Take Five: Stories beyond the news cycle

Another most decidedly mixed week on the front pages. Hats off to Cyril Ramaphosa for remaining calm under such extreme and deeply disingenuous provocation from Trump in the latest episode of the dystopian Trump soap opera. Resistance to his malign reign, however, has not been helped this week by the Greek tragedy featuring his predecessor.

Over here in the UK, meanwhile, a decidedly different narrative arc plays out as Starmer belatedly moves to begin to repair the wildly unnecessary self harm of Brexit. Good on him for finally addressing the elephant in the room. As Simon Jenkins writes in The Guardian today, "what a pointless waste of time, money and effort" Brexit was.

But anyway on to interesting distractions / backstories etc.:

1. This is an AI revolution that all of us weather-obsessives on these island can surely fully embrace: https://www.ft.com/content/a1b6ab08-9703-45fb-b967-a40b4855bc17
2. In a week when Jonny Ives has anointed Sam Altman as the Steve Jobs of AI (while pocketing rather a lot himself in the process), The New Yorker asks if Sam Altman 'can be trusted with the future?' Jury very much out, surely: https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/can-sam-altman-be-trusted-with-the-future
3. Speaking of such anointed tech bros, Mountainhead from Jesse Armstrong's feels timely and appropriately provocative: https://www.vulture.com/article/jesse-armstrong-succession-mountainhead-interview.html
4. Staying with provocative, an interesting deep dive in The New York Times on Kara Swisher, a journalist who has always fearlessly confronted all tech bros and has (brilliantly) now taken that confrontational truth-seeking approach into the political realm: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/19/business/media/kara-swisher-podcasts.html
5. And lastly to actually anointed men, this is an absolutely fascinating (and funny) discussion on the LRB podcast with Colm Toibin on the popes, old and new: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/disorder/id1706818264?i=10007090745

Cheers,

Will, PRmoment Leaders