Digested week: Trump merch and what's in a name? A lot if it's Sussex
In New York itself, meanwhile, there is widespread and guilty determination by friends to turn away from the news because engagement is just so depressing. The question most asked of me is how are Americans regarded in general and when they travel overseas? On that front, at least, I can reassure. As ever, it seems most people are too wrapped up in their own parochial dramas to give much thought to what, or who, any passing American they encounter might represent.
With one caveat: travelling on American passports, we clear immigration in Reykjavik en route to New York where the official demands paperwork I've never been asked for before and tells me brusquely: 'The way things are done in America isn't the way we do them in the rest of the world.' I'm so stung by this condescension I find myself huffing, Colonel Blimp-style, 'I'm a British citizen!' – which startles us both, but probably me more than her.
That encounter in Iceland qualifies as a 'microstress', a small aggravation that, according to a recent survey of 2,000 people commissioned by psychologists, can over time take as serious a toll on one's nerves as the big ones: death, divorce, moving house. In the survey, the top three microstresses were listed as being stuck in traffic, when a bin bag breaks (really?) and losing one's keys.
I get this, but consider the flipside: the equalising force of micro-joys: the first (and second and third) coffee of the morning; finding the remote after you've lost it; or catching site of the cat asleep on the sofa with its paws in the air – small pleasures and improvements that, unlike winning the lottery, say, trigger a governable amount of emotion. I often think that contentment truly rests on banking enough of these small joys in a way that comfortably outweighs the big stuff.
It's reported in this paper that Prince Harry had to wait six months for his children's passports to be issued after he had a punt at sticking 'HRH' in the honorifics field and listed their surnames as Sussex, in direct defiance of the queen's 1960 ruling that descendants without royal titles could not inherit the surname associated with their parents' peerage.
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It's brilliant of Harry, in a way, trying to slide the issue past the king via an innocent piece of paperwork submitted to a faceless government body. When the passports weren't issued, Harry and Meghan, frustrated, put in a second application for 24-hour service and promptly had their meeting cancelled due to a 'systems failure', a piece of peerless counter passive-aggression by the king, with the added bonus of plausible deniability. There is, after all, simply no defeating British bureaucracy when it's set to truculence.
These are Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet's second set of surnames, their first having been Mountbatten-Windsor, while Harry and William both grew up with the name Wales. The main takeaway from this story, as a friend observes, is that 'no one in that sodding family ever knows what their surname is'.
From the land of move slow and frustrate things to the rapidly disintegrating Elon Musk who, in an even shorter timescale than anticipated, has turned on his benefactor, President Trump. Last week, Musk criticised Trump's 'big, beautiful' tax bill for swelling the deficit with that heavy-lifting word 'disappointed', and hedged with the coy qualifier, 'my personal opinion'.
Obviously that mildness couldn't hold. By Tuesday this week, Musk's assessment of the bill had advanced from disappointing to a 'disgusting abomination'. By Thursday, Trump had retaliated on social media with threats to cut federal contracts to Tesla, provoking Musk to boast, 'without me, Trump would've lost the election' and make a veiled accusation – not the first time he's thrown 'paedo' around when challenged – that Trump was mixed up with Jeffrey Epstein.
But while this was the moment we'd all been waiting for, watching the world's two most powerful men, both of whom appear to be suffering from cognitive impairment of some kind, duke it out, was less cathartic than simply morbidly depressing.
An end of the week treat, however, in the form of Dame Rosemary Squires, the founder of the Ambassador Theatre Group, saying the quiet part out loud: does anyone really want to sit through a play that lasts longer than three hours? Her observation was triggered by the opening of Stereophonic, lately transferred to London from New York, which goes on for three hours 10 minutes.
A Little Life, the recent stage adaptation of the Hanya Yanagihara novel, ran to almost four hours, although as an experience preferable, surely, to reading the book. This week, I saw the brilliant My Neighbour Totoro, which clocks in at two hours 40 and is fantastic, although still shy of the dream phrase 'running time one hour 20 minutes'. Still, there are some weeks when all you're fit for is Samuel Beckett's reward to the very tired who attempt to go to the theatre midweek: his play Breath, which comes in at a small, beautiful 35 seconds.
