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The Age
29-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
Succession creator skewers Silicon Valley with dark tech satire
We are not long in the company of billionaires Hugo (Jason Schwartzman), Randy (Steve Carell), Jeff (Ramy Youssef) and Ven (Cory Michael Smith) before we realise their poker weekend – a 'tech bro' getaway at Hugo's multimillion-dollar winter estate – is a metaphorical game of chance on which the fate of the world might pivot. It could be a nod to the scene in Ingmar Bergman's 1957 masterpiece, The Seventh Seal, in which a knight returns from the Crusades and challenges Death to a game of chess. Or it could simply be ripped from recent headlines, and the wrecking ball of global geopolitics and its goal-kickers Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and Peter Thiel. Take your pick. What is certain is that we are on the set of Mountainhead, the feature film directorial debut of Succession writer/director Jesse Armstrong, and that much in the same way Succession picked the bones of the world's media dynasties, Mountainhead cuts deep into both the intersection of power, politics and Silicon Valley, and the globe-shaking personalities who populate it. Unlike Succession, where the fictional world of the Roy family played out at what felt like an excruciatingly glacial place, Mountainhead aspires to plug into a fast-moving story, not just in terms of how quickly AI is changing the world around us, but also in terms of how unexpectedly and brutally big tech is intersecting with politics. When Armstrong sat down to write Mountainhead, billionaire Tesla owner Elon Musk was only just taking his first steps leading the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). As the film launches, barely half-a-year later, Musk's foray into political budget-keeping has put Telsa to the torch, and the 53-year-old billionaire has returned to the company, wounded, to refocus on his shareholders. 'To some degree these tech people will be rich forever, but the way in which Musk was kicked off the board of PayPal early in his career by Thiel, the way [OpenAI CEO] Sam Altman was kicked off his board and then over a weekend was then reinstated, the way the Tesla share price rocketed and dropped with [Musk's] involvement with DOGE... the roller coaster is moving very rapidly,' Armstrong says. 'That is true both in terms of share price, and also in terms of [the manner in which] personal reputations get made and destroyed so quickly,' adds the 54-year-old UK-born screenwriter-turned-director. 'There's a real incredibly fast metabolism to the reputations that are being made and destroyed in the tech world right now.' Loading There is also something uncomfortably predictive about the story of Mountainhead. This is, plainly, a satire. Much more so than Succession. And yet, it lives in the shadow of real-world headlines about big tech nudging into government, and oligarchy superseding democracy. Like Succession, it's funny, but only until it's in deadly earnest. Without giving away too much of the story, Hugo (Schwartzman) plays host to three of his tech bros – Randy (Carell), who is a deal-maker but is grappling with some personal news; Ven (Smith), who owns a ubiquitous social media platform; and Jeff (Youssef), who owns a potentially transformative AI – on a weekend, as the enmeshing of their business dealings and global geopolitics takes an unexpected turn. 'I don't have a crystal ball, but I think if you read a bunch of stuff in an area, and there's inferred or stated 100 things that happen in this movie, and you're throwing darts, you're going to end up hitting it a bunch of times,' Armstrong explains, during our visit to the show's set in Utah's ski country. 'You do have that weird slightly, oh, f---, yeah, that was in the show. It does have this weird resonance. But I think it's just because if you're doing good research, and you suppose 100 things, 10 of them might happen in the next 12 months.' Armstrong's magnum opus, Succession, always had a prevailing sense that it was the Murdoch family rendered in hand-carved soap, but in truth it was just as much about Rupert, Lachlan and Elisabeth as it was about the personalities and pivots of other media dynasties, such as the Redstones, the Sulzbergers and even the Hearsts. Loading Mountainhead, too, can play hide and seek in the shadows to a point, but it's also not difficult to sense echoes of real-life big tech players in Randy, Hugo, Ven and Jeff. Exactly who, and how much, is the penumbra in which Armstrong clearly likes to play. 'The thing that appealed to me was an attitude and a tone of voice, which is shared by many tech people,' says Armstrong. 