A little early, this post, as I’m on grandpa duty tomorrow.

1. Tax the rich — and save the planet is the title of a TED talk back in the summer by Nobel Prize-winning economist Esther Duflo https://www.ted.com/talks/esther_duflo_tax_the_rich_and_save_the_planet

Nobel Prize-winning economist Esther Duflo brings her data-driven precision to the climate crisis — and the numbers are damning. While world leaders haggle over finances at endless summits, rising temperatures will kill millions in the poorest countries by the end of this century. She calculates the staggering cost of wealthy nations pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, proving that getting billionaires to pay their fair share in taxes is the best way to cover these damages.

One can only hope …

2. Fear And Laughing in Riyadh is the title of a long and thoughtful piece by Helen Lewis on her recent visit to Saudi Arabia https://helenlewis.substack.com/p/fear-and-laughing-in-riyadh

There are quite clearly three cultures (and, effectively, legal regimes) running alongside each other in modern Saudi Arabia. One for citizens; one for tourists and expats; and one for migrant workers, who make up 40 percent of the population.

3. Here’s a National Archives feature, Olga Gray and the Woolwich Arsenal Spy Ring https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/explore-the-collection/stories/olga-gray-and-the-woolwich-arsenal-spy-ring/

On a cold January evening in 1938, a man hurried across London towards Charing Cross Station. Weaving through the commuters, he was here to pick up a package of British defence secrets from a rogue employee at the Woolwich Arsenal. The plan was simple. Take the records to the safe house, photograph them, and pass the copies on to the Soviets. But unknown to him, thanks to a remarkable female MI5 agent, Special Branch officers had been alerted about his rendezvous. He would not complete his task.

4. Charlotte Faucher has just published a report, UK Cultural Diplomacy in Europe 1989-2025: Lessons and Implications for Future UK Soft Power. Here’s the press release https://www.bristol.ac.uk/policybristol/policy-briefings/soft-power-uk/ and here’s the full report (PDF below as well) https://www.bristol.ac.uk/media-library/sites/policybristol/briefings-and-reports-pdfs/2025/Soft%20Power%20policy%20report.pdf

The report opens in 1989 with the Fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Eastern bloc at the end of the Cold War. It was a time of intense and varied activity for UK cultural diplomacy in Eastern and Central Europe which witnessed an explosion of demand for English language teaching, support for developing management and business skills, and an appetite for the arts. The UK was able to cater for this extraordinary need thanks to the FCO’s programme of technical assistance (the Know  How Fund), the creation of scholarships and additional funding bestowed by the government to organisations in charge of cultural relations such as the British Council. British cultural diplomacy was sustained in Eastern and Central Europe throughout the early 2000s as it supported many nations’ accessions to the European Union.

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5. And, finally, a ninety-year-old Cuban master drummer, Candido Camero, performs Conga Jam with a band of musicians a quarter his age https://youtu.be/H3_aygrb5-g