Bequia in the Grenadines: Tall tales and windswept shores July 10, 2023 Lawson Sargeant is bent over a scrubbed bench, fixing a tiny sail on a carved, wooden boat. It’s a fiddly and intricate business. In his workshop in Port Elizabeth, on the Caribbean island of Bequia, wooden replicas of yachts and sailing boats are lined up on turquoise-painted shelves all around the room. You might first [...]
City Pages: The 10 books that should be on your list this summer July 10, 2023 From classic to contemporary, thriller or Booker prize winner, the Morning Wire team picks the 10 top books that should be on your list this summer. 1. Victory City by Salman Rushdie It’s Rushdie, so you know it’s gonna be good, but this is really good. Framed as a translation of a 15th Century Sanskrit [...]
Writer and businesswoman Hannah Rothschild on family, crypto, and not being a silly novelist July 10, 2023 “The name walks into the room long before you. So it brings baggage, for want of a better word,” Hannah Rothschild tells me. A businesswoman, philanthropist and writer, I am meeting with Hannah to talk about her latest novel High Time, but I can’t help but also ask about her extraordinary upbringing. A primogeniture-led family, [...]
Gaizka Mendieta interview: Food, business and life after football July 9, 2023 Former Spain, Middlesbrough, Lazio and Valencia midfielder Gaizka Mendieta on finding a new passion in the restaurant business after a stellar football career. When Gaizka Mendieta, one of the most lauded midfielders of his era, moved to Middlesbrough in 2003 he gave England a taste of the best that Spain had to offer. Now, 15 [...]
Exclusive: Canada Corporation will ‘explain and retain’ two slave owner statues with plaques July 7, 2023 Links to slavery in the Square Mile will be tackled plaques on two statues of controversial historic figures, following a planning application lodged this week. Morning Wire can exclusively reveal Canada Corporation is looking to affix explainers on statues for two-time Lord Mayor William Beckford and former MP and philanthropist Sir John [...]
Lavazza burned by surging coffee bean costs with earnings down double-digits July 6, 2023 Lavazza has warned over a double-digit drop in earnings this year amid surging coffee bean costs and said its prices are not set to come down for consumers until 2024. The Italian coffee giant said it is braced for a hefty drop in underlying earnings over 2023 as it looks to limit price hikes. It [...]
Tour de France: Wines from Ventoux to enjoy as you watch the race July 6, 2023 With the Tour de France returning on Saturday, it seems fitting to consider Ventoux, a place where cycling and wine meet. Ventoux, one of the most celebrated stages of the Tour de France, has a long history with the sport, the Tour having ascended the summit eighteen times since 1951. Mont Ventoux, or La bête [...]
A Strange Loop writer Michael R. Jackson on creating the buzziest musical since Hamilton July 6, 2023 A surprise hit in the US, A Strange Loop has now landed a huge London run. Adam Bloodworth speaks to the man who dreamed it up while working as an usher on Broadway Michael R. Jackson’s A Strange Loop won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, becoming the second ever musical to win the accolade. The [...]
Pixar’s Elemental shows how the animation studio needs to work harder July 6, 2023 Elemental arrives on these shores with the unwanted title of worst performing Pixar movie. Struggling to compete with Spider-Man: Into The Spider-verse, can the family comedy drawaudiences here? It imagines a world in which the elements – earth, fire, water, and air – are people living happily in separate communities, avoiding contact with each other. [...]
Mission Impossible: Tom Cruise is back but this franchise is showing its age July 5, 2023 Barbie vs Oppenheimer may be the summer showdown everyone’s talking about, but one movie legend would like to remind you that he’s back. Despite some occasional headline-grabbing bouts of odd behaviour, Tom Cruise is one of the last true movie stars, someone who can get crowds to turn up based on his name alone. But [...]