Category Archives: Stories

Preview: The Economist Magazine – July 26, 2022

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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

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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).

Previews: History Today Magazine – August 2022

August 2022August 2022

Ahmad Shah Durrani, father of  Prince Darab, Mughal School, 1757. CPA Media Co. Ltd/TopFoto.

Prince Darab’s Lost Treasure

Fleeing his father’s empire, an Afghan prince travelled from Kabul to Sindh via Mecca, becoming a fugitive, courtier and pilgrim in the process.

Nigel Farage’s Bayeux Tapestry tie, 20 November 2014.

Law of the Land

What relevance do the Norman Conquest and the events of 1066 have to contemporary British politics? Everything and nothing.

Executions

Violent Ends

Early modern methods of execution were carefully calculated to inflict shame upon the condemned. 

he  Felix Dzerzhinsky tractor factory dispatches DT-54 tractors, 1930s.

The Unbreakable City

The Battle of Stalingrad began in August 1942, subjecting its residents to months of living hell. But few doubted that the city was worth defending; its significance to the Soviet project made it too important to abandon.

Previews: The New Yorker Magazine – August 1, 2022

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Will Wisconsin’s Republicans Make Voting Meaningless, or Just Difficult?

Activists are combining voter suppression with election conspiracies to capture the state in 2022 and beyond.By Dan Kaufman

Annals of a Warming PlanetLiving Through India’s Next-Level Heat WaveIn hospitals, in schools, and on the streets, high temperatures have transformed routines and made daylight dangerous..By Dhruv Khullar

Morning News: Ukraine Grain Deal Missile Strike, Tunisia Vote, Formula 1

Missile strikes on the port of Odessa have dimmed hopes for a UN-brokered deal to get Ukraine’s grain on the move.

We ask what chances it may still have. Tunisia’s constitutional referendum looks destined to formalise a march back to the autocratic rule it shook off during the Arab Spring. And how Formula 1 is looking to crack America. 

Architecture: Poet Alfred Lord Tennyson’s Isle Of Wight Home ‘Farringford’

After nearly 60 years as a hotel, this former home of the poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson has been triumphantly restored as a house museum. John Goodall reports; photography by Paul Highnam.

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On January 21, 1884, the poet laureate Alfred Tennyson was elevated to the peerage as Baron of Aldworth, Surrey, and of Freshwater on the Isle of Wight. As the editor of The Complete Peerage (1896) primly commented when recording this exceptional accolade, ‘the assumption of two places in different counties (more especially when the estate possessed is inconsiderable), cannot be commended’. Tennyson, however, would not have cared. Indeed, he had refused the offer of baronetcy four times and was only finally persuaded to accept it by his friend, the then Prime Minister, William Gladstone.

Tennyson chose this unusual title because — unconventionally for the period — he had houses in both places that he considered to be homes. Aldworth, which he generally occupied in the summer months, was a retreat from his house at Freshwater. This latter building, known as Farringford, was sold by the family in the 1940s and thereafter became a hotel. Returned back into private ownership in 2007, it has now undergone a renaissance at the hands of a Tennyson scholar, who has turned it into both a home and a house museum to the poet.

Fig 1: The library, which was added to the house in 1871 and has been fully restored. Farringford, Isle of Wight. ©Paul Highnam for Country Life

In the years immediately following his marriage in 1850, Tennyson and his wife, Emily, actively searched for a place to live. They heard from friends about a family house at Freshwater, on the north-western extreme of the Isle of Wight. Following a slightly depressing first viewing by Tennyson — then aged 44 — the couple came back together. An account of their visit in November 1853 is given in Emily’s journal. Travelling by train to Brockenhurst — where the railway line then ended — they caught an omnibus to Lymington and crossed on a still evening from the mainland in a rowing boat.

Emily was delighted by the house, which enjoyed an expansive prospect along almost the whole Hampshire coastline, and ‘looking from the drawing-room window, thought “I must have that view”, and so I said to him when alone. So accordingly we agreed… to take the place furnished for a time on trial with the option of purchasing’.

Fig 2: The north front of the house, with its Gothic porch. Farringford, Isle of Wight. ©Paul Highnam for Country Life

Read more at Country Life Magazine: https://ift.tt/l9zibWL

Sunday Morning: Stories And News From Zurich, London, Tokyo & Reykjavík

Our weekend programme comes live from Monocle’s radio studio in Zürich, where Tyler Brûlé and a panel of special-guest thought leaders discuss key topics in front of a studio audience.

Cover Preview: Barron’s Magazine – July 25, 2022

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Unboxing Amazon: The Case for the Stock to Double, or More

For investors, it’s time to refocus—Amazon shares have never looked more attractive.

THE TRADER

Is the Stock Market Going Up? It Might Depend on the Definition of Recession.

Ben Levisohn

THE TRADER

Restaurant Stocks Are Finally Coming Back to Life. This One Looks Like a Good Bet.

Ben Levisohn

THE TRADER

Intangibles Are Becoming a Tangible Risk for Stocks

Al Root

UP AND DOWN WALL STREET

The Stock Market Is Entering Its Weakest Months. What to Watch Out For.

Randall W. Forsyth