'Then the specifics are shared out among them ... a bit of history, a tone of voice [but ultimately] a group of people who are fictional. 'It can be fun to play those games, and I did a ton of research. So there are fragments in there where you're like, oh, yeah, that's that [or] did he get that story from that? 'In Succession as well, I would openly steal good story shapes,' Armstrong says. 'But the fun thing about stealing is then you can change them as you want. You don't have to respect the reality of what specifically happened. It's a fun game, but in the end, it won't lead you to anything any deeper if you want to play that game with this, I don't think.' For Armstrong, both as a writer and director, everything pivots on a tone of voice. 'If I don't have that, I can't do it,' he says. 'All the research in the world wouldn't let me write somebody if I didn't know how they would order in a restaurant or talk privately to a romantic partner. 'Once you've got their voice and that voice plays out in private, public, business, romantic, intellectual, therapy, once you've got the voice, I can go anywhere. 'My knowledge still about this world is not going to be comparable with somebody who works in tech or even a really good tech journalist,' he adds. 'But once you're confident in the tone of voice or the facts, the stories that you want to tell become graspable.' 'The form of this is very similar to Succession, but also completely different.' Jesse Armstrong One of the challenges in Armstrong's writing is just how close to the flame he likes to make the satire fly. Succession turned into a compelling example of a kind of uncertainty principle: that it was, in theory, satirical, and certainly made its audience laugh at times, but that it was equally dark and dramatic, at times devastatingly so. Mountainhead dances that dance, too, though it delivers its funny moments with a more conventionally humorous punch. 'I don't think too much about in some ways how the audience will receive it,' he explains. 'Although obviously, in general, that's constantly what you're thinking about when you're writing and directing. [In terms of] how they'll navigate the space between the real and the fictional, once I've done my work setting up the world, that's [for] them to think about.' Armstrong did consider setting Mountainhead in the Succession universe by including a scene in which ATN, the fictional news network owed by the Roy family, would be seen in the background on a screen. 'And then, as it developed, I thought that it was really subtly tonally different,' Armstrong says. 'And maybe that is the answer to the question in terms of the relationship ... one's relationship to the real world is interesting. And this obviously relates to the real world and so did Succession. It's just finding a comfortable distance.' What is critical, perhaps, is to remember that Armstrong's creative DNA is naturally comedic. He was a writer on some of Britain's most significant political comedies, such as the television series, The Thick of It, and its spin-off film, In the Loop. 'It's often my way into something to find the bit which feels mad and ridiculous,' Armstrong says. 'In a certain way, I think the subject matter chooses the form, and then you write the form. And the form of this is very similar to Succession, but also completely different. 'You can try and formulate the rules for that, but essentially, they just come out as you write that these people speak like this and their logic can take them to this place. So, [certain] things are allowed, and they're not allowed in another piece. And it's both very technical but also beyond your control once you've set up the maths of the situation.' Important too, perhaps, is that despite the gravity of the piece overall – or, at least, the gravity of its implications – Armstrong is, essentially, still an optimist. In one scene, Jeff offers this depressing prediction for us: 'Earth is like an all-you-can-eat buffet; no one's going to stop until we clear all the hot plates.' It does not have to be so, says Armstrong. Loading 'I do feel I am personally optimistic,' he says. 'And that line that Ramy has, I do feel a bit like that. I feel certain pity for us in that we can't really help ourselves, that the stuff that's there, we take and we use, and our ability to take and use stuff, maybe our only hope is that we can keep mitigating that at a fast enough rate that our destructive tendencies can be tempered. And I also worry that we won't be able to do that, but I can only hope we do. I'm a bit like the guys in the film, I'm a techno-optimist.'
