Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights; Ulysses or Catch-22 … Find out which title came top, as chosen by authors, critics and academics worldwide • See the full list here As Stephen King points out, compiling a list of the greatest novels of all time is an impossible task. King is one of more than 170 novelists, critics and academics the Guardian polled for their top 10, ranked in order, which we tallied...
Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights; Ulysses or Catch-22 … Find out which title came top, as chosen by authors, critics and academics worldwide • See the full list here As Stephen King points out, compiling a list of the greatest novels of all time is an impossible task. King is one of more than 170 novelists, critics and academics the Guardian polled for their top 10, ranked in order, which we tallied to compile an overall 100. But, as he argued, 10 books is “not enough!” On King’s list there is, he’s sorry to say, “not a single Dickens”; he wishes he’d found space for David Copperfield or Oliver Twist. One Day author David Nicholls’s choices are “definitely skewed towards novels I read at an impressionable age”, he says. Bernardine Evaristo listed “some of my all‑time favourites, including several classics of the past 100 years”. Salman Rushdie, Anne Enright, Yiyun Li, Elif Shafak, Ian McEwan, Maggie O’Farrell, Colm Tóibín, Lorrie Moore, Katherine Rundell and many more have all cast their votes. Continue reading...
Nvidia’s market capitalisation ($5.7 trillion) has overtaken Germany’s GDP ($5.45 trillion). The combined value of the five largest US companies now exceeds the total GDP of Europe’s five largest economies.View on euronews
Nvidia’s market capitalisation ($5.7 trillion) has overtaken Germany’s GDP ($5.45 trillion). The combined value of the five largest US companies now exceeds the total GDP of Europe’s five largest economies.View on euronews
Heart of Midlothian are gaining temporary fans from other Scottish teams who resent Celtic and Rangers’ dominance Edinburgh, a festival city, is preparing for a different kind of carnival this weekend. Roads will be closed, buses rerouted and trams will stop running down Princes Street. Civic leaders are preparing a reception at the city chambers. It all depends on the result of a football match i...
Heart of Midlothian are gaining temporary fans from other Scottish teams who resent Celtic and Rangers’ dominance Edinburgh, a festival city, is preparing for a different kind of carnival this weekend. Roads will be closed, buses rerouted and trams will stop running down Princes Street. Civic leaders are preparing a reception at the city chambers. It all depends on the result of a football match in Glasgow on Saturday. Continue reading...
Frances, 77, a retired marketing manager, meets Eddie, 86, an activist What were you hoping for? A lovely evening with pleasant company. Continue reading...
Frances, 77, a retired marketing manager, meets Eddie, 86, an activist What were you hoping for? A lovely evening with pleasant company. Continue reading...
We have to drag the bins through the house because the garden door is jammed. Until a scary encounter with my old enemy, that is … It’s still light out when my wife comes to me with bad news. “It’s bin day,” she says. Continue reading...
We have to drag the bins through the house because the garden door is jammed. Until a scary encounter with my old enemy, that is … It’s still light out when my wife comes to me with bad news. “It’s bin day,” she says. Continue reading...
The decline of the glossy magazine industry as depicted in the sequel made me cry – but I shed no tears for how it was back then I didn’t think The Devil Wears Prada 2 would make me cry, but it did. All the fashiony high camp, all the sharp one-liners of the first movie (“By all means, move at a glacial pace, you know how that thrills me”) deliquesce into melancholy for a struggling media industry...
The decline of the glossy magazine industry as depicted in the sequel made me cry – but I shed no tears for how it was back then I didn’t think The Devil Wears Prada 2 would make me cry, but it did. All the fashiony high camp, all the sharp one-liners of the first movie (“By all means, move at a glacial pace, you know how that thrills me”) deliquesce into melancholy for a struggling media industry in the second film. We meet the older Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway) – the put-upon assistant of Runway editor Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep) in the original movie – when she and her newspaper colleagues are receiving an award for investigative reporting. Except that at precisely that moment they are laid off, by text message. Perfectly realistic: swathes of the Washington Post, including Pulitzer finalists and correspondents in war zones , suffered a similar fate (in this case, sacking by email subject field) in February. I didn’t think it would make me feel so nostalgic, either. The original Devil Wears Prada came out in 2006. Watching this thinly disguised portrait of American Vogue then was fun. I had served my apprenticeship at Condé Nast, at British Vogue and The World of Interiors, and I felt some vague kinship with Andy and her terrible blue jumper, who arrives a sceptic, goes native, then leaves for her true calling at a progressive newspaper. But now, 20 years on, other feelings crowd in. As my former Vogue colleague Louise Chunn wrote in the New Statesman recently, in the 1990s we had no idea we were working “at the high watermark of the circulation and power of the glossy magazine industry”. When those enormous, thick-papered tomes thunked down on our desks at Vogue House (which they literally did, hand delivered) they were so solid, so reassuring, so full of the promise of glamour and gorgeousness, that we thought it would go on for ever. Continue reading...
