Baiqu: Welcome back to The Browser Interviews. Today I’m with Sylvia Bishop, who is a children's book writer with nine titles translation into 16 languages, and is a part of a musical duo by the name of Peablossom Cabaret. Welcome Sylvia.

Sylvia: Thank you. It's lovely to be here.

How to sound smart in a conversation

Baiqu: So today I really want to just get a list of recommendations from you for our readers. If you’re ready, we can just jump right in.

Question number one, what would you recommend if I wanted to come across as being smart in a conversation?

Sylvia:Probably not saying very much, you're far safer that way. This is maybe a personal prejudice that I tend to think the longer someone talks, the less they probably know about it. But also if I was being more cynical, the odd cutting remark would

Baiqu: Welcome to The Browser interviews, today I'm with Jordan Schneider, who is a China technology analyst at The Rhodium group, as well as the host of The ChinaTalk podcast and newsletter. Welcome to The Browser.

Jordan: Thanks so much for having me. I've been a subscriber for like seven years. You guys make me an interesting and intelligent individual. Without The Browser, I would be much more basic. So thank you so much for doing all that you guys.

Baiqu: I didn't pay him to say this. So thank you, Jordan. That's awesome.

So as a friend of The Browser and an interesting individual yourself, I thought I'd just ask you for a bunch of recommendations. If you're ready, we'll just dive right in.

Jordan: Let's do it.

How to become a China expert by starting with Mao

Baiqu: Jordan, what would you recommend if someone wanted to know

Sir Charles Saumarez Smith was Director of the National Portrait Gallery in London from 1994 to 2002, and the Director of the National Gallery from 2002 to 2007. He was the Secretary and Chief Executive of the Royal Academy of Arts in London from 2007 until 2018. His latest book, The Art Museum in Modern Times, was published this year by Thames & Hudson.  

Interview by Beatrice Wilford. Listen to the audio here.

Beatrice Wilford: You were Director of the National Portrait Gallery from 1994 to 2000, where you oversaw a major extension and renovation of the gallery, mainly in the form of the Ondaatje wing, which opened in 2000. What was the logic behind the changes?

Charles Saumarez Smith: We had a very straightforward competition in 1994, very soon after I started, and basically, we wanted to do three things. One was to put a cafe somewhere, and the

Baiqu: Welcome to the Browser Interviews, today I'm with Laura McInerney who is an education journalist, and the founder of Teacher Tapp, and former high school teacher. Interesting fact, she was once taken to court by the UK government for asking a question.

So Laura, first of all, welcome to The Browser.

Laura: Welcome. I'm not going to take you to court for asking me any questions I don't think...possibly.

On being taken on court for being vexatious

Baiqu: Let's see how it goes. Obviously my first question has to be, can you tell us the story about the UK government taking you to court?

Laura: Yeah, it was really weird and quite unexpected. So I've been a teacher for six years and then in 2012, I decided to do some studying and I wanted to study a concept called free schools in the UK, which is the same

Baiqu: Welcome to the Browser Interviews, today I am sitting down with Stella Zawistowski, who is one of the fastest crossword solvers in America. Her speed record for a Sunday New York Times puzzle is four minutes and 33 seconds. These days she's making cryptic crosswords for the New Yorker and The Browser. Stella wants you to know why cryptics are the best.

Welcome Stella to The Browser.

Stella: Thank you. I do know want people to know why cryptics are the best.

Baiqu: It's so wonderful to have you here, and before we start, can we just talk about how aside from cryptics you're also doing a million other things, including a full-time job and a very interesting hobby. Would you mind sharing with everyone what it is that you do?

Stella: Sure, I mean I have a full-time job in advertising, and I also really love the gym.

Baiqu: Welcome to The Browser Interviews, today I'm with Dan Wang who is a Shanghai based writer focusing on China's technology development. Welcome to The Browser.

How to channel Xi Jinping Thought

Baiqu: So, what would you recommend if someone wanted to know more about China's technology developments? I mean, this is your area of expertise, so where would you recommend that they start.

Dan: I spend a lot of my time thinking about things a bit broader than that. Every morning when I wake up, I wonder what's going on in the mind of Xi Jinping, China's top leader, and I try to figure that out, and a lot of my thoughts now are very much concerned with determining what Xi Jinping Thought looks like over the next few years. To do so, I do things like subscribe to Qiushi, which is the party's main theory magazine, the English

Baiqu: Welcome to The Browser Interviews, and today we are sitting down with Soumaya Keynes. She writes about European economics for The Economist, currently based in London, and she also co-hosts a podcast called Trade Talks. Welcome to The Browser.

Soumaya: Thanks so much for having me.

Baiqu: So today we are going to pick your brain about a couple of recommendations for our readers and our listeners, and if you're ready, we can just dive right in.

Soumaya: Let's do it.

How To Sound Smart In Conversations

Baiqu: Perfect! Recommendation one, what would you recommend if someone wanted to come across as being smart in a conversation?

Soumaya: Ooh, okay. I think I'm contractually obliged to say that they should read The Economist because I think that's literally how we advertise ourselves, but to try and be a little bit less cringe.... That's a really good question. I guess

To celebrate International Women’s Day, we went through our archives to bring you profiles of (and by) remarkable women. From the poor farmers’ daughter who became an oil tycoon to “the Mao of women’s liberation” (a phrase apparently intended as a compliment), here are five women whose stories are by turns admirable and inspiring… and well worth rereading.

Alma Mahler, profiled by Cathleen Schine in The New York Review and by Bee Wilson in The London Review of Books

“Like the stories of most notorious women, Alma Mahler’s is one of sex and power. She had a liking and a talent for both… She saw it as her mission to draw talented men from many worlds into her orbit and to render them ‘brighter.’

She had her first kiss aged 17 with Gustav Klimt, while travelling in Genoa. Klimt found her beautiful but also something more: ‘She

(revised on 18th March 2021)

Robert writes: I am suggesting to my Browser colleagues that we mark up our recommendations with shortcodes indicating how to approach metered paywalls and registration requests on publishers' websites.

My argument is that, if we do this, we can feel more relaxed about recommending content from publications with metered paywalls and/or registration requirements. We can indicate confidently to our subscribers that, say, the requirement on the New York Review Of Books website for all first-time visitors to register, is, in our view, a reasonable one.

We are, by the way, firmly in favour of paid content, and of fair pay for writers. But we also suspect that the natural unit of paid content is the article, not the annual subscription, and that publishers are foregoing revenues and frustrating readers by insisting uniquely on subscription models.

So long as some publishers choose to offer free

This is the edited transcript of an open Zoom conversation conducted on Sunday 3rd January.

Topics include: Cities, Covid, work, television, Trump, media, China, philanthropy.

I've known Felix for such a long time that we were chatting away before the Zoom session opened, and then segued into the planned Q&A without breaking for a formal introduction, for which error of protocol I apologise.

Felix is columnist and chief financial correspondent for Axios; author of that piece in Wired about algorithms and distributions which explained the 2008 financial crisis; a patron of the arts (in partnership with Michelle Vaughan, @black_von); an effective altruist; a bicycle rider; and an Englishman in New York.

The label "Question" in this transcript indicates a question from the Zoom room; if you were the asker of the question, and you would like to be identified, please email me. Likewise, if you spot an