calculations in ways that would take classical computers an impossibly long time to complete. The key phrase there is certain types of calculations , and this deserves repeating. Quantum computers are not simply faster classical computers. They are fundamentally different tools, suited to a narrow but potentially transformative class of problems: Drug discovery Materials science Financial modeling Cryptography Optimization in logistics For most computing tasks that we interact with daily, such as running a website, streaming a movie, or sending an email, quantum hardware offers no advantage whatsoever. This distinction will matter enormously for investors. Quantum computing is not replacing the cloud. It is not replacing your laptop. It is being developed as a specialized capability that, when it matures, will be layered on top of the classical infrastructure we already have. Step Two: Why Semiconductors Aren't Going Anywhere Here is the part of the quantum story that most coverage glosses over: Quan...
The UN's Architecture To Annihilate The West Authored by Amil Imani via AmericanThinker.com, The United Nations functions as a predatory cartel dedicated to the systematic liquidation of national borders. Its agenda demands the total eradication of the nation-state to pave the way for a centralized, unelected global tyranny. The 2018 Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration serves as...
The UN's Architecture To Annihilate The West Authored by Amil Imani via AmericanThinker.com, The United Nations functions as a predatory cartel dedicated to the systematic liquidation of national borders. Its agenda demands the total eradication of the nation-state to pave the way for a centralized, unelected global tyranny. The 2018 Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration serves as the executioner’s blade for national sovereignty. This document transforms migration from a matter of domestic policy into a universal human right, stripping citizens of their power to decide who enters their lands. It creates a legal framework that criminalizes dissent against mass migration under the guise of hate speech suppression. The UN mandate forces governments to promote migration and eliminate all forms of discrimination against migrants, a directive that effectively prioritizes foreign nationals over the rights and resources of their own taxpayers. This policy transforms the fundamental duty of the state from protecting its citizens to serving a globalist movement of people. The UN Population Division openly plots the demographic overthrow of Western populations. Their Replacement Migration report outlines a cold, calculated strategy to offset declining birth rates in Europe and North America by importing tens of millions of foreign agents. This is the deliberate engineering of a new, rootless labor force designed to dissolve traditional cultural identities. The UN identifies replacement migration as the sole, non-negotiable solution for aging Western nations, deliberately ignoring the preservation of indigenous cultures and social cohesion. This mechanism treats human populations as interchangeable economic units, engineering a demographic shift that renders traditional national identities obsolete. The UN’s own demographic projections provide the cold, mathematical blueprint for this replacement strategy. The United Nations maintains a blood-sealed partnership...
A Singapore Airlines Airbus A350-941 takes off from Barcelona-El Prat Airport in Barcelona, Spain, on April 29, 2026. (Photo by Joan Valls/Urbanandsport/NurPhoto via Getty Images) Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images Singapore Airlines has seen Air India drag on its earnings for about five quarters, but analysts and the airline say the investment will pay off in the long term. SIA reported on Thursd...
A Singapore Airlines Airbus A350-941 takes off from Barcelona-El Prat Airport in Barcelona, Spain, on April 29, 2026. (Photo by Joan Valls/Urbanandsport/NurPhoto via Getty Images) Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images Singapore Airlines has seen Air India drag on its earnings for about five quarters, but analysts and the airline say the investment will pay off in the long term. SIA reported on Thursday a record revenue of 20.5 billion Singapore dollars ($16.06 billion) for its financial year ended March 31, as operating profit surged 39% to SG$2.38 billion on higher demand, higher yields and lower full year net fuel cost, SIA said. However, net profit plunged 57.4% year-on-year to SG$1.18 billion— mainly owing to Air India's losses and an accounting gain in the previous year. Singapore Airlines 2025 earnings Earnings per share: 38.4 Singapore cents vs. 35 Singapore cents expected Revenue: SG$20.5 billion vs. SG$20.07 billion expected Air India has been beset by numerous hindrances: Pakistan's airspace closed in April 2025, then Flight 171 crashed in June, killing more than 250 people. Now, the Iran war and the carrier's connectivity exposure to the Middle East market are wreaking havoc, forcing the airline to cancel nearly a third of its flights during the peak June to August travel period. "These changes are aimed at improving network stability and reducing last-minute inconvenience to passengers," Air India said. SIA's venture into India's rapidly growing aviation market is strategic, "and strategic usually means unprofitable," said independent aviation analyst Brendan Sobie. "But obviously the last year has been worse than anyone would have imagined." watch now VIDEO 5:10 05:10 Why Singapore Airlines is backing Air India despite an 'awful year' Squawk Box Asia Air India recorded a loss of SG$3.56 billion , or $2.8 billion, far exceeding the $2.4 billion expected loss reported by Bloomberg in April. SIA's share of the loss amounted to SG$945.2 million. Air India has ...
Japan’s quest for rare earth self-sufficiency and its drive to decouple from Chinese supply chains have prompted the government to consider building a dedicated deep-sea mining vessel to recover minerals from the Pacific Ocean floor. Local media reported that the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s special committee on ocean development will soon present a draft proposal to the Takaichi administrati...
Japan’s quest for rare earth self-sufficiency and its drive to decouple from Chinese supply chains have prompted the government to consider building a dedicated deep-sea mining vessel to recover minerals from the Pacific Ocean floor. Local media reported that the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s special committee on ocean development will soon present a draft proposal to the Takaichi administration, calling for unspecified project funding. While the initiative will face technological and...