Pessimism

• This year’s survey found cautious optimism prevails among lenders after a challenging year, with 45% of respondents believing that the probability of a U.S. recession is minor compared to last year, when only 29% had this view.
• More key findings from the survey include:
  The expected inflation outlook is improved, but still high.
• ESG considerations fell in importance to lenders, with 41% of respondents saying that ESG factors minimally impact their lending decisions, if at all, compared to 27% last year.
• Respondents included chief credit officers, workout group leaders, managing directors, senior vice presidents, executive directors, directors and vice presidents.

• - Zhong Baoshen, Chairman of LONGi, and Dennis She, Vice President of LONGi, will represent the Chinese photovoltaic industry at the event and deliver speeches.
• - LONGi is thrilled to be sharing their rich experiences in leading smart and sustainable manufacturing, and emitting the "Voice of LONGi" on critical global issues.
• DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan. 16, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The World Economic Forum Annual Meeting, commonly known as the Winter Davos Forum, is scheduled to take place in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland, from January 15th to 19th, 2024.
• Zhong Baoshen, Chairman of LONGi, and Dennis She, Vice President of LONGi, will represent the Chinese photovoltaic industry at the event and deliver speeches.

• Pierce Brosnan was equally great in GoldenEye – James Bond careening through the streets of St Petersburg astride a tank.
• These films also served as a visual reminder: the Cold War was a thing of the past.
• When Lady Ann Sercomb married George Smiley towards the end of the war she described him to her astonished Mayfair friends as breathtakingly ordinary.
• Published in 1961, this novel ushered into existence the spymaster George Smiley.
• Read more:
  Friday essay: the secret lives of Ian Fleming and John Le Carré – the spymasters shaped by a lack of parental love

Instantly hooked on an unlikely hero

• In 2011, Oldman put in a commendable shift as Smiley in the well-received film adaptation.
• In this iconic novel, Smiley hunts down a thinly fictionalised version of the infamous MI6 double agent, Kim Philby.
• I was instantly hooked: who was this man, and why describe him this way?
• This unlikely hero – part bureaucrat, part detective – always gets things done, more often than not in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.
• Read more:
  'The wilderness of mirrors': 70 years since the first James Bond book, spy stories are still blurring fact and fiction

From the Cold War to Brexit

Smiley finds himself in a spot of bother at the start of Call for the Dead.

• Despite spending much of the novel in hospital, Smiley hatches a brilliant plan and unravels the truth.
• Moving from the Cold War to the self-inflicted catastrophe of Brexit, Le Carré’s nine Smiley novels paint a remarkably candid – and increasingly melancholic – portrait of a former imperial power in terminal decline.
• Time you rang down the curtain on yesterday’s cold warrior.
• Time you rang down the curtain on yesterday’s cold warrior.
• Read more:
  What's a cold war?

George Smiley is James Bond’s reality check

• However, in marked contrast to Le Carré, Fleming rails against the reality of Britain’s diminished status as a world power in the wake of the second world war.
• This, in turn, helps us understand the enduring appeal of George Smiley.
• Smiley is an Abbey, made up different periods, fashions, and even different religions, not all of them necessarily harmonious.
• Smiley is an Abbey, made up different periods, fashions, and even different religions, not all of them necessarily harmonious.
• George Smiley, who is slated to appear in a new novel to be written by Le Carré’s son, is a reminder, disguised as fiction, that still waters do indeed run deep.

Alexander Howard does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

• NEW YORK, Dec. 05, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Big Idea Ventures ("BIV"), the global leader in early-stage alternative protein and food technology investing, has launched its third portfolio company through the Generation Food Rural Partners Fund (“GFRP”).
• Nexture Bio, Inc. (“Nexture” or the “Company") develops novel technologies to support the advancement of alternative meat products.
• Before joining Nexture Bio, Teryn was the CEO at Matrix Food Technologies, an enabling technology company specializing in extracellular matrices for the alternative protein industry.
• I'm thrilled to be able to help Nexture Bio develop and produce cultivated meat scaffolds and the next generation of cultivated meat products."