Sydney Morning Herald
28-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
Four tech bros are carving up a world in chaos. This time, it's fiction
We are not long in the company of billionaires Hugo (Jason Schwartzman), Randy (Steve Carell), Jeff (Ramy Youssef) and Ven (Cory Michael Smith) before we realise their poker weekend – a 'tech bro' getaway at Hugo's multimillion-dollar winter estate – is a metaphorical game of chance on which the fate of the world might pivot. It could be a nod to the scene in Ingmar Bergman's 1957 masterpiece, The Seventh Seal, in which a knight returns from the Crusades and challenges Death to a game of chess. Or it could simply be ripped from recent headlines, and the wrecking ball of global geopolitics and its goal-kickers Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and Peter Thiel. Take your pick. What is certain is that we are on the set of Mountainhead, the feature film directorial debut of Succession writer/director Jesse Armstrong, and that much in the same way Succession picked the bones of the world's media dynasties, Mountainhead cuts deep into both the intersection of power, politics and Silicon Valley, and the globe-shaking personalities who populate it. Unlike Succession, where the fictional world of the Roy family played out at what felt like an excruciatingly glacial place, Mountainhead aspires to plug into a fast-moving story, not just in terms of how quickly AI is changing the world around us, but also in terms of how unexpectedly and brutally big tech is intersecting with politics. When Armstrong sat down to write Mountainhead, billionaire Tesla owner Elon Musk was only just taking his first steps leading the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). As the film launches, barely half-a-year later, Musk's foray into political budget-keeping has put Telsa to the torch, and the 53-year-old billionaire has returned to the company, wounded, to refocus on his shareholders. 'To some degree these tech people will be rich forever, but the way in which Musk was kicked off the board of PayPal early in his career by Thiel, the way [OpenAI CEO] Sam Altman was kicked off his board and then over a weekend was then reinstated, the way the Tesla share price rocketed and dropped with [Musk's] involvement with DOGE... the roller coaster is moving very rapidly,' Armstrong says. 'That is true both in terms of share price, and also in terms of [the manner in which] personal reputations get made and destroyed so quickly,' adds the 54-year-old UK-born screenwriter-turned-director. 'There's a real incredibly fast metabolism to the reputations that are being made and destroyed in the tech world right now.' Loading There is also something uncomfortably predictive about the story of Mountainhead. This is, plainly, a satire. Much more so than Succession. And yet, it lives in the shadow of real-world headlines about big tech nudging into government, and oligarchy superseding democracy. Like Succession, it's funny, but only until it's in deadly earnest. Without giving away too much of the story, Hugo (Schwartzman) plays host to three of his tech bros – Randy (Carell), who is a deal-maker but is grappling with some personal news; Ven (Smith), who owns a ubiquitous social media platform; and Jeff (Youssef), who owns a potentially transformative AI – on a weekend, as the enmeshing of their business dealings and global geopolitics takes an unexpected turn. 'I don't have a crystal ball, but I think if you read a bunch of stuff in an area, and there's inferred or stated 100 things that happen in this movie, and you're throwing darts, you're going to end up hitting it a bunch of times,' Armstrong explains, during our visit to the show's set in Utah's ski country. 'You do have that weird slightly, oh, f---, yeah, that was in the show. It does have this weird resonance. But I think it's just because if you're doing good research, and you suppose 100 things, 10 of them might happen in the next 12 months.' Armstrong's magnum opus, Succession, always had a prevailing sense that it was the Murdoch family rendered in hand-carved soap, but in truth it was just as much about Rupert, Lachlan and Elisabeth as it was about the personalities and pivots of other media dynasties, such as the Redstones, the Sulzbergers and even the Hearsts. Loading Mountainhead, too, can play hide and seek in the shadows to a point, but it's also not difficult to sense echoes of real-life big tech players in Randy, Hugo, Ven and Jeff. Exactly who, and how much, is the penumbra in which Armstrong clearly likes to play. 'The thing that appealed to me was an attitude and a tone of voice, which is shared by many tech people,' says Armstrong. 