Lukas Degutis is The Spectator's editorial manager in New York.
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If Greta Thunberg ever docked in Houston, it wouldn’t be for long. Freeways stretch to 26 lanes, flaring oil refineries light the night sky and sports stadiums are sealed against the humidity with year-round refrigeration. At an Astros baseball match, a poster bluntly reminds attendees ‘TODAY’S GAME IS MADE POSSIBLE THANKS TO NATURAL GAS & OIL’. Between
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The Spectator has thousands of readers in South Africa, many of whom get their weekly magazine from Woolworths, the country’s upmarket retailer. Not any longer. Woolworths has taken the bizarre decision to stop selling The Spectator. The apparent trigger? Gareth Roberts’s ‘End of the rainbow’ cover story. Does Woolworths really think its shoppers can’t cope with
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In a week’s time, it will be illegal to sell disposable vapes in Britain. Politicians from both parties will pat themselves on the back. The ban was introduced by Rishi Sunak and backed by Keir Starmer, and was hailed as a moment of non-partisan unity. In truth, it’s a policy disaster. I used to smoke ten
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John F. Kennedy opted to serve New England lobster, Ronald Reagan a California-inspired garden salad – and James Buchanan 400 gallons of oysters. Held at Statuary Hall in the US Capitol, the inaugural luncheon for a new president is as much part of inauguration day as the swearing-in ceremony and the inaugural address. Nixon enjoyed
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Hungary is no stranger to spats with its European neighbours. Under prime minister Viktor Orbán’s leadership, it has exercised veto rights to block Ukrainian military aid and Russian sanctions, delayed the Nato accessions of Sweden and Finland and shrugged off EU asylum regulations. For Budapest, the disputes have proven to be effective leverage in unfreezing
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California was once home to a certain vision of the American dream; Mamas & the Papas records, grinning surfers, chrome bumpers. Now LA and San Francisco are full of glass and steel and petty criminals. Escape their sketchy downtowns and you’ll find huge copy-and-paste estates of identical homes. Urban sprawl has choked off California’s charm
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27 min listen
On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: Lukas Degutis reports from Riga, exploring Latvia’s policy of expelling Russian speakers (01:16); Ysenda Maxtone Graham explains why she believes applause has no place at a funeral (10:03); paying homage to Christopher Gunning, Richard Bratby argues that composers of ads, film soundtracks and TV theme tunes should be taken more
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48 min listen
Welcome to a slightly new format for the Edition podcast! Each week we will be talking about the magazine – as per usual – but trying to give a little more insight into the process behind putting The Spectator to bed each week. On the podcast this week: plan Bibi In the early hours of Friday morning,
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Riga, Latvia At the age of 74, Inessa Novikova, who is ethnically Russian, was told she had to learn Latvian or she’d be deported. ‘I felt physically ill when the policy was announced,’ she tells me when we meet in an office close to Riga’s city centre. ‘I’ve lived here peacefully for 20 years.’ There
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I like ice hockey, 7-Eleven Big Gulps and the choice of six lanes on the Interstate. I like almost everything about America except the guns, which is why I decided to challenge my prejudices at a pistol range in Fresno, California. Walking in, I was welcomed by ‘Don’t tread on me!’ stickers and signs in
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Vilnius, Lithuania This week, the world’s eyes were on the Lithuanian capital Vilnius as it welcomed global leaders for Nato’s 74th summit. The event was a logistical challenge not helped by the fact that Vilnius is only 30km away from the border with Belarus, which is now home to Russian nuclear weapons. Commercial flights were
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Over the past few years, Lana Del Rey has been engulfed in acclaim: Variety’s Artist Of The Decade, the first recipient of Billboard’s Visionary Award and Rolling Stone UK’s endorsement as ‘the greatest American songwriter of the 21st century’. Bruce Springsteen has named her ‘one of the best’ and Courtney Love called her a ‘true musical genius’. And now, with her
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Volodymyr Zelensky’s address to Congress on Wednesday seems to have upset some in the Republican party. Four representatives refused to clap after his speech, and two of them – Matt Gaetz and Lauren Boebert – were seen seated throughout, captivated by their mobile phones instead. Boebert, the representative for Colorado’s third district, later published her
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Wales’ football manager Rob Page was clear about why his team’s captain Gareth Bale would wear the ‘One Love’ armband at the Qatar World Cup: it was about demonstrating support of LGBT rights in a country where there are none. Whatever the pushback from Fifa, Page insisted last month that the armband would be worn:
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I have a deep-seated hatred of the hospitality QR code. It ripped through the industry as part of questionable social-distancing initiatives during the pandemic, taking the place of menus and human interaction – and has stubbornly refused to disappear, making my heart sink when I find one sellotaped to the table of a bar or
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To commemorate the 70-year and-214-day-long reign of Queen Elizabeth II, this week’s issue of The Spectator is the first ever to feature a front-and-back design. Illustrated by Morten Morland, its design is inspired by Victorian-style mourning cards and includes a mixture of details from the royal coat of arms, as well as a few personal
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Neckerchiefs are an oddity. Once the cowboys’ sweat-wiping tool, they are now a key accessory in the glamour – or camp and borderline tack – of a flight attendant’s uniform. My approach to them tends to sit somewhere in the middle. Neckerchiefs are useful, stylish, rebellious, but comforting – a rare choice for men’s fashionwear. A
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A five-minute taxi journey costs €50, a single drink can set you back more than €20 – and if you want to avoid shelling out €60 for a plate of pasta, you might struggle to find a supermarket. But the Costa Smeralda offers one luxury that’s hard to put a price on at the peak
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Choosing an island in the Cyclades is a familiar summer conundrum for those who love Greece. The array of choice is so dizzying that many opt for the safety of well-known options: Santorini and Mykonos. But if you’re seeking something off the beaten track, why not venture away from the tourist centrals? With a population
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The European Union’s top diplomat Josep Borrell is in Ukraine today. His mission? To show solidarity with Kiev in the face of Russian aggression. But the visit is too little too late. Former Soviet states, such as Ukraine, have grown used to the lofty rhetoric and empty gestures of their EU. The reality is that