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Daily Mail
13 hours ago
- Daily Mail
MAIL ON SUNDAY COMMENT: Now Trump should listen carefully to his loyal European allies
In October 1986, there was a summit between the President of the United States and the Kremlin leader, at a remote and chilly site on the edge of the Arctic. The Reykjavik meeting ended in what seemed to be failure. At the time, though it is little recalled now, there was still a great deal of mistrust between the White House and Moscow and the Soviet Union was still a highly repressive one-party police state. The liberalism of perestroika and glasnost were only just getting under way. Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev tried to achieve too much, and as a result seemed to have achieved nothing. Later it became clear that the failed negotiations had opened the way for a more modest but workable deal which – a year later – was the beginning of the end of the Cold War. So it may be too soon to reach a final verdict on the Alaska encounter. After all, we know almost nothing about what took place. The next few days may reveal more, as Mr Trump briefs Ukraine 's President Zelensky and his European allies, and as Mr Putin leaks what it suits him to leak. But so far, the Trump-Putin get-together at Anchorage is not looking good for the interests of the West or Ukraine. Simply by welcoming Mr Putin to American soil, Mr Trump gave him a major prize, a reprieve from the pariah status he has endured since he invaded Ukraine in 2022. By going still further, and treating him with exaggerated respect on the red carpet and in the open part of their meeting, Mr Trump strengthened the image of the Russian dictator at home and among his own allies. It is hard to see how this can lead to a good end. Some sort of humiliation of Ukraine, by loss of territory or by diplomatic isolation from Nato, or both, is the logical conclusion. By behaving in this way, Mr Trump also sent a dangerous message to all the world's rogue states and tyrants, that under him the USA is prepared to forgive and forget truly outrageous international behaviour. Maybe this is just the New World Order, as the old slogans of 'America First' are turned into policy in Washington DC. If this is so, then democratic Europe is going to have to decide how much it is prepared to spend, and how far it is ready to commit itself, to replace the lost influence of the USA. A week ago we praised Mr Trump for having the courage to seek peace. And he was right to do so. Diplomacy requires courage. Big stakes cannot be won without big risks. But when you sup with the devil you also need a very long spoon, and it is not clear that Mr Trump's previous experience with deal-making has ever brought him into contact with an opponent so wily and merciless. We still hope that the US President can obtain a civilised bargain. We still think the effort was worthwhile. But he should listen very carefully to America's loyal allies before he takes the next step. There should, for sure, be no more red carpets and no more rides in the presidential limousine. And if he is wise he will resist Mr Putin's attempts to get him to come to Moscow.
Telegraph
a day ago
- Telegraph
Europe is being left behind when it comes to cheap long-haul flights
Birgir Jonsson, the Icelandic entrepreneur who launched low-cost carrier Play in 2019, had hoped to follow in the vapour trails of Norwegian carrier Norse Atlantic and offer non-stop budget flights from Britain to the US. But Play will soon cease all flights from Stansted, Liverpool and Glasgow to New York, Boston, Washington, Baltimore and Toronto – all routed via Reykjavik's Keflavik airport. In future, the airline will focus on European leisure destinations. 'We're concentrating on the profitable aspects of the business – sun-destination flights – and discontinuing those that have not yielded results,' said Einar Örn Ólafsson, the airline's chief executive. Play is not the only new low-cost airline hitting turbulence on transatlantic routes. JetBlue has trimmed some of its national schedules, dropping its summer-only service between New York and Gatwick and its second summer-season daily flight from JFK to Paris. A third carrier, Fly Atlantic, is struggling to get off the ground. Andrew Pyne, a former British Airways and Cathay Pacific executive, aims to carry passengers from Europe to America with a stop in Belfast, using fuel-efficient, narrow-body, twin-engine Airbus A321 jets. After several delays, Pyne insists flights will start later this year – though others remain sceptical. A graveyard for start ups What's gone wrong? Henry Harteveldt, of Atmosphere Research Group, the leading US airline industry analyst, says: 'Very few people opt for connecting flights when non-stops are available. Play's attempts to convince travellers to fly via Iceland when Norse is offering non-stops is unappealing. Airlines fly for profit, not pride. Play's decision to shift from long-haul routes to sun-destination routes is sensible.' Play's retreat, which follows the collapse of fellow Icelandic transatlantic budget airline Wow in 2019, leaves Norse as the only low-cost airline appearing to succeed with long-haul travel from Britain, with Gatwick–JFK return fares as low as £400. JetBlue does not really count as a discount carrier, as it has business class and fares that tend to be higher than those of Norse. Indeed, the North Atlantic has long been a graveyard for start-ups. Freddie Laker tried to crack the market with Skytrain, which began flying from Gatwick to New York in the 1970s but went bankrupt in 1982. Norwegian, also based at Gatwick, prospered for a while but nosedived when the Covid pandemic hit and has returned to being a Scandinavian short-haul operator. The trouble for newcomers is that the London–US east coast route is the most lucrative in aviation. BA alone generates more than £1 billion a year shuttling between London and New York. So whenever start-ups enter the market, incumbents slash prices and advertise their perks to try to force them out of business. These include better food and wine on board, loyalty programmes, a Heathrow hub, snazzy lounges, and a choice of flight times thanks to multiple daily departures. 