Convenience Big Store: Quelle horreur! Krispy Kremes are taking over Paris

12 December, 2023

In the headlines

It's "squeaky bum time" for Rishi Sunak, says Politico, as he tries to convince right-wing Tory MPs not to torpedo his Rwanda bill in the Commons this evening. The PM hosted 20 potential rebels for breakfast at No 10, ahead of the most consequential vote in Westminster "since the Brexit battles of 2016 to 2019". Negotiations at COP28 are continuing beyond the summit's scheduled end this morning, after the draft agreement dropped a commitment for fossil fuels to be "phased out". Delegates are currently trying to hash out the final terms, which require unanimous approval from attending countries. We've been singing Christmas carols to the wrong tunes for centuries, says The Times. English Heritage has found that only a fraction of the seasonal songs have retained their original medieval scores, and that many never even had a "correct" melody in the first place.

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A protester in Manhattan in 2018. Ira L Black/Corbis/Getty

The left is going bonkers when America needs it most

The Donald Trump years had a "radicalising effect" on the American right, says Helen Lewis in The Atlantic. "But, let's be honest, they also sent many on the left completely around the bend." At first, liberals tried established tactics such as sit-ins and legal challenges, successfully blocking early versions of the administration's Muslim travel ban, for example. But soon the "sheer volume of outrages" overwhelmed Trump's critics, and the "self-styled resistance" settled into a pattern of "high-drama, low-impact indignation". Trump created an "enormous reservoir of political energy" on the left. The real tragedy is how much of it was completely wasted on inward-looking "purification rituals".

The terrible death of George Floyd in 2020 made a bestseller of a white woman's book about "white fragility", but negotiations over a comprehensive police reform bill collapsed the following year – almost nothing actually changed. And while an ultra-conservative Supreme Court prepared to remove the constitutional right to abortion, activist organisations were too busy "purifying their language" to mount an effective opposition. This stuff matters. The battle isn't about whether people who have abortions should be called "women". It's about fighting against locking women up for having abortions in the first place; against electoral interference and police violence that goes unpunished; and against "the empowerment of white nationalists". The path back to sanity in the US lies in defending freedom of speech and the rule of law, in "clearly and calmly opposing Trump's abuses of power", and in offering an attractive alternative. "The left cannot afford to go bonkers at the exact moment America needs it most."

Photography

Martin Bond, a photographer from Cambridge, has announced the end of a project which involved taking an "atmospheric portrait shot" of the city every single day for 13 years, says The Guardian. The 5,000 photos focus on mundane moments, including a woman walking in a blue satin dress; a man watering daffodils outside Peterhouse college; a silhouetted couple; and people huddling in a punt under cover of umbrellas. See more here.

Inside politics

Only a month after his return to Downing Street as Foreign Secretary, it looks like Lord Cameron could be "eyeing up another job", says Andrew Pierce in the Daily Mail. Westminster is "awash with rumours" that the former PM is lining himself up to be the next secretary general of Nato. The incumbent, Jens Stoltenberg, stands down in October 2024. With the Tories expected to fight and lose an election around then, "the timing could hardly be better".

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Anthony Philpotts/Julius Badayos/Flickr

A new ocean may be forming in Africa, along a 35-mile crack that opened up in Ethiopia in 2005. The Dabbahu rift (pictured), which has been growing ever since, is thought to be the result of three tectonic plates moving away from each other. While geologists say the full cleavage will take five to 10 million years to complete, the site's easily accessible location makes it a unique laboratory to study elaborate tectonic processes.

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An "indecent enthusiasm" to the seduction of le fast food. Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP/Getty

Quelle horreur! Krispy Kremes are taking over Paris

Last week some 400 Parisians queued up at a shopping centre in Les Halles for the opening of the first French branch of the American doughnut chain Krispy Kreme. The fact that so many were willing to betray the proud pâtisseries of the Fifth Republic, says Jane Shilling in The Daily Telegraph, highlights the "peculiar disconnect in the national psyche" when it comes to the "Anglo-Saxon invasion of Gallic culture". While the Académie Française wages its "futile war against the creeping taint of anglicisms", and the French chattering classes get in a tizzy over Emily in Paris and Ridley Scott's Napoleon, the French people have yielded with "indecent enthusiasm" to the seduction of le fast food.

In 1999 the "splendidly moustachioed farmer-politician" José Bové raised a mob to demolish a partly built McDonald's in the southern French town of Millau. The protest attracted much publicity but achieved precisely rien. By 2021, France had more branches of McDonald's than any other European country. The fried-chicken chain Popeyes opened its first branch at the Gare du Nord this year, and has plans for 300 outlets by 2030. Krispy Kreme has similarly bold plans, but the firm's director general in France, Alexandre Maizoué, insists: "We're adding something to France, not taking anything away." He's not kidding. Since 1997, obesity in France has doubled. It was the great writer on French gastronomy, Jean Brillat-Savarin, who said: "Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you who you are." By that standard, the French are rapidly turning into a great big pile of merde.

Gone viral

TikTok/@crawly_possessed

One of the latest TikTok trends involves creepily moving through shops on all fours, says Digg. Videos shared by a Polish account show groups of people in hooded puffers crawling through clothing stores and fast-food restaurants with eerie captions like "JOIN OUR CULT". Earlier posts by the same user feature "just one guy in a red puffer", but in around a week he has managed to amass a "group of fellow crawlers" who join him in swarming various establishments.

On the money

A new "All You Can Seat" pass will guarantee theatre fans a prime spot at every show in the West End next year, says Time Out – for £10,000. If you really love plays and actually go to all 104 shows scheduled for 2024, it's arguably "good value for money". But you'll probably have to get used to sitting alone, unless friends are willing to buy pricey tickets to sit next to you. Sign up here.

Snapshot

Snapshot answer

It's an ultra-rare white alligator that was born at a Florida theme park this summer. The female baby's colouring is due to a condition called leucism, says the BBC, which is different to albinism because it doesn't affect the eyes. The ghostly gator was born to a normal-coloured mother and a leucistic dad that was found in a Louisiana swamp. Gatorland, in Orlando, is asking for name suggestions, with submissions so far including Ice, Noelle, Snow, Pearl, Ivory, Marshmallow and, inevitably, "Gator McGatorface". Assuming you can beat those, submit suggestions on Instagram here.