Ahead of Nakba march, Sara Husseini says many feel they are being treated as suspects rather than victims of mass suffering British Palestinians feel unable to speak openly about Israel’s war on Gaza, the director of the British Palestinian Committee has said, amid what campaigners believe is a growing climate of hostility around Palestinian identity and activism in the UK. Some were afraid to wea...
Ahead of Nakba march, Sara Husseini says many feel they are being treated as suspects rather than victims of mass suffering British Palestinians feel unable to speak openly about Israel’s war on Gaza, the director of the British Palestinian Committee has said, amid what campaigners believe is a growing climate of hostility around Palestinian identity and activism in the UK. Some were afraid to wear Palestinian symbols at work or display Arabic jewellery and keffiyehs in public, Sara Husseini said. Continue reading...
As continent faces tough headwinds, leaders are bearing brunt of delivering bad news to frustrated electorates “People hate you,” the adviser informed his leader. A think-piece in a daily newspaper noted that “almost everyone agrees on one thing: they don’t like him”. The recent disastrous set of local election results in the UK built on Keir Starmer’s longstanding reputational problem: only 11% o...
As continent faces tough headwinds, leaders are bearing brunt of delivering bad news to frustrated electorates “People hate you,” the adviser informed his leader. A think-piece in a daily newspaper noted that “almost everyone agrees on one thing: they don’t like him”. The recent disastrous set of local election results in the UK built on Keir Starmer’s longstanding reputational problem: only 11% of Britons believe he has been a good or great prime minister, and nearly 60% believe he has been poor or terrible, according to polling by YouGov. Continue reading...
Bob Odenkirk’s a put-upon lawman in Ben Wheatley’s latest, and the SNL UK star is back out on tour Normal Out now Ben Wheatley (Sightseers) returns with an action crime thriller starring Bob Odenkirk as a man serving as interim sheriff in the fictional little town of Normal, Minnesota, a place that turns out to have some unexpectedly big secrets involving the yakuza. Also starring Henry Winkler an...
Bob Odenkirk’s a put-upon lawman in Ben Wheatley’s latest, and the SNL UK star is back out on tour Normal Out now Ben Wheatley (Sightseers) returns with an action crime thriller starring Bob Odenkirk as a man serving as interim sheriff in the fictional little town of Normal, Minnesota, a place that turns out to have some unexpectedly big secrets involving the yakuza. Also starring Henry Winkler and Lena Headey. Continue reading...
A lighter risotto made with whizzed cauliflower as well as rice, but with a reassuringly rich cheese sauce In series eight of Peep Show , Mark (David Mitchell) is working as a salesman in a bathroom shop when a customer asks him for a “modern but traditional” bathroom. Aghast, he tells the customer that these opposing styles can’t be married when his boss, Super Hans, swoops in to say they can: “F...
A lighter risotto made with whizzed cauliflower as well as rice, but with a reassuringly rich cheese sauce In series eight of Peep Show , Mark (David Mitchell) is working as a salesman in a bathroom shop when a customer asks him for a “modern but traditional” bathroom. Aghast, he tells the customer that these opposing styles can’t be married when his boss, Super Hans, swoops in to say they can: “Fancy taps but a rainforest shower head?” I was reminded of this silliness because here I’ve tried to create a risotto of opposing styles: lighter than a traditional one, because I’m using some blitzed cauliflower, while maintaining that richness you get from a cauliflower cheese. I think it works, but I’ll let you be the judge. Continue reading...
Jilly Cooper’s over-the-top TV industry romp returns, and Ian McKellen and Michaela Coel make a bracing artistic double act. Here’s the pick of the week’s culture, taken from the Guardian’s best-rated reviews Continue reading...
Jilly Cooper’s over-the-top TV industry romp returns, and Ian McKellen and Michaela Coel make a bracing artistic double act. Here’s the pick of the week’s culture, taken from the Guardian’s best-rated reviews Continue reading...
The equity story that powered European stocks has unraveled as investors seek shelter from a global energy shock and buy into the artificial intelligence frenzy. European stocks had been zooming higher prior to the Middle East war as investors diversified out of the US and piled into the region’s much cheaper stocks. But that narrative has given way to new realities: Europe’s economy is exposed to...
