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Last night I went to the roller rink again. It was Saturday evening and the lights were neon, the music was disco and the conga line was 12 people deep. Dinner was a hotdog soused in American mustard; drinks were Shirley Temples and malted shakes. The atmosphere was pure joy.  I am not alone in my obsession.

Turning 30 is a landmark in any young man’s life but for Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, his 31st year proves seismic. He wakes one day from a protracted slumber and rises, naked, from his bed. Whereupon it becomes clear that, as Woolf writes, in one of the most astonishing sentences in English literature, “he was a

Good morning from London. With our US colleagues tied up with that peculiar but much-loved tradition of doing Christmas-without-the-presents a month before actual Christmas, the UK energy team is running the show. If you need some respite from all the giving of thanks, consider Energy Source your refuge. No one will try make you have

Germany’s footballers covered their mouths for their team photo ahead of their World Cup game against Japan, in what appeared to be a protest against Fifa’s decision to ban the wearing of “One Love” armbands as a symbol of diversity. The German government also expressed disappointment at Fifa’s decision, saying the rights of the LGBT+

Good morning and welcome to Europe Express. Russia yesterday threatened to lower gas flows to western Europe via Ukraine, adding to the gloomy outlook for the winter. In this context, the EU commission gave a sobering assessment of the bloc’s economies and their fiscal plans for the year to come, which we will unpack below.

The Treasury has had to bail out the Bank of England for the first losses it has made on its quantitative easing programme since 2009, which resulted from rises in official interest rates. In figures published on Tuesday evening, the central bank reported that the Treasury had transferred £828mn during the third quarter and that

Closer to the Edgeby Leo Houlding, Headline £20 The first book by the pioneering British climber suffers from attempting to cram in too many episodes from an absurdly eventful life but it’s an enthralling read. Rather than straining for philosophical implications of the sport, as do many mountaineering memoirs, Leo Houlding’s is a candid insight

John Plender’s concern that “ . . . central banks cannot recapitalise themselves in the event of insolvency through seignorage without generating unacceptably high inflation” is misplaced (“Test of central bank credibility looms on risk of bond losses”, Markets Insight, November 17). The permanent increase in money supply that generates his concerns about inflation has already taken place at

The writer is an adjunct lecturer at William & Mary and author of forthcoming book ‘The Confidence Map’ With all the attention on Sam Bankman-Fried and the crypto collapse du jour, it feels as if the crowd is missing the big picture. If we step back and look at the major collapses of organisations over

Two years ago, as Covid lockdowns forced the closure of stadiums, arenas and theatres, many live entertainment businesses were on the brink of collapse. Unable to sell tickets as governments banned indoor and outdoor events, the industry suddenly had no way to make money. Businesses in the sector lost a collective $30bn in 2020, according

The US looks set to withdraw a record number of books from the country’s schools and libraries this year as America’s culture wars place growing pressure on children, educators and publishers. Fresh estimates from the American Library Association and PEN America, which campaigns for literary freedom, show a surge in recent efforts by parents, advocacy

Fox News host Sean Hannity has gone back and forth over the years on whether he is a journalist. When asked about his close relationship with then-presidential candidate Donald Trump in 2016, Hannity told The New York Times: “I never claimed to be a journalist.” A year later, he refined his answer: “I’m a journalist.

At the Free Zone Fan Village, in the desert south of Doha, construction workers from Bangladesh rush to complete the sprawling grid of 6,500 cabins under the glare of the searing midday sun. The Free Zone is the biggest of three temporary bases housing a total of 20,000 fans in cabins that Qatar has built

Crypto has many problems. But the transparency of on-chain transactions does occasionally offer some pretty fascinating insights into shenanigans like the fall of Sam Bankman-Fried’s magic bean empire. Blockchain analytics firm Nansen has been digging into the incestuous links between SBF’s trading firm Alameda and the crypto exchange FTX, and their subsequent mutual death spiral.

The co-creator of Sonic the Hedgehog — a veteran programmer who ranks among the most famous figures in the Japanese games industry — has been arrested over an alleged insider dealing scam involving an investment of just $20,000. Yuji Naka, whose producing credits during his early career at games developer Sega spanned major hits such

Inequality is a fatal weapon in Cho Nam-Joo’s second novel Saha. Following her 2016 breakout bestseller, Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982, a tale of female straitjacketing in Korean society that rode on the #MeToo wave and sold more than 1mn copies, this new book births an oppressive dystopia where the shadows of real-world problems are chillingly

Moira O’Neill is a freelance money and investment writer The chancellor had already made it clear that he would be asking everyone for sacrifices. But I’m wondering if the subtext to Jeremy Hunt’s Autumn Statement is sacrificing our comfortable retirements. While many people will be reassured by the restated commitment to the state pension triple

Joy is engineered into the Honda Super Cub, which celebrates its 65th birthday next year. It was part of the original product spec. When Soichiro Honda launched the scooter in 1958, its stated aim was “to provide the joy of playing a useful part in people’s lives”. It’s why Seiko is paying homage to the

A top official at the Treasury department has proposed changes to the way transactions in the $24tn US government bond market are disclosed, as calls grow to improve the transparency and resiliency of what is considered the foundation of the global financial system. Trading in Treasuries is notoriously opaque, and regulators and investors have long

A deadly missile strike on a Polish village close to the Ukrainian border has made stark the biggest fear of the war in Ukraine: that the conflict could snowball into a wider confrontation between Moscow and the US-led Nato alliance. At 3:40pm on Tuesday, a missile struck Przewodów, close to Poland’s south-eastern border with Ukraine,