'The North Atlantic has proven an extremely tough environment for new entrants, with the notable exception of Virgin Atlantic,' says Andrew Lobbenberg, head of European transport equity research at Barclays. How has Norse survived, even if it is not yet thriving? Analysts say it began with modest ambitions – and then lowered them further. It acquired only a handful of long-haul jets and quickly axed routes that did not generate profits, including services from Britain to Washington DC, Boston, Las Vegas, Fort Lauderdale, Barbados and Montego Bay – and later Los Angeles and Miami. From this winter, it will fly from Gatwick to New York just five times a week, down from twice daily, and to Orlando up to seven times a week. It has also scrapped US flights from Paris. The Boeing 787 jets used on these axed routes have been redeployed on new services to Asia or leased to other carriers, notably the fast-expanding Indian low-cost airline IndiGo. On the routes it still serves, Norse gives consumers better choice than its low-cost rivals by offering two classes: economy and premium economy. In both, it has undercut the 'legacy' carriers – notably British Airways and Virgin Atlantic – by around 20 per cent, even when add-ons such as luggage fees and food are included. Both cabins are comfortable, if not as lavish as BA or Virgin, and the food is surprisingly good. Unlike Play or the defunct Wow, Norse's flights are direct, with no layovers in northern Europe. They also start and finish at major city airports, not at locations miles from the cities they serve. Norse has also benefited from some good fortune: since its launch, the oil price has dropped by a third, reducing the biggest single cost for airlines. Eastern promise Play's transatlantic nosedive leaves only three long-haul budget carriers in Europe: Norse; French Bee, which now operates six A350s to destinations such as Montréal and Miami from Paris Orly Airport; and Level, the Barcelona-based low-cost carrier owned by British Airways' parent company, International Airlines Group, flying to New York, Los Angeles, Miami, San Francisco and Boston. But that does not mean the long-haul budget sector is in trouble. Far from it – you just have to look east, not west. In Asia, Singapore Airlines-owned Scoot, Malaysia's AirAsia, Cebu Pacific in the Philippines, and Thailand's Lion Air are all expanding their long-haul networks. Last month, AirAsia announced plans to increase flights to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia and explore new routes connecting Kuala Lumpur to Riyadh and Dammam, also in Saudi Arabia. The airline is set to launch a Gulf hub this year as part of its strategy to expand to European destinations, including Gatwick, Manchester, Glasgow, Dublin and Cologne. AirAsia used to operate routes to Gatwick and Stansted, as well as to Paris Orly, under its AirAsia X subsidiary but axed these services in 2012. India's IndiGo has started flights from India to Manchester and will soon add Copenhagen and Athens. It is expanding across Asia, the Gulf and Africa, offering some 2,300 domestic and international flights a day. Other major players include Vietnam's VietJet, South Korea's T'way Air and Air Premia, and Japan's AirJapan and Zipair Tokyo. FlyDubai, the low-cost subsidiary of Emirates, is also expanding rapidly. Last month, Saudi Arabia announced plans to create a new national low-cost airline with a fleet of 45 planes, due by 2030. The carrier will serve 24 domestic destinations and 57 international destinations, aiming to transport 10 million passengers annually, according to state media. In South America, Brazilian low-cost long-haul operator Azul Airlines serves the country's diaspora, particularly in Florida and Portugal. Schedules for July and August show budget airlines plan to offer 2.7 million monthly seats on international routes using wide-body jets such as the Boeing 787 and Airbus A330 and A350. In 2018 and 2019, during Norwegian's heyday, that figure was below two million.
The Guardian
a day ago
- The Guardian
Trump's cold brew: New York coffee shops warn of higher prices amid steep tariffs
The Trump administration has targeted Brazil with steep US tariffs of 50%. Coffee shops in the heart of New York are bracing for impact. When the Trump administration announced another wave of sweeping tariffs, particularly on Brazil, Stone Street Cafe's managing partner was first confused. Then came fear. A cafe already runs on slim margins and extra costs passed on from tariffs could risk everything. 'If these tariffs are long term, it will put our business in jeopardy,' Antony Garrigues, managing partner of Stone Street Cafe, said. 'In New York City, the operating costs are already so high, and these tariffs will make everything much more expensive. 'In the end, if people cannot afford our coffee, and we do not have a profit margin, we will not make it.' Stone Street Cafe, based in Manhattan, sources green coffee beans from more than 35 different countries, including Brazil. But Brazil is not the only coffee-producing nation facing tariff pressures: Vietnam, Colombia, Ethiopia and Indonesia are also affected. 'These tariffs are not paid by the country. The costs are passed down to the business owner, and consumer,' noted Garrigues. 