'Then the specifics are shared out among them ... a bit of history, a tone of voice [but ultimately] a group of people who are fictional. 'It can be fun to play those games, and I did a ton of research. So there are fragments in there where you're like, oh, yeah, that's that [or] did he get that story from that? 'In Succession as well, I would openly steal good story shapes,' Armstrong says. 'But the fun thing about stealing is then you can change them as you want. You don't have to respect the reality of what specifically happened. It's a fun game, but in the end, it won't lead you to anything any deeper if you want to play that game with this, I don't think.' For Armstrong, both as a writer and director, everything pivots on a tone of voice. 'If I don't have that, I can't do it,' he says. 'All the research in the world wouldn't let me write somebody if I didn't know how they would order in a restaurant or talk privately to a romantic partner. 'Once you've got their voice and that voice plays out in private, public, business, romantic, intellectual, therapy, once you've got the voice, I can go anywhere. 'My knowledge still about this world is not going to be comparable with somebody who works in tech or even a really good tech journalist,' he adds. 'But once you're confident in the tone of voice or the facts, the stories that you want to tell become graspable.' 'The form of this is very similar to Succession, but also completely different.' Jesse Armstrong One of the challenges in Armstrong's writing is just how close to the flame he likes to make the satire fly. Succession turned into a compelling example of a kind of uncertainty principle: that it was, in theory, satirical, and certainly made its audience laugh at times, but that it was equally dark and dramatic, at times devastatingly so. Mountainhead dances that dance, too, though it delivers its funny moments with a more conventionally humorous punch. 'I don't think too much about in some ways how the audience will receive it,' he explains. 'Although obviously, in general, that's constantly what you're thinking about when you're writing and directing. [In terms of] how they'll navigate the space between the real and the fictional, once I've done my work setting up the world, that's [for] them to think about.' Armstrong did consider setting Mountainhead in the Succession universe by including a scene in which ATN, the fictional news network owed by the Roy family, would be seen in the background on a screen. 'And then, as it developed, I thought that it was really subtly tonally different,' Armstrong says. 'And maybe that is the answer to the question in terms of the relationship ... one's relationship to the real world is interesting. And this obviously relates to the real world and so did Succession. It's just finding a comfortable distance.' What is critical, perhaps, is to remember that Armstrong's creative DNA is naturally comedic. He was a writer on some of Britain's most significant political comedies, such as the television series, The Thick of It, and its spin-off film, In the Loop. 'It's often my way into something to find the bit which feels mad and ridiculous,' Armstrong says. 'In a certain way, I think the subject matter chooses the form, and then you write the form. And the form of this is very similar to Succession, but also completely different. 'You can try and formulate the rules for that, but essentially, they just come out as you write that these people speak like this and their logic can take them to this place. So, [certain] things are allowed, and they're not allowed in another piece. And it's both very technical but also beyond your control once you've set up the maths of the situation.' Important too, perhaps, is that despite the gravity of the piece overall – or, at least, the gravity of its implications – Armstrong is, essentially, still an optimist. In one scene, Jeff offers this depressing prediction for us: 'Earth is like an all-you-can-eat buffet; no one's going to stop until we clear all the hot plates.' It does not have to be so, says Armstrong. Loading 'I do feel I am personally optimistic,' he says. 'And that line that Ramy has, I do feel a bit like that. I feel certain pity for us in that we can't really help ourselves, that the stuff that's there, we take and we use, and our ability to take and use stuff, maybe our only hope is that we can keep mitigating that at a fast enough rate that our destructive tendencies can be tempered. And I also worry that we won't be able to do that, but I can only hope we do. I'm a bit like the guys in the film, I'm a techno-optimist.'
