 16 July, 2021 Hello, In The Knowledge last week we quoted a National Geographic study on why wild chimps keep so healthy. The reason? They're constantly on the move. And the lesson for humans? "It's not physical activity, but inactivity, that makes us frail." It's a lesson that Aleksander Doba clearly took to heart. Doba kayaked naked across the Atlantic three times between the ages of 63 and 71 because he didn't want to be "a little gray man" (see below). It's a stirring reminder, in these unadventurous, pandemic times, of what human beings can achieve. All good wishes,
Jon Connell Editor-in-chief
Space race  The billionaires battling it out The new space race has begun. On Sunday, 70-year-old Richard Branson (worth $3.79bn) soared 53.4 miles above the Earth on one of his Virgin Galactic rocket planes. The firm already has $85m in deposits for places on future flights, with tickets starting at $200,000. Not to be outdone, says Samuel Fishwick in the Evening Standard, Jeff Bezos ($207.9bn) will go up seven miles higher next Tuesday – his Blue Origin space company jibed on Twitter that Branson didn't quite make it to space proper. Bezos wants to set up "space colonies" dotted around the solar system, and has a habit of whipping out mock-ups of medieval Florence and Beijing's Forbidden City rebuilt in the stars. Elon Musk ($161.6bn), meanwhile, has his sights set on colonising Mars – he has joked he wants to die on the red planet, "just not on impact". His SpaceX rockets are already making millions ferrying satellites into orbit and astronauts to the International Space Station. Musk is buddies with Branson – he has bought a Virgin Galactic ticket, and showed up unannounced at Branson's house at 3am on Sunday to wish him luck. The pair are much less chummy with Bezos, says Jackie Wattles in CNN: Branson seems to have brought forward his own flight to beat the Amazon founder. Musk has contented himself with tweeting that Bezos "Can't get it up (to orbit)", and photoshopping Bezos's "Blue Moon" spacecraft to read "Blue Balls". It's all just a "three-way pissing match", says Luke Savage in Jacobin. The first space tourism took place 20 years ago, when American millionaire Dennis Tito paid $20m to travel to the International Space Station. What is new is that space is becoming a theatre for the superrich's bad taste – it's that or buy "yachts that contain other yachts", similar to what Bezos has already done. As "temperatures scorch and billions remain unvaccinated", Branson's jaunt felt like "a springtime orgy at the Palace of Versailles" before the French Revolution. It's true space flight isn't much use at the moment, says Megan McArdle in The Washington Post. But it took decades for automobiles and aeroplanes to become more than a rich man's toy or a publicity stunt. We're the heirs of adventurers and pioneers "who were willing to dare despite the odds". Branson and co don't have Nasa's budget, but market pressures will drive the kind of "incremental innovation" that transformed the Wright brothers' contraptions into a Boeing 737. Today's doubters are like those who stood on the shore as the first ocean voyagers departed, complaining about the waste of "a lot of perfectly good wood".
Podcast  Transatlantic rower Aleksander Doba in his kayak. Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/AFP via Getty Images The 70-year-old who kayaked the Atlantic Aleksander Doba decided to kayak across the Atlantic three times between the ages of 63 and 71 because he didn't want to be "a little gray man". The adventurous Pole always had a thirst for what he called katorga (hard labour), says Elizabeth Weil on The Daily. He used to take his two young sons on expeditions so demanding that his wife Gabriela would check their physical condition before they left and check them again on their return. Doba then became obsessed with kayaking – in the 1980s he was caught illegally paddling in the Baltic, but because he had broken so many laws the border patrol didn't know how to charge him. "In that case I'll be on my way," Doba responded. His first transatlantic trip in a kayak he designed himself was from Senegal to Brazil in 2010. The 3,350-mile trip took 99 days. He left his hearing aids at home (but took some of his wife's plum jam) and paddled naked in the intense heat. When his wife got a bill for $500 after he made two calls using his satellite phone "the desire to talk" decreased. Three years later, he paddled 6,300 miles in 196 days from Portugal to Florida, fuelled by homemade wine. Then, to his wife's annoyance, he undertook a North Atlantic crossing from New York to France in 2017. Huge waves and 55-knot winds wrecked his rudder, so the 70-year-old reluctantly accepted repairs from a passing ship, eventually making it to Le Conquet after 110 days. Sadly, however, his capacity for katorga ended on Mount Kilimanjaro earlier this year, when high-altitude pulmonary oedema killed him at the age of 74. Listen to the podcast here.
