Tag Archives: Writing

Country Life Magazine – October 9, 2024 Preview

Country Life Magazine (October 8, 2024): The latest issue features

Daffy goes digital

Annie Tempest’s inimitable characters totter gently into the modern age with a new website

Mud, mud, glorious mud

Dogs, birds, pigs and humans alike follow hippopotami down the hollow. Deborah Nicholls-Lee dons her wellies and joins them

A sense of time and place

Ben Pentreath unravels what makes an interior English, that indefinable, yet instantly recog-nisable and beguiling aesthetic

Made in the Marches

The border of England and Wales is proving inspiring for artisanal craftsmen, finds Arabella Youens

Mixing old and new

Country Life’s Interiors Editor Giles Kime opens the doors to his revived 17th-century cottage

New looks for a new season

From bamboo bookshelves to lamps and pots, Amelia Thorpe chooses accessories to covet

Turi King’s favourite painting

The scientist and historian picks a powerful royal portrait   

Growing pains

Minette Batters takes her seat in the House of Lords

The right place to build

The historic streetscapes of our towns and cities reveal lessons we still need to learn about how to build, believes Ptolemy Dean

The legacy

Kate Green salutes Dorothy Brooke and the global equine charity that bears her name

Antlered majesty

Manmade, yet wild, deer parks prove we can create Arcadia, asserts John Lewis-Stempel

Timber of the gods

Jack Watkins admires the huge, ancient and once-exotic cedars that punctuate our landscapes

The good stuff

Hetty Lintell tallies her trinkets

Interiors

An imaginative kitchen extension and tea-tinged fabrics

Building on great bone structure

The good bones that anchor the gardens of Foscote Manor, Buckinghamshire, please the eye of George Plumptre

Foraging

John Wright raises a dram of home-made vodka to the crab apple      

Operation mincemeat

Always comforting, cottage pie satisfies Tom Parker Bowles

Salt of the earth

Pick up a handful or several of salted peanuts when you’re next in the pub, urges Rob Crossan

I have news for ewe

The humble sheep changed the course of British art history, reveals Bendor Grosvenor

The New York Times — Tuesday, October 8, 2024

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In a World Changed by Oct. 7, Hatred Is Winning

Peace in the Middle East seems more elusive than ever, with Oct. 7 setting off a battle over not just land but the narrative itself.

Nowhere to Go: How Gaza Became a Mass Death Trap

Hundreds of thousands of civilians have been prevented from fleeing the narrow strip of land even as bombs have rained down, famine has loomed and disease has spread.

Trump’s Plans Could Increase U.S. Debt While Raising Costs for Most Americans

A new analysis finds that Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald J. Trump’s plans would both add to the deficit, but Mr. Trump’s proposals could create a fiscal hole twice as big.

The Mideast War Threatens Harris in Michigan as Arab Voters Reject Her

A year after the Oct. 7 attacks, Kamala Harris faces deepening Democratic fractures in a crucial state. Interviews suggest that her support from Muslim and Arab Americans is drying up.

The New York Times — Monday, October 7, 2024

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Trump’s Speeches, Increasingly Angry and Rambling, Reignite the Question of Age

With the passage of time, the 78-year-old former president’s speeches have grown darker, harsher, longer, angrier, less focused, more profane and increasingly fixated on the past, according to a review of his public appearances over the years.

Bruised Supreme Court Returns to Bench With Possible Election Cases Looming

Aside from major disputes on issues like transgender rights and guns, the docket is fairly routine. That could change fast if the presidential race is contested.

The War That Won’t End: How Oct. 7 Sparked a Year of Conflict

As war in the Middle East spreads, the original conflict between Israel and Hamas has persisted. This is why.

A Ghostly Life for Those Trickling Back to Villages Attacked on Oct. 7

Along Israel’s border with Gaza, reminders of the trauma of the Hamas-led assault are inescapable as the few who have returned try to start anew.

World Economic Forum: Top Stories – Oct. 5, 2024

World Economic Forum (October 5, 2024) – The top stories of the week include:

0:15 What’s next for urgent climate action? – At the Sustainable Development Impact Meetings in New York, leaders discussed how to curb carbon emissions while building an inclusive economy. Regulations can be a lever for systemic change but local innovation is crucial, too.

3:09 Solar stoves reduce air pollution deaths – It cooks food while emitting hardly any smoke. It uses a hybrid system, powered by energy from solar panels and from fuel such as small sticks or crop waste. The ACE One was created by African Clean Energy which is a part of the World Economic Forum’s Equitable Transition Initiative.

5:08 Chief economists’ outlook for the rest of 2024 – Many chief economists polled by the World Economic Forum are optimistic about 2025. In the United States, nearly nine in ten chief economists anticipate moderate or strong growth in the coming year. Similarly, in South Asia, 71% predict strong or very strong growth.