The Age
28-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
Four tech bros are carving up a world in chaos. This time, it's fiction
We are not long in the company of billionaires Hugo (Jason Schwartzman), Randy (Steve Carell), Jeff (Ramy Youssef) and Ven (Cory Michael Smith) before we realise their poker weekend – a 'tech bro' getaway at Hugo's multimillion-dollar winter estate – is a metaphorical game of chance on which the fate of the world might pivot. It could be a nod to the scene in Ingmar Bergman's 1957 masterpiece, The Seventh Seal, in which a knight returns from the Crusades and challenges Death to a game of chess. Or it could simply be ripped from recent headlines, and the wrecking ball of global geopolitics and its goal-kickers Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and Peter Thiel. Take your pick. What is certain is that we are on the set of Mountainhead, the feature film directorial debut of Succession writer/director Jesse Armstrong, and that much in the same way Succession picked the bones of the world's media dynasties, Mountainhead cuts deep into both the intersection of power, politics and Silicon Valley, and the globe-shaking personalities who populate it. Unlike Succession, where the fictional world of the Roy family played out at what felt like an excruciatingly glacial place, Mountainhead aspires to plug into a fast-moving story, not just in terms of how quickly AI is changing the world around us, but also in terms of how unexpectedly and brutally big tech is intersecting with politics. When Armstrong sat down to write Mountainhead, billionaire Tesla owner Elon Musk was only just taking his first steps leading the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). As the film launches, barely half-a-year later, Musk's foray into political budget-keeping has put Telsa to the torch, and the 53-year-old billionaire has returned to the company, wounded, to refocus on his shareholders. 'To some degree these tech people will be rich forever, but the way in which Musk was kicked off the board of PayPal early in his career by Thiel, the way [OpenAI CEO] Sam Altman was kicked off his board and then over a weekend was then reinstated, the way the Tesla share price rocketed and dropped with [Musk's] involvement with DOGE... the roller coaster is moving very rapidly,' Armstrong says. 'That is true both in terms of share price, and also in terms of [the manner in which] personal reputations get made and destroyed so quickly,' adds the 54-year-old UK-born screenwriter-turned-director. 'There's a real incredibly fast metabolism to the reputations that are being made and destroyed in the tech world right now.' Loading There is also something uncomfortably predictive about the story of Mountainhead. This is, plainly, a satire. Much more so than Succession. And yet, it lives in the shadow of real-world headlines about big tech nudging into government, and oligarchy superseding democracy. Like Succession, it's funny, but only until it's in deadly earnest. Without giving away too much of the story, Hugo (Schwartzman) plays host to three of his tech bros – Randy (Carell), who is a deal-maker but is grappling with some personal news; Ven (Smith), who owns a ubiquitous social media platform; and Jeff (Youssef), who owns a potentially transformative AI – on a weekend, as the enmeshing of their business dealings and global geopolitics takes an unexpected turn. 'I don't have a crystal ball, but I think if you read a bunch of stuff in an area, and there's inferred or stated 100 things that happen in this movie, and you're throwing darts, you're going to end up hitting it a bunch of times,' Armstrong explains, during our visit to the show's set in Utah's ski country. 'You do have that weird slightly, oh, f---, yeah, that was in the show. It does have this weird resonance. But I think it's just because if you're doing good research, and you suppose 100 things, 10 of them might happen in the next 12 months.' Armstrong's magnum opus, Succession, always had a prevailing sense that it was the Murdoch family rendered in hand-carved soap, but in truth it was just as much about Rupert, Lachlan and Elisabeth as it was about the personalities and pivots of other media dynasties, such as the Redstones, the Sulzbergers and even the Hearsts. Loading Mountainhead, too, can play hide and seek in the shadows to a point, but it's also not difficult to sense echoes of real-life big tech players in Randy, Hugo, Ven and Jeff. Exactly who, and how much, is the penumbra in which Armstrong clearly likes to play. 'The thing that appealed to me was an attitude and a tone of voice, which is shared by many tech people,' says Armstrong. 'Then the specifics are shared out among them ... a bit of history, a tone of voice [but ultimately] a group of people who are fictional. 'It can be fun to play those games, and I did a ton of research. So there are fragments in there where you're like, oh, yeah, that's that [or] did he get that story from that? 'In Succession as well, I would openly steal good story shapes,' Armstrong says. 