'For now, we are going to try and absorb as much [of] the cost as we can. But at the end of the day, this is a business – so we may have to increase the prices.' With the growing effects of climate change already inflating coffee prices, other cafes have already done so. Aside from coffee Ciao Gloria, in Brooklyn, also imports cocoa powder from Brazil. Jams sourced from Italy now face Trump's 15% tariff on exports from the European Union. The cafe raised prices by about 25 cents per cup, but plans to absorb any additional tariffs costs, at least for now. 'I'm selling sugar and caffeine – I'm basically a drug dealer,' joked owner Renato Poliafito. 'So I want to make sure the menu is affordable.' But then he turned serious. 'We have to be vigilant about analyzing the situation before jumping to price increases.' Customers are already scrutinizing their receipts. US coffee prices rose 14.5% in the year to July, according to official data. 'It's this idea of shifting baseline where we normalize something being expensive when it shouldn't [be], and it's very scary to see,' said Helina Seyoum, 29, who has reverted to making coffee at home. 'Now a morning coffee becomes a burden, because you're obsessing over the costs.' A daily cafe trip was how Aley Longo, 28, made sure she escaped the confines of her studio apartment and spoke to people outside work in an 'affordable' way. Now it's strictly a weekend activity. Trump's tariffs are 'bad for Americans, and our quality of life', Longo said, 'and we are suffering, whether it's as tiny as just being able to buy coffee out, or something so much bigger'. Those behind the counter know what it's like to watch the price of a regular purchase grow. Allon Azulai, who owns Kos Kaffe in Brooklyn, which imports beans from countries including Colombia, Honduras and Kenya, described nervously asking vendors for their latest prices each week, as tariffs and mounting demand looms large. 'Right now the industry is so unstable and what worries me if tariffs continue is cafes that do not have big pockets will not be able to survive,' said Azulai. As US cafes come under pressure, the coffee producers they source from are also preparing for disruption. Brazil is the world's largest coffee producer and exporter. The US is the leading destination of its coffee: about a third of its coffee imports are Brazilian. The Brazilian Soluble Coffee Industry Association, which represents producers, said the 50% US tariff on the country's exports amounted to a 'clear competitive disadvantage' as other leading countries for coffee production face lower rates, ranging from 10% to 27%. 'This decision not only harms the Brazilian industry but could also negatively affect American consumers, who benefit from the quality and competitive price of our coffee,' the association said. Brazilian producers and exporters still hope they can lobby for coffee to be exempt from US tariffs, arguing the US produces very little coffee domestically. The US commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, had previously suggested products not cultivated on American soil could be granted zero tariffs, they note. If that fails Brazil's Coffee Exporters Council says it will at least seek to reduce the tariff on coffee to 10%, in line with other Brazilian goods, including oil, orange juice and aircraft. 'We remain optimistic and hopeful,' the council said. New coffee export deals with the US are on hold and shipments ready to go are stuck in storage, adding costs for exporters. China has meanwhile approved 183 new Brazilian firms to export coffee, although the exporters' council cautioned that sales may take time to materialize. In Vietnam and Colombia – the world's second and third largest coffee-producing nations, respectively – exporters hope that lower US tariffs on their coffee will help them steal a march on Brazil. 'The US can't grow coffee at scale, so tariffs won't bring production back home,' Timen Swijtink, founder of Lacàph Coffees in Vietnam, said. 'With the tiny margins in our industry, any tariff cost goes straight to the American consumer.' Even with 20% US tariffs on Vietnam, the country's farmers 'are resilient and will find new markets', added Swijtink, 'with global demand strong and China's demand growing like a rocket ship'. With the US tariff on Colombia only at the baseline 10%, small coffee growers across the country are shrugging off any immediate impacts. 'The average coffee farmer won't feel it, at least for now,' said José David Posada, a fourth-generation coffee farmer and owner of Capilla del Rosario, a finca in Medellín. 'It's the exporters who will be impacted.' There is also a sense among some that, given Brazil's tariffs are at 50%, Trump's tariff war could even help Colombian business. The country's coffee cultivation is vital to the national economy, representing 8% of total Colombian exports. Posada said: 'The fact that Brazil has a higher tariff, obviously that's going to have a positive impact on us, right?' Guilherme Morya, a coffee analyst at Rabobank, said the 50% tariff on Brazilian coffee may, at least in the short term, shift American buyers toward other sources. 'Colombia gains a price advantage, and being the second-largest supplier, it becomes the most obvious candidate to fill this gap,' he said. But Alejandro Lloreda, a farmer at family-run Cafetal de la Trinidad, which produces specialty coffee, cautioned the difference would only give Colombia 'a temporary advantage'. 'A coffee tree can take two to three years to produce, and the tariff situation could well change before then,' he said. Back in New York, cafe owners find themselves in an equally uncertain position. 'The tariffs are to small businesses' detriment,' said Poliafito, of Ciao Gloria. 'Big businesses can find a way around it. But we will suffer the costs.' 'It's scary to not know if we can continue our business,' added Nick Kim, manager of Koré Coffee in Manhattan. 'It's really a shame, and sad, that you know bad things are coming, but you cannot do anything to change it. We have no option but to see what will come.'
