How many Barbies are sold for every Ken?
And snorers are getting a special payment.
Hey Comrade,
I’ve always been entertained by obnoxiously oversized things. Whether it's a Nebuchadnezzar or a burger the size of a labrador, I love the human frailty in someone deciding a normal sized one isn’t enough.
I was therefore delighted this week to discover that Sheikh Hamad Bin Hamdan Al Nahyan has had a Hummer made that’s three times the size of a ‘normal’ one.The interior is spread over two floors and contains a bedroom, bathroom and kitchen. It is of course completely impractical and will live in a museum whilst the Sheik presumably makes do with one of his ‘run around’ Hummers.
Go big or go home,
Hugo
Supreme Master Chief Executive Officer
The Business of Stuff
The Stuff
We might have reached the high water mark of drinking coffee ☕- it used to be seen as quite fancy to buy a coffee from a coffee shop but a growing middle class globally is laying into the lattes. Coffee production meanwhile is suffering due to climate change, suggesting this might be the high point of coffee consumption globally.
Guess what people immediately did in driverless taxis 🤭- yup they’ve been available in San Francisco for literally a week and people are having sex in the back of them, whilst helpfully pointing out it doesn’t matter if the windows steam up. One anonymous erm reveller, described themself as a “trailblazer”. Hmmmmmm.
DWP is is giving out payments to people whos snore 😴 - if you snore due to a an underlying health condition and it significantly impacts your ability to perform your work then you could be eligible for Personal Independence Payments. The threshold is however higher than a number of news outlets have been making out this week.
Pubs are seeking relaxed rules for the World Cup final 🥂- everyone is absolutely pumped for the final this morning and pubs quite understandably feel like people should be able to cheer on the Lionesses whilst enjoying a libation or two. At the time of writing the government had shrugged off responsibility to councils so let’s see what happens. COME ON ENGLAND!
Jamie Oliver is back in business again 🧑🍳 - after the collapse of Jamie’s Italian, the turkey twizzler agitator is turning a healthy profit from various licensing deals and the global expansion of his restaurant chain. He has gone for a different strategy to Rick Stein who has largely overtaken Cornwall, providing everything from the taxis to the coffee.
TSG are suing Disney for diddling them out of revenue 🐭 - TSG is a financing partner of the conglomerate and his accused them of withholding profits through a variety of sneaky accounting techniques after demanding an audit. One example was licensing The Shape of Water to FX, a Disney subsidiary, for $4m less than it should have. Good old Hollywood accounting.
Will Ryan Gosling improve the ratio of Kens sold? 🪆- Mattel has been keeping its cards close to its chest on doll sales (although its estimated there’s been a 40% increase in recent weeks) but historically 8-10 Barbies have sold for every one Ken. People are expecting just Ken to fare far better after the attention he received in the recent Barbie movie.
Alexa’s chief is stepping down from the loss-making business 🙊 - Dave Limp is departing and whilst Alexa has seen massive success every device is sold at a loss. If you were to put your tinfoil hat on, you might question what motive they have to put a listening device in everyone's house. But you don’t and it’s Sunday so tell Alexa to get Three Lions on.
AI is better at solving CAPTCHA than humans 🧩 - if your average human is as bad as me at telling what the weird letters are then this will come as no surprise but AI can now complete them more effectively. It has been a game of cat and mouse to stay ahead of bots that solve the puzzles and spam websites and it seems that Tom has finally caught up with Jerry.
Google Chrome will summarise articles for you 💁- we all know reading stuff is long and boring so thankfully Google is here to the rescue. Functionality that is currently being rolled out automatically summarises articles for you within Chrome itself.
Have a good week!
Other Stuff
Something to listen to
99% Invisible - Nuts & Bolts
A really big Hummer:
Quote of the week
"Nobody wins afraid of losing. We go into every game to win it." - Leah Williamson