9:33 Earth exceeds 6 of 9 planetary boundaries – In 2009, a team of scientists identified the 9 natural processes that regulate Earth’s biosphere and keep it stable. These include climate change, biodiversity, ocean acidification and freshwater. The team also defined the safe planetary boundary for each process. A safe and sustainable future for humanity lies within these boundaries.

The New York Times — Saturday, October 5, 2024

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A Pentagon Debate: Are U.S. Deployments Containing the Fighting, or Inflaming It?

Military officials discuss whether sending more force to the Middle East is helping to prevent a much wider war, or emboldening Israel.

An Exodus of Agents Left the Secret Service Unprepared for 2024

Punishing hours, dilapidated facilities and an ill-conceived retiree program left the agency without the personnel it needed in a year of threats and violence.

As America’s Marijuana Use Grows, So Do the Harms

The drug, legal in much of the country, is widely seen as nonaddictive and safe. For some users, these assumptions are dangerously wrong.

Trump’s Return to Butler Is Sure to Be a Spectacle. Is It Safe?

At a time of increased security risks, the former president has urged thousands of supporters to return with him to the place a gunman tried to take his life.

The New York Times — Friday, October 4, 2024

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After Successes, Israel’s Military Is in a ‘Long Game’ With No Clear Outcome

A year after perhaps the worst military and intelligence debacle in the country’s history, its armed forces have regained the momentum. Some ask: to what end?

3 Former Officers Acquitted of Most Serious Charge in Tyre Nichols’s Death

The former officers were found guilty of witness tampering but not of the charge that would have held them responsible for causing his death.

Trump Promised to Release His Medical Records. He Still Won’t Do It.

If elected again, he would become the oldest president by the end of his term. Yet he is refusing to disclose even basic health information.

Filing in Trump Election Case Fleshes Out Roles of a Sprawling Cast

Donald Trump is the only defendant in the special counsel’s case that charges him with a plot to remain in power after his 2020 loss. But a newly unsealed brief provides fresh details about many other figures.

The New York Times — Thursday, October 3, 2024

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Israel Says at Least 8 Soldiers Are Killed in Clashes With Hezbollah

The cross-border fighting appeared to be the first direct ground confrontation between the two sides since Israel invaded Lebanon this week.

A Wider War in the Middle East, From Hamas to Hezbollah and Now Iran

The main questions now are how much the conflict will escalate and whether the United States will get more directly involved in the defense of Israel.

Stranded in North Carolina’s Mountains, ‘You Can’t Tell That the World’s Going On’

With no way for cars to get into Bat Cave, N.C., food and water have been dropped off by helicopters or carried over the river on foot or by a raft.

The Moment When Vance Dodged a Jan. 6 Question but Said Plenty

JD Vance sailed fairly smoothly through some 90 minutes of Tuesday’s debate with Tim Walz. Then the subject turned to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

The New York Times — Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024

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Iran Launches Barrage of Ballistic Missiles at Israel in Retaliation for Assassinations

The 180 missiles fired at Israel on Tuesday evening sharply escalated the conflict between the two countries and threatened to engulf the Middle East in all-out war.

As Crisis Builds, Lebanon’s Government Is Nowhere to Be Found

Already crippled by years of economic decline, political paralysis and other crises, Lebanon has little but its own citizens’ grit to survive the Israel-Hezbollah conflict.

In Booming Asheville, Residents Rethink Their Sense of Safety

Worries of flooding had not been top of mind as the mountain-ringed city flourished in recent years as a haven for artists, chefs, brewmasters, entrepreneurs and retirees.

Pete Rose, Baseball Star Who Earned Glory and Shame, Dies at 83

One of the sport’s greatest players, he set a record with 4,256 career hits. But his gambling led to a lifetime ban and kept him out of the Hall of Fame.

The New York Review Of Books – October 17, 2024

The New York Review of Books (September 26, 2024)The latest issue features:

‘The Death of Some Ideal’

The Irish novelist Anne Enright writes with great prowess and wit about women who make a virtue of getting on with things.

The Wren, the Wren by Anne Enright

The Fact Man

At the heart of Daniel Defoe’s fictional world is a feeling for change, of the mutability and shiftiness of modern life and the people who thrive in it.

The Oxford Handbook of Daniel Defoe edited by Nicholas Seager and J.A. Downie

The Problems with Polls

Political polling’s greatest achievement is its complete co-opting of our understanding of public opinion, which we can no longer imagine without it.

Strength in Numbers: How Polls Work and Why We Need Them by G. Elliott Morris

Literary Preview: n+1 Magazine – Fall 2024

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@nplusonemag (August 16, 2024): The ‘Inside Job’ issue features Pope Fiction, My AI Could Paint That, Literal Death Drive, Raven Leilani on Grief Writing; Biden – A Retrospective and A Satire by Saidiya Hartman…