3 hours ago
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Monday
To the people who parked their consciences and voted for Donald Trump because they thought he’d slash regulation, cut corporate taxes and eviscerate the federal government to send their stock holdings soaring, I’d like to ask: “How’s that working out for you?” For anyone with a pension, college savings or other assets in the US market this was an unrelaxing week, during which the Dow fell by almost 900 points on Monday and some $4tn (£3tn) was wiped off the S&P 500.
Best not to look, in my view. Don’t look, don’t sell, hold your nerve on the assumption it’ll be fine in 10 years’ time, just as the markets recovered eventually and ebulliently after the 2008 crash and Covid. In the meantime, let’s console ourselves with the silver lining that Elon Musk found himself personally $22.8bn the poorer on Monday, as Tesla’s share price plummeted. Even more gratifying: unlike the overall market losses, Musk’s losses were at least in part caused by personal animus.
The backlash against Musk has been growing in recent weeks, driving down Tesla sales, with the car’s dealerships and drivers becoming targets. Sheryl Crow sold hers. The actor Jason Batemen said that driving a Tesla was tantamount to rocking a Trump sticker on your bumper. And with each passing week, more protesters gather outside Tesla showrooms across the US. Meanwhile, individual owners have discovered that the cost of driving a car that once symbolised wealth and status is being called a Nazi in supermarket car parks. A nice Subaru, anyone?
Tuesday
Ten days after Meghan Markle’s new show, With Love, Meghan, dropped on Netflix there are still questions to answer: primarily, is her insistence on calling herself Sussex strictly in line with protocol? And, by correcting the misuse of her name, was she pass-agg bullying her episode two guest, Mindy Kaling?
For my money, Kaling, who appeared on the show to cut heart-shaped sandwiches like the drippy friend in a Jane Austen novel, knew exactly what she had signed up for and no sympathy is due. But reviewing the footage, it’s clear she really did trigger her host’s irritation. “It’s so funny that you keep saying Meghan Markle,” says Meghan – it’s the “keep” in that sentence where the poison is stored – not sounding amused at all. Kaling’s face went full rictus like she’d farted in front of the queen.
Opinions differ as to whether Sussex is the correct surname for Markle, as opposed to Wales, Windsor or Mountbatten, and even after the New York Times put a team on it, the proper answer remains obscure. While one royal expert said Meghan was either totally oblivious to what her actual name was or she didn’t understand it, another averred that Sussex was “totally within royal protocol”. Kaling, meanwhile, had to go on TV to “break her silence” and, not the most ringing endorsement of a grand day out, clarify that she “had a great time”.
Wednesday
An American woman who bothered a wombat in Australia dominates global headlines for the second day running when the Australian prime minister wades into the debate. The woman, Sam Jones, who identifies as an influencer, snatched a helpless marsupial from its mother’s arms and held it aloft for the camera for lolz. In a since deleted post on a now-private Instagram, Jones, who previously posted images of herself with animals she had slain while hunting, exclaims: “I caught a baby wombat!”
There are laws against this kind of thing in Australia and with the directness we expect from that part of the world, Tony Burke, the Australian home affairs minister, said: “I can’t wait to see the back of this individual.” (By the end of the week, she had left the country). But it was the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, who really rose to the occasion and, in a political moment up there with “she was the people’s princess”, addressed Jones directly to say what everyone was thinking: “Take a baby crocodile from its mother and see how you go there.”
Thursday
In animal news closer to home, I’m helping a friend buy kittens, and who knew that the market was so weird? My friend’s first instinct was to go through the cat charities, but none of them had new litters available. Next, she looked at the fancy breeders, where pure ragdolls and Bengals can go for £1,200 a piece. At the far end of the scale was the sketchy kitten market online, where people breed litters in their spare rooms or sell them on from illegal kitten farms.
The middle path is an online animal exchange where measures are taken to verify users and buyers are warned against breeders who can’t produce the mother. Here’s the wild bit: since Covid, demand for pets in some parts of the country continues to outstrip supply and ordinary tabbies in London can go for £500 a pop and get snapped up within moments of going online – something you would avoid if you weren’t at the sharp end of your children’s relentless campaigning. On Thursday my friend brought home two eight-week-olds, a boy and a girl, tiny and perfect, and OMG I’m in love.
Friday
To lift the end of your week, I recommend you watch the footage of the US vice-president, JD Vance, being booed at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, a much more forceful effort than the time Mike Pence, in the same job, was booed at a 2016 production of Hamilton on Broadway. Unlike the boos for Pence, which were alleviated by counter-cheers, the boos for Vance were solid, sustained, and compounded with derisive whistling, supercharged by the fact Trump fired the Kennedy Center’s chair and replaced 13 of its trustees with his own people, and accompanied by a gratifying visual: that of extremely well-heeled seniors, the Kennedy Center’s constituency, lobbing catcalls for what looked like the first time in their lives.