'But the fun thing about stealing is then you can change them as you want. You don't have to respect the reality of what specifically happened. It's a fun game, but in the end, it won't lead you to anything any deeper if you want to play that game with this, I don't think.' For Armstrong, both as a writer and director, everything pivots on a tone of voice. 'If I don't have that, I can't do it,' he says. 'All the research in the world wouldn't let me write somebody if I didn't know how they would order in a restaurant or talk privately to a romantic partner. 'Once you've got their voice and that voice plays out in private, public, business, romantic, intellectual, therapy, once you've got the voice, I can go anywhere. 'My knowledge still about this world is not going to be comparable with somebody who works in tech or even a really good tech journalist,' he adds. 'But once you're confident in the tone of voice or the facts, the stories that you want to tell become graspable.' 'The form of this is very similar to Succession, but also completely different.' Jesse Armstrong One of the challenges in Armstrong's writing is just how close to the flame he likes to make the satire fly. Succession turned into a compelling example of a kind of uncertainty principle: that it was, in theory, satirical, and certainly made its audience laugh at times, but that it was equally dark and dramatic, at times devastatingly so. Mountainhead dances that dance, too, though it delivers its funny moments with a more conventionally humorous punch. 'I don't think too much about in some ways how the audience will receive it,' he explains. 'Although obviously, in general, that's constantly what you're thinking about when you're writing and directing. [In terms of] how they'll navigate the space between the real and the fictional, once I've done my work setting up the world, that's [for] them to think about.' Armstrong did consider setting Mountainhead in the Succession universe by including a scene in which ATN, the fictional news network owed by the Roy family, would be seen in the background on a screen. 'And then, as it developed, I thought that it was really subtly tonally different,' Armstrong says. 'And maybe that is the answer to the question in terms of the relationship ... one's relationship to the real world is interesting. And this obviously relates to the real world and so did Succession. It's just finding a comfortable distance.' What is critical, perhaps, is to remember that Armstrong's creative DNA is naturally comedic. He was a writer on some of Britain's most significant political comedies, such as the television series, The Thick of It, and its spin-off film, In the Loop. 'It's often my way into something to find the bit which feels mad and ridiculous,' Armstrong says. 'In a certain way, I think the subject matter chooses the form, and then you write the form. And the form of this is very similar to Succession, but also completely different. 'You can try and formulate the rules for that, but essentially, they just come out as you write that these people speak like this and their logic can take them to this place. So, [certain] things are allowed, and they're not allowed in another piece. And it's both very technical but also beyond your control once you've set up the maths of the situation.' Important too, perhaps, is that despite the gravity of the piece overall – or, at least, the gravity of its implications – Armstrong is, essentially, still an optimist. In one scene, Jeff offers this depressing prediction for us: 'Earth is like an all-you-can-eat buffet; no one's going to stop until we clear all the hot plates.' It does not have to be so, says Armstrong. Loading 'I do feel I am personally optimistic,' he says. 'And that line that Ramy has, I do feel a bit like that. I feel certain pity for us in that we can't really help ourselves, that the stuff that's there, we take and we use, and our ability to take and use stuff, maybe our only hope is that we can keep mitigating that at a fast enough rate that our destructive tendencies can be tempered. And I also worry that we won't be able to do that, but I can only hope we do. I'm a bit like the guys in the film, I'm a techno-optimist.'
Irish Independent
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Irish Independent
Letters: Wars being waged in the name of fake ideology are nothing but old-fashioned land grabs