The equity story that powered European stocks has unraveled as investors seek shelter from a global energy shock and buy into the artificial intelligence frenzy. European stocks had been zooming higher prior to the Middle East war as investors diversified out of the US and piled into the region’s much cheaper stocks. But that narrative has given way to new realities: Europe’s economy is exposed to inflation and supply chain disruptions caused by the conflict, and it’s home to almost none of the companies at the heart of the AI boom. The Stoxx Europe 600 is now a laggard. The tailwinds that investors were betting on, such increased spending on infrastructure and defense, and advantageous monetary policy, have faded. Skepticism has returned. Inflows to European equity-focused funds have been completely erased as of this week, according to Bank of America Corp. strategists citing EPFR Global data. Europe is “a region without a theme, with no memes and with too little growth,” said Bobby Molavi , a partner and head of EMEA execution services at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. AI Void The US has hyperscalers, while Asia is home to leading chipmakers and other firms essential to the AI build out. Europe, by comparison, has little to offer investors who want in on the technology trade. The continent hosts heavyweight chip equipment maker ASML Holding NV , and a handful of other AI-related companies including Aixtron SE and STMicroelectronics NV . But their combined weight in the region’s benchmark is not significant enough to offset the massive industrial, consumer and defensive complex that investors have shunned this year. Technology stocks account for roughly 8% of the Stoxx Europe 600, compared with 42% for the S&P 500. Semiconductors in particular make only 3.5% of the European benchmark versus about 18% for both the S&P 500 and the MSCI Asia Pacific. At the index level, equity investment is about earnings growth. This year is shaping up to be solid for the Stoxx Europe 600,...
US president calls Abu-Bilal al-Minuki ‘most active terrorist in the world’ and says he was eliminated in ‘very complex mission’ Donald Trump has said US and Nigerian forces killed the “second in command” global leader of the Islamic State. “Tonight, at my direction, brave American forces and the Armed Forces of Nigeria flawlessly executed a meticulously planned and very complex mission to elimina...
US president calls Abu-Bilal al-Minuki ‘most active terrorist in the world’ and says he was eliminated in ‘very complex mission’ Donald Trump has said US and Nigerian forces killed the “second in command” global leader of the Islamic State. “Tonight, at my direction, brave American forces and the Armed Forces of Nigeria flawlessly executed a meticulously planned and very complex mission to eliminate the most active terrorist in the world from the battlefield,” the US president said on his Truth Social platform Friday. Continue reading...
Shares of streaming video giant Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) jumped 2.4% in the afternoon session after reports revealed the company's advertising business is scaling faster than Wall Street had expected, with confidence building ahead of presentation to advertisers on May 14.
Shares of streaming video giant Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) jumped 2.4% in the afternoon session after reports revealed the company's advertising business is scaling faster than Wall Street had expected, with confidence building ahead of presentation to advertisers on May 14.
imaginima/E+ via Getty Images By OpenMarkets Oil markets have been in focus since conflict began in the Middle East in late February, with prices at times surging past $100 per barrel. However, this time around, even as the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz has removed a historically unprecedented share of global supply, prices have risen far less dramatically than past disruptions. What e...
imaginima/E+ via Getty Images By OpenMarkets Oil markets have been in focus since conflict began in the Middle East in late February, with prices at times surging past $100 per barrel. However, this time around, even as the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz has removed a historically unprecedented share of global supply, prices have risen far less dramatically than past disruptions. What explains this disconnect? And what does the move into backwardation – where prices for near-term delivery rise above prices for delivery further in the future – signal for investors navigating this volatile environment? Erik Norland, CME Group's Chief Economist, sat down with OpenMarkets to discuss what 40 years of market data reveals about oil futures dynamics during periods of backwardation. This conversation has been edited for brevity. Can you explain what the current backwardation in the WTI Crude Oil futures curve tells us about market expectations for supply and demand? It suggests that investors expect things to return to normal. In the near term, the market is disrupted with reduced supply coming out of the Middle East, pushing near-term prices to around $100 per barrel. However, the market seems to expect prices could return to around $75 by year-end if conditions normalize. Keep in mind, these are just market expectations, and they’re constantly changing. What historical trends or patterns have you observed in crude oil returns when the market structure is in contango compared to backwardation? Since around 1985, a consistent pattern has emerged. When holding a long position during periods of contango, crude oil positions often (but not always) lose capital. By contrast, a long position in crude oil during periods of backwardation typically shows positive returns over time – though again, not always. There are always exceptions to every rule. This pattern suggests that traders have historically underestimated the length of time markets remain oversupplied (in the ...