Life
Suzuki enjoying a pint of Boddingtons in Manchester
I love the Romantics, the Beatles – and Britain
Over the past two years, Japan’s ambassador to the UK, Hiroshi Suzuki, has spent a lot of time “flirting with British people”, says Guy Kelly in The Telegraph. He has learnt the Welsh national anthem, sampled Irn-Bru in Scotland, and delighted Liverpudlians by dining in their city and exclaiming “that’s boss scran”. He has plodded over Northern Ireland’s Giant’s Causeway, knocked back a pint of Boddingtons in Manchester with Andy Burnham and dressed as a Peaky Blinder in the Black Country. It’s worked. He has racked up a whopping 221,000 social media followers, more than double the following of the UK ambassadors from the top 10 most-populous countries combined.
A seasoned diplomat, 65-year-old Suzuki knows exactly what he’s doing. But there’s something particularly authentic about his Anglophilia. While we Brits often find it difficult to “warm to patriotism”, Suzuki sees no reason why we should be anything other than “thrilled to be British”. The UK, he says, has the “greatest reservoirs” of cultural power, traditions and wisdom: “You have Shakespeare. You have Churchill. You have the Beatles.” People across the world read the FT and The Economist, and revere the BBC, because the UK is still “the voice of reason”. And he means it. He genuinely adores the Beatles. He loves Romantic poetry. He has close connections in Wiltshire through his wife’s parents, who are still friends with a pair of Old Etonians they hosted on an exchange programme in the 1970s. And he’s a “devoted Jeremy Clarkson acolyte”. He and his wife Eiko even chose Clarkson’s voice as the GPS navigation in their car. “It was so funny,” he says. “If we ignored his instructions more than twice, he’d get cross and stop speaking for the next five minutes.”
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Property
THE HIDEAWAY This two-bedroom bungalow sits on the shore of Loch Ewe in the remote northwest Highlands, says The Times. In the scattered crofting village of Ormiscaig, the light-filled, wood-lined house has one reception room and panoramic views across the loch to the Isle of Ewe and the Torridon Hills. The current owner has fitted an air source heat pump, solar panels and a new kitchen, and is selling the property as one lot or two: the bungalow and garden for £320,000; and an adjacent building plot, with planning permission for a single house, at a further £90,000. Inverness is a two-hour drive. Click on the image to see the listing.
Global update
A Russian drone attacking a Ukrainian pickup truck
Life in Ukraine’s “Kill Zone”
In a “deadly corridor” snaking along the 750-mile front line in Ukraine, says Reuters, a terrifying game of hide-and-seek is playing out. In this so-called “Kill Zone”, there is no massing of troops and artillery. Instead, surveillance and attack drones swarm the skies, “hunting anything that moves”. Frontline positions are widely scattered, with teams as small as two or three hiding in tiny dugouts. These men tend to avoid direct engagement with the enemy because it would give away their position; instead they act as lookouts, calling in drones if they see any advancing soldiers. Rotating in and out of these spots carries enormous risk, and supplies are dropped in by drone. One Ukrainian soldier “spent more than 300 days in a single position”.
For the attacking forces, there are no big waves of troops or armour. They typically probe defensive positions in tiny groups of one to three men, and if they find an empty building or bunker they’ll wait there for similarly sized units to join them, usually over several days. Timing is crucial: low cloud and fog can act as cover from the buzzing assassins overhead. Further back from the front, some drones drop mines along supply and evacuation routes while others, known as “sleepers”, lie in wait on the roadside, activating when they detect a vehicle approaching. Thousands of miles of Ukrainian roads are covered in anti-drone netting but that only provides a degree of safety: the drones find or make holes in the covering and then chase vehicles down. On the front line, soldiers carry shotguns to blast drones out of the sky but know that if they’re spotted their days are probably numbered. “If a drone spots an infantryman,” says a deputy battalion commander in the Ukrainian army, “it won’t let him go.”
Sport
A participant rehydrating in last year’s Médoc marathon. Christophe Archambault/AFP/Getty
France’s Médoc marathon requires runners to prepare not just for the harsh physical toll of running 26.2 miles, says Elyse Goncalves in The Wall Street Journal, “but also for the 20 wine stops along the route”. The famous course sees increasingly tipsy competitors in fancy dress weave their way through the vineyards of the Bordeaux region. There are stops at almost every mile, offering participants a swig of various wines from local châteaux as well as tables of cheese, croissants, oysters, steak and ice cream. Participants can’t spend too long at each one: the cut-off time is an unforgiving six-and-a-half hours, comparable to some of the major marathons. And it’s more popular than ever. All 8,500 spots for the race next month sold out in nine minutes. “I will probably be beaming from ear to ear as we set off,” says one British entrant. “Whether I’m still beaming at the end or whether I’m drunk, we can decide that on the day.”
The Knowledge Crossword
Comment
Maxim Kruglov, deputy chairman of the Yabloko party, in court earlier this year. Igor Ivanko/AFP/Getty
A desperate gambit by Putin
Ever since Vladimir Putin launched his all-out invasion of Ukraine in 2022, he has claimed the “entire nation” is behind it, says Vladimir Kara-Murza in The Washington Post. Last month, in a bid to project this confidence, Russian authorities gave permission to the only political party opposed to the conflict, Yabloko, to stand in September’s parliamentary election. The plan was obvious: allow the anti-war party on the ballot, announce its official result at a measly 2% – whatever the actual result – and say it proves that the Russian people “overwhelmingly” back the war in Ukraine. The only problem is, they don’t.
What Putin’s team failed to grasp is that Yabloko is no longer just a small liberal party left over from Russia’s “brief experiment with democracy” in the 1990s. It’s now the only avenue for citizens to express their growing opposition to the war. And “they seized on it”. Yabloko exploded on social media, overtaking pro-Kremlin parties in subscriber numbers and racking up millions of views for their videos. Leaked results from closed polling showed the party well above the threshold required for parliamentary representation, and near double-digits in public support. On Monday, in an “unmistakable show of fear”, the Kremlin went into full “emergency crisis management” and annulled the party’s electoral registration, citing “absurd” reasons including the claim that Yabloko was guilty of “extremism” for advocating an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine. With only pro-war parties left on the September ballot, the Kremlin will once again claim its so-called “special military operation” has full public support. This time, no one will be fooled.
Quoted
“One should either be a work of art or wear a work of art.”
Oscar Wilde
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