Putin's twisted ideology about restoring Ukraine to its Russian roots is a cloak for Russian expansion. US president Donald Trump's rambling about making Canada the America's 51st state is also an attempt at land-grabbing, coveting Canadian assets. The same is true regarding his intentions towards Greenland. At least when Trump talks about taking the Panama Canal, he admits the US wants its money back for the cost of its construction, not to mention the thousands of US construction workers who died during its completion. China's designs on Taiwan also amount to a land grab: employing the same twisted logic as Putin uses to justify his the invasion of Ukraine. Many of the African wars are also about the control of resources. The recent flare-up between India and Pakistan regarding Kashmir is mainly about the control of water. Kashmir is the source of three major rivers and access to these vital resources has been disputed for years. India, in times of conflict with Pakistan, has threatened to cut off all water to its neighbour – rendering it unable to function. Israel's occupation of Palestine and its illegal settlements are also land grabs, dressed in bogus ideology. From the history of colonisation back to the Crusades, the root cause of wars has been expansionism. Adolf Hitler took it to a new level and almost succeeded. He, of course, brainwashed his people into believing that it was to make Germany great again. ADVERTISEMENT There is no glory in war. Many of the so-called noble aims of despots and dictators have their roots in money, resources and greed. Joseph Kiely, Letterkenny, Co Donegal UN Security Council is being used by the big five for their own objectives With regard to Jessica Toal's letter, ('The bloodshed in Gaza clearly shows Security Council has no authority', Irish Independent, Letters, May 20), we should remember the United Nations Security Council is made up of 15 members – 10 rotating and five permanent members. Each permanent member has the power of veto – therefore all five permanent members must approve any motion for it to succeed. As a retired UN staff member, I can state these five permanent members (USA, UK, Russia, China, France) continue to manipulate the Security Council for their own political objectives. Michael Moriarty, Rochestown, Cork Brexiteer buffoons are like Monty Python's Black Knight, yet without a leg to stand on The Brexit reset deal agreed between the European Union and the UK is to be welcomed. For Ireland, it may make things easier for businesses to cut the red tape that reduced the value of export and import trade between the two countries by €6bn last year. The positive picture, however, cannot be gleaned from the scale of the epic meltdown the deal has triggered within sections of the right-wing British media. The screaming headlines have returned again to talk of being stitched up like kippers, the great Brexit betrayal, the EU surrender summit, treacherous Starmer getting Brexit undone and 'being the EU's gimp'. By now, after years inhabiting the post-Brexit economic wilderness, you would expect they would finally recognise Brexit as a colossal failure, which cost the UK exchequer hundreds of millions of pounds and led to British prime ministers falling like skittles. The stubbornness is quite bewildering and brings to mind the famous Monty Python sketch about the Black Knight, who despite having his arms and legs chopped off by the sword in battle, insists everything is all right and his mortal wounds are 'but a scratch' while refusing to admit defeat. Dr Bernard Guinan, Claremorris, Co Mayo Underpaid and under real pressure, our teachers are right to take career breaks Sinéad Ryan needs a reality check ('Alarming to see thousands of teachers on career breaks', Irish Independent, May 20). I am a governor of a successful, oversubscribed school. This year alone, 11 young teachers have applied for career breaks, and I don't blame them. When I began teaching, jobs were hard to come by, salaries were half-decent and the profession was held in some esteem. Teachers today work incredibly hard, juggling intense workloads, rising classroom needs and increasing administrative demands – all while striving to support every child's learning and well-being. Now, if young teachers aren't granted a career break, many simply walk – often into better-paid careers where they feel more valued. I have total sympathy for young people, especially in cities, trying to get on the housing ladder on a teacher's salary. It's simply not enough. Something must change if we want young professionals to stay, contribute to their communities and take pride in living where they can afford to own a home. To conflate pupil absenteeism with teachers taking career breaks is not just unhelpful – it's absurd. Enda Cullen, Tullysaran Road, Armagh Eurovision shambles can be summed up by words of the UK's entry in contest The UK's Eurovision entry What the Hell Just Happened? by girl group Remember Monday succinctly sums up for me the high quality of the musical offerings in the song contest in recent years. Ahem. Tom Gilsenan, Beaumont, Dublin 9 Our use of language has gone a bit 'bockety' with all these 'amazing' adjectives I am regularly irritated by the lack of imagination in how we use adjectives. For instance, we are regularly advised that he, she or it (for often pseudo reasons) are 'amazing' or 'awesome'. As a query to this 'awesome' generation, could I ask how many of you may, for instance, have heard of the word 'bockety'. When I was small, on being sent out to the cow-house to get a bucket, I was often warned not to bring the 'bockety' one. And 'amazing' as it might seem, we lived at the butt of 'the bockety' lane.