Long read shortened We're trashing the world's most vital resource We are water creatures, so much so that we share features with some aquatic animals – a lowered larynx, subcutaneous fat, and a slowing of our metabolism when in water. But our love for it isn't saving rivers or seas, says Wade Graham in Perspective magazine. We have "dammed, diverted, depleted, polluted" rivers and their ecosystems the world over. Here in the US, the once-mighty Colorado is now the most engineered river on Earth and has reached the Pacific only a couple of times in 60 years. The ocean off California, assaulted by plastics, invasive species and upended by marine heatwaves, "has gone haywire". All forms of life, from anchovies to whales, are suffering. And while global-warming experts worry mainly about air pollution, "water is where we need to focus". What can we do? Four rivers – one in New Zealand, one in Colombia and two in India – now have legal status and can be represented by communities in court. It's a start. We need to re-establish that the public have "the senior right" to water, as asserted in the Magna Carta (in California just 400 farmers have a larger share of water than the 40 million other residents). Charge for it properly – once it had value. As Mark Twain said: "Whisky is for drinkin', but water is for fightin'." Today we don't charge anything like its global value to us, measured at $125tn in 2011. Only if we treasure this resource can we hope to "keep water in the river until it reaches the ocean – and treat the ocean the same way". Read the full article here.
Property  THE TOWNHOUSE This unusual home – a Christopher Wren-designed, English baroque masterpiece called Church Tower – is in the heart of the City of London. The church itself, built after the Great Fire of 1666, was destroyed in the Blitz in 1940. Only the tower remains. It has eight floors, a library, three bedrooms, a living room and a study. There are views over St Paul's Cathedral and towards the hills of Kent. £3.75m.
Eating in  Actor Florence Pugh. John Salangsang/BEI/Shutterstock Cooking with Florence The blockbuster Black Widow has smashed pandemic-era box office records since its release, and its star Florence Pugh, who plays Yelena Belova opposite Scarlett Johansson's Natasha Romanoff, is now gracing small screens with her cheery cooking tutorials. Via Instagram Live, she has shared recipes for peanut butter ice cream, butternut squash soup and marmalade, regularly soundtracked by her favourite tunes. The cream of the crop is a tasty tzatziki, which has stolen the internet's heart. Mix Greek yogurt, olive oil, a grated cucumber and a clove of garlic (or up the ante to three like Pugh does), season to taste and serve.
Love etc  When Nick met Susie "The idea I actually 'pulled' my wife couldn't be further from the truth," says Nick Cave in The Red Hand Files. "In actual fact, she passed by me one evening, over 20 years ago, as I stood beneath my favourite dinosaur, Dippy the diplodocus, in the main hall of London's Natural History Museum and I was swept helplessly into the slipstream of her beauty, exterior and interior. I have been happily flailing about there ever since – not waving but drowning, as the great Stevie Smith would say."
Book it Want to know more about how you can make your personal finances more sustainable and eco-friendly? Tune in to i Live Lunches: Ethical Money Week – the i newspaper's first virtual event series. Running from July 26-29, the panels feature experts such as film director and co-founder of the Make My Money Matter campaign Richard Curtis on the power of greening your pension. Click here to see the full schedule and register for your free ticket.
Quoted "Who won PMQs this week? As ever, the wise majority who didn't tune in." Madeline Grant, in The Daily Telegraph That's it. You're done. Been forwarded this newsletter? Sign up here to receive it every day Click here to register for full access to our app and website Download our app in the App Store Follow us on Instagram
Unsubscribe from the newsletter |
July 16, 2021
The billionaires battling it out in space 🚀
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment