Monday
What did you do last week? By the middle of this week, more than a million US federal employees – roughly a third of the federal workforce – had scrambled to reply to that question, sent to them at the weekend by Elon Musk along with the threat that anyone failing to engage could be fired. Musk, who in keeping with the worst people in the world likes to open his remarks with the phrase “let’s be clear”, characterised his request for five listed achievements as a “very low” bar for government employees to meet. “An email with some bullet points that make any sense at all is acceptable!” he posted on X.
Swiftly and cheeringly, the inevitable happened. While agencies including the security services and the IRS told their employees not to answer for reasons of national security, plucky Americans across the country replied to Musk’s query as to what they had done last week with five variations of “your mom”. Ketamine use featured strongly in the answers, as did versions of “ignoring my children’s mothers”. Meanwhile, at a briefing on Tuesday, the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, clarified that “all federal workers should be working at the same pace as President Trump is working and moving”.
Like everything involving Trump, it was funny right up to the point when it stopped being funny. The flippancy, the total, grinding disrespect for workers on a percentage of Musk’s earnings too small for the human eye to perceive, was depressingly familiar, although there was, perhaps, a tiny grain of relief to be had from the soothing recognition of an archetype. The consequences are dire, but Musk’s “have you filled in the form?” attitude is that of every low-grade, clipboard-wielding middle manager you’ve ever had, right down to the impoverished dick move – did Musk mention he likes to work weekends? – of sending out the email on a Saturday night.
Tuesday
If the US election was fought, at some level, on the price of eggs in America, then come the midterms New York City should enjoy an emphatic swing to the left. The combination of bird flu and issues with monopolies in the egg market has sent already screamingly high egg prices to new heights and introduced weird anomalies into the experience of grocery shopping. The average price of a dozen eggs in New York shot up this week to a staggering $10 (almost £8) or more, so that, like the guy selling single cigarettes on the corner, delis, bodegas and street stalls are offering individual eggs, or “loosies”, for customers who can’t afford the full dozen.
And, ever resourceful as New Yorkers are, new routines are kicking in. As restaurants and bakeries scramble every morning at 6am to find egg suppliers who can fulfil their orders, supermarket egg sections empty and informal egg pushers spring up flogging eggs informally from supermarket trolleys on the sidewalk. Some food trucks in the city have stuck a $1 surcharge on breakfast sandwiches. And, as the New York Times reports spotting a high of $18.99 for a dozen eggs in the Washington Heights neighbourhood of Manhattan, many New Yorkers are simply foregoing eggs until prices cool. Britain has something to offer here, perhaps, with the “powdered eggs” from the 1940s we’ve heard tell about – although, given the times we live in, it’s probably a bad moment to invoke more second world war parallels.
Wednesday
Hands-down the TV event of the season is series three of White Lotus, dropping an agonising episode a week with no binge option. After the opening last week, there was a groundswell of low-level grumbling from the show’s fans about Mike White, the creator and only writer, going too slow burn on the action. I can’t say that bothered me. After two perfect seasons, White can take all the time he likes; at this point, we’ll follow the guy anywhere.
Still, White Lotus is, surprisingly, not the number one show on the HBO Max slate right now. The top spot is reserved for The Pitt, described in legal filings as an “unauthorised reboot of ER” starring the hit 90s show’s Noah Wyle and currently the subject of a lawsuit by the estate of Michael Crichton, ER’s late creator. Warner Bros denies the allegations and describes The Pitt, which is set in Pittsburgh – a totally different city from Chicago! – as a “new and original show”. Either way, I defy you to watch the pilot and fail to lose nine hours of your life in very short succession to a show that, while it pains me to say it, makes White Lotus look like a yawn.
Thursday
Restaurant prices in Britain make the New York egg surcharge look paltry, and to add insult to injury a new gouging mechanism is taking off in the form of minimum-spend charges and reservation fees. Michelin-starred restaurants such as Gymkhana, in Mayfair, are introducing a £100 minimum spend and even neighbourhood pubs are laying £40 deposits on customers wanting to book tables during the Sunday roast crush. No-shows are costly and annoying for restaurants, but so is the price of eating out in this country, and while we’re on the subject: can someone have a word about the pathetic size of the largest Domino’s pizza? Anything that doesn’t guarantee leftovers on an individual order is not, in my book, a large pie.
Friday
Let’s close on cheering news amid the chaos: Katy Perry, Lauren Sánchez and Gayle King are to be launched into space care of Jeff Bezos’s rocket company, Blue Origin. The three were named this week as part of an all-female crew lined up to go into sub-orbit on the Amazon founder’s New Shepard rocket, presenting the rest of us with a tough thought experiment: which of these ladies might we be happiest to see committing long-term to deep space?
It’s Perry for me, but a friend with a long-held and extremely tenacious grudge against King – “that woman has ridden on Oprah’s coattails for long enough” – reports indifference to the matter of whether or not the rocket comes back any time soon. Meanwhile, the thinking behind Bezos’s decision to launch Sánchez, his fiancee, into space is something probably best kept between the world’s second richest man and his therapist.
