View online

25 July, 2023

Tens of thousands of Israelis have taken to the streets after the country’s parliament passed a law preventing the Supreme Court from overruling “unreasonable” government actions. Demonstrators blocked motorways in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, with police using water cannon to disperse them. Some 30,000 Britons face having their summer holidays cancelled after resorts on wildfire-struck Rhodes confirmed that they may remain closed for weeks. More than 270 firefighters are trying to control 82 blazes across Greece; officials say that strong winds and 40C temperatures mean they expect more fires to break out. Aldi is recruiting an Official Beer Taster to help supermarket bosses choose what to stock. The successful applicant will need “a love of lager, passion for ale and hop-timistic attitude”. Apply here.

Xi with Trump in 2017. Qilai Shen/Bloomberg

China would much prefer Trump to Biden

As Xi Jinping brainstorms ways to get his country back on track, says William Pesek in Nikkei Asia, “Donald Trump probably sits high on his wish list”. Few in China enjoyed the chaos, trade tariffs and Twitter rants of the Trump presidency at the time, and fewer still enjoyed hearing him call Covid “kung flu”. But in Beijing, the feeling is that Trump’s “blunderbuss administration” rarely hit its target. President Joe Biden, on the other hand, is landing some huge economic blows. Most notably, he has successfully limited access to key technologies, and made life far harder for Chinese firms listed on US stock exchanges.

This approach is working. Weakened exports and poor retail sales in the home market make Beijing’s modest target of 5% annual growth look “increasingly unattainable”. As Biden tightens the screws, “waves of capital are already rushing away from China” – all the more reason for Xi’s inner circle to “pine for the good old days” of Trump. Unlike the current measures, the Trump administration’s tariffs on Chinese goods didn’t make the US more “innovative, productive or competitive”. And by loosening emissions standards, Trump ceded a possible advantage in electric vehicles to China – one of the few bright spots on Xi’s economic landscape. All the “turbulence and drama” was far preferable to Biden “quietly and methodically achieving the policy equivalent of letting the air out of China’s tyres”.

This summer, “tomato season is a lifestyle”, says Architectural Digest. Interior designers are selling a host of furnishings inspired by the fruit, from Malin + Goetz’s tomato-scented candle, to Bordallo Pinheiro’s carefully crafted “tomato tureen”. For a more subtle take on the trend, start with homeware that incorporates the “juicy red colour” without necessarily being moulded into the relevant shape. You don’t even need to splash out on any new items: Pantone 18-1660 is the perfect “Tomato” shade for sprucing up slightly worn-out storage units.

New research into “superagers” – anyone aged 70 to 85 who still enjoys the cognitive abilities of someone around 25 years younger – has found that alongside keeping active and being richer, two of the best things you can do are play music and get a divorce. While the Spanish brain boffins responsible for the study theorised that music practice may constitute a kind of cognitive workout, they were stumped on the benefits of being separated. 

Enjoying The Knowledge? Click below to share

Stephan Rudolph/Getty

In the 1940s and 1950s, says QI on Twitter, the Ford Motor Company wouldn’t allow TV programmes it sponsored to feature any shots of the New York skyline, to avoid showing the Chrysler Building (pictured). Its arch rival was similarly petty: Chrysler forbade characters in the shows it sponsored from saying they would “ford” a river.

Cillian Murphy as the man behind the bomb

Oppenheimer would never be hired today

Robert Oppenheimer, who first gave humanity the capability to destroy itself, may be “the most important man who ever lived”, says Tom Chivers in UnHerd. But it’s “remarkable” that he was appointed to lead the Manhattan Project in the first place. One of the largest government initiatives ever, the effort to develop the bomb employed 125,000 people and cost as much as $50bn in today’s money – 10 times the cost of the Large Hadron Collider. Oppenheimer, meanwhile, was a “psychologically troubled, communist-sympathising attempted murderer”. In his job application he described himself as “a member of just about every Communist Front organisation on the West Coast”. And he was prone to “violent urges”: he once tried to garrotte a friend with a luggage strap, and to poison a Cambridge professor he didn’t like with an apple.

Today, we’re too “sceptical of genius” to take a risk on such a figure. Can you imagine someone under investigation for links to Chinese intelligence and “with a track record of violence and delusional mental illness” being put in charge of developing a world-changing AI system? When Dominic Cummings called for “super-talented weirdos” to join the British government – and he didn’t have in mind anyone “remotely as weird as Oppenheimer” – he was derided and encouraged to look for more orthodox figures who could get along with colleagues and had plenty of glowing references. A genius like Oppenheimer would surely get “nowhere near the top” of any major project.

To find out more about advertising and partnerships with The Knowledge, click here

TikTokers are going mad for “latte-inspired beauty”, says Karina Hoshikawa in Bustle: cosmetics in “warm, softly smoky neutral” tones similar to a milky coffee. Make-up wise, it involves using a “cornucopia of smouldering tans and browns” around the eyes and a glossy matte brown lipstick to finish the look. For nails, try a “java-inspired shade” with a slightly lighter tip for contrast, to replicate the frothy top of a café con leché. Delicious 💅☕️

Pedestrians crossing Oxford Circus: slow coaches

British people have become slower at crossing the road. Traffic lights currently leave 6.1 seconds for pedestrians to traverse both lanes of a typical road, which assumes a walking pace of 1.2 metres per second. But with the population getting older and fatter, the Department for Transport is now recommending that lights allow 7.3 seconds, to allow for the fact that the average Brit shuffles along at only 1 metre per second.

It’s a World War Two bunker, long considered one of Hamburg’s greatest eyesores, which is being spruced up with trees and shrubs to attract tourists. The €60m conversion of Flakturm IV – ­which served as a wartime air-raid shelter for 25,000 people – includes a 134-room hotel, a concert hall, a museum and a rooftop bar with sweeping views of the city. Some 4,700 trees and 16,000 perennials have been planted, all chosen to withstand their exposed position on the wind-lashed tower.

“As you get older, three things happen. The first is your memory goes, and I can’t remember the other two.”

Norman Wisdom

That’s it. You’re done.

To find out about advertising and commercial partnerships, click here

Been forwarded this newsletter?

Sign up for free to receive it every day

Unsubscribe from the newsletter