Yahoo
26-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
National Pretzel Day: Learn some history, get some deals
If life is like a pretzel – full of twists and turns – April 26 marks a special day on the calendar: National Pretzel Day. Pretzels predate many other favorite snacks such as potato chips and crackers, each of which cropped up before the Civil War. But pretzels date back to before the Crusades, serving as a Catholic Church-approved Lenten food in the 7th century, according to As German immigrants came to the U.S., pretzels became a staple here in the early 1700s. More recently, Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell declared April 26 as 'National Pretzel Day' in 2003 to recognize the pretzel's historic importance, note the National Day Calendar site. One of the first known commercial pretzel bakeries was founded in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania in 1861, according to Pennsylvania's importance to pretzels has knot lessened. About 20 miles from the site of the original Julius Sturgis Pretzel Bakery in Pennsylvania, Uncle Jerry's Pretzels, founded in 1989, produces handmade small-batch sourdough pretzels "using all-natural ingredients – just flour, water, yeast, and salt – resulting in a hearty, wholesome snack," said Misty Skolnick, who co-owns the business with her father, Jerry, in an email statement. "Our pretzels don't contain any added sugars, oils, or preservatives," she said. "Baked to perfection and lightly coated with salt, our pretzels offer a deliciously crisp texture that has kept customers coming back for decades." Uncle Jerry's Pretzels has a National Pretzel Day deal for April 26: Get 20% off on the company website using the coupon code USATODAY (deal cannot be combined with any other offer). Tariffs and pretzels: Trade measures could lead to another twist in the handmade pretzel business – higher costs Pretzel chain Auntie Anne's, founded in 1988, is giving out free Original or Cinnamon Sugar Pretzels in stores on April 26 for National Pretzel Day from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. local time. Get the offer in the Auntie Anne's Rewards App. Limit one per person; not valid with any other offer, reward or third-party delivery. Go into one of the more than 150 Ben's Soft Pretzels locations on April 26 and make a donation to the Tunnel to Towers Foundation and you will get a free Original Jumbo Pretzel. All proceeds made on National Pretzel Day will be donated to the organization, founded after Sept. 11, 2001, to help Gold Star and first responder families. Pretzels are also a family affair at Stellar Snacks in Carson City, Nevada, founded by mother and daughter team of Elisabeth and Gina Galvin, who were recently named to the Inc. Female Founders 500 list of top entrepreneurs. The company's products can be found in stores such as Sprouts and The Fresh Market – and on Southwest Airlines – but Stellar Snacks also ships direct to consumers and can be found on Stellar Snacks opened a new plant in Louisville, Kentucky in late 2024 and just launched a new gluten-free line of snacks including Sea Salt Pretzel Thins. 'At Stellar, pretzel-making is an art form – thoughtful, imaginative, and uncompromising," Gina Galvin said in a statement. "We bake each pretzel from scratch in our own bakery so every bite is crunchy and seasoned to perfection. These are the most state-of-the-art pretzels you'll ever taste (truly)." For National Pretzel Day, you can get 20% off on on April 26 with code PRETZELDAY20. Pretzelmaker has a National Pretzel Day in-store freebie for customers on April 26: a free small order of Original Pretzel Bites, Salted or Unsalted, at participating locations across the U.S. Also, if you sign up for Pretzelmaker's Rewards app by 11:59 p.m. on April 26, you can get $5 off your order of $20 more starting April 27. The offer is good for 14 days and can be redeemed in-store or online. The Philly-style pretzel franchise, with more than 150 locations, is giving away one free pretzel to every customer on April 26, no purchase necessary. Stores will also be handing out limited-edition 'I Got My Pretzel' stickers. It's the company's 18th consecutive year celebrating National Pretzel Day with a giveaway. Also, members of the Pretzel Rewards loyalty program earn double points on any purchase on April 26. To join, download the Philly Pretzel Factory app; new members get an offer for five free pretzels just for signing up. For National Pretzel Day, which Wetzel's Pretzels calls "National Wetzel Day," on April 26 the California-headquartered chain is giving away one free Original Pretzel per person in stores from 3 p.m. to closing time (no purchase necessary). The sports bar chain is offering half off its Bavarian pretzel sticks with the purchase of a meal or handheld menu item on April 26 (offer redeemable for dine-in only). Mike Snider is a reporter on USA TODAY's Trending team. You can follow him on Threads, Bluesky, X and email him at mikegsnider & @ & @mikesnider & msnider@ This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: National Pretzel Day 2025: Free pretzel at Auntie Anne's, more deals
