Good morning and welcome to your FT Weekend, loosely themed as it is around some of the questions we ask about the environment in late August. In the Magazine, we tackle an age-old Italian murder mystery, House & Home features a stunning museum to migration and FT Money walks you through a late summer property boom. Finally, our style gurus will explain why you absolutely must stop wearing backpacks right now. I mean it. Take it off and do not re-open this newsletter until you have a Loro Piana Bale — no, me neither but now I think maybe I need one? Weekend Essay: Where have all the insects gone?
© Science Photo Library The tiny creatures upon which the world depends seem to be in decline. Barely a week goes by without an appeal to count butterflies or save bees (“the poster children of the pollinator world”). But what does the data really say — and what is to be done? Manuela Saragosa counts the splats on the windscreen. Column of the week: Jo Ellison on being ‘demure’
© FT montage It was a Taylor Swift Eras summer, then it was a Charli xcx Brat summer — and now, as we drift inexorably to autumn it is, writes Jo Ellison, time to get hashtag demure. What this means precisely for those of us who only just processed that “brat” is more than a wurst, we trust in Jo to explain. Lunch with the FT: Celeste SauloHead of meteorology for the UN, Celeste Saulo’s job is to worry about the weather. Lunching with the FT’s Attracta Mooney by a sweltering Lake Geneva, she talks about the challenges of adapting to a warming world and what forecasting can teach us about co-operation. It can’t be easy being chief weather forecaster and held responsible for everything from a soggy barbecue to flash floods but Saulo seems a phlegmatic (even optimistic) sort. “She argues that governments and the wider population often ‘disregard the importance’ of meteorology, pointing out that even when meteorologists get nine in 10 forecasts right, everyone focuses on the one time it was wrong.” FT Weekend Festival 2024: two weeks to go |
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Just two weeks until the FTW Festival hits London’s Hampstead Heath! Register now to hear from Mishal Husain, Michael Palin, John Lithgow, Tim Spector, Robert Harris, Deborah Meaden, Sharon White, Jonathan Coe, Lesley Sharp, Wes Streeting, Simon Russell Beale, Anne Applebaum, Simon Schama, Jancis Robinson, Martin Wolf, Gillian Tett, Tim Harford, Gideon Rachman, Stephen Bush, Alice Lascelles and many, many more. As a newsletter subscriber, you can claim a £20 discount on in-person or online tickets using the promo code Newsletters24 at ft.com/festival. Five things to do with your FT Weekend |
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Listen to our podcast | We ask if Alien: Romulus brings fresh ideas to the sci-fi horror franchise — or is it just a retread? Escape to your shed | Serena Fokschaner celebrates wonkily handmade, lyrical and eccentric garden retreats Catch a movie | Jonathan Romney and Stephanie Bunbury review Between the Temples, Cuckoo and Blink Twice Get cooking | Rustle up chef Nick Bramham’s secret-until-now sausage and chard ragu Join the dots | Find the connections in our FT Weekend quiz Who murdered Pier Paolo Pasolini?
© Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images The brutal 1975 murder of Pier Paolo Pasolini, one of Italy’s greatest film directors, has been shrouded in mystery for decades. It has also tormented Rome lawyer Stefano Maccioni since he started looking into the case in 2008. After years of painstaking investigation, is he any closer to the truth? Marianna Giusti reports from Italy for FT Weekend Magazine. The rise and fall of Yevgeny Prigozhin
© Anadolu / Getty Images In June 2023, Yevgeny Prigozhin’s mercenaries swept into the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don. Then they started north towards Moscow. Some called it a “mutiny”, others a “coup”; the Wagner Group had been fighting Putin’s war in Ukraine, but now its warlord chief seemed to turn against the Russian president. He was later assassinated, it seems, when his plane exploded mid-air. Miles Johnson reviews two compelling books that trace Prigozhin’s journey from petty crime to Putin courtier.
© Simon Bailly Our table manners aren’t exactly getting worse, says Tim Hayward (and he should know) but they are changing. What do you think? What sort of behaviour do you find irritating or repellent? Please leave a comment below the article — and feel free to include whether or not you think a Mr Hayward’s Manual of Manners would be a good thing. The Big Read Mike Lynch and the Bayesian disaster Israel-Hamas war UN confirms first Gaza polio case in 25 years US presidential election The astonishing metamorphosis of Kamala Harris |