The list: the Starbucks dress code
Starbucks has invited its employees to bring their “personal taste and handcrafted style” to work – within the confines of a “subdued” colour palette. So what else does its “lookbook” specify as suitable for wear underneath its trademark green aprons? (For blood pressure reasons, the spellings have been de-Americanised.)
1 Hats: "Top off your look with beanies, fedoras and other suitable hats in brown, grey or black, making sure they're clean and free from snags."
2 Socks: "If socks are not a focal point of your outfit, feel free to wear a pop of pattern or colour."
3 Tops: "Solids are your friend, and so are smaller, tighter, low-contrast patterns."
4 Ties: "Love to wear a tie? Feel free to incorporate an optional accent (just make sure it's not the main event of your outfit). Your accent colours can go far beyond the colours represented in the palette."
5 Name-badges: "Write your name cleanly or with personality – just make sure it's legible."
Image of the Week:
Olympic opportunism When critics allege the Olympics are a festival of drug-taking, branded cocaine packages may not be quite what they have in mind. Nevertheless, entrepreneurial spirit being what it is, these little sachets of coke have now been stamped with the Rio 2016 label, the Olympic rings and a warning that reads "keep away from children", and they are now doing the rounds of the Lapa neighbourhood in Rio, where they were duly confiscated by police. While cocaine is not a typical performance-enhancing drug, its use is not unheard of – hello, Maradona – and it is definitely on the World Anti-Doping Agency's banned list. The International Olympic Committee is presumably not amused – they're notoriously protective of their brand, after all. Photograph:Rio De Janeiro State Police/Reuters
In numbers: Press eject
750,000
Number of video cassette recorder machines (of the VHS variety) manufactured by Japanese electronics company Funai Electric last year. Funai, the last known maker of VCRs, has said it will stop producing them due to trouble sourcing key components.
15 million
Number of VCRs produced by Funai in the year 2000. The player was soon after superseded by the DVD player in most households.
12
Years since the electronics chain Dixons stopped selling VCRs, which were originally produced for the mass market in the 1970s. How long before DVD player suffers the same fate?
The lexicon: Gigafactory
If you’re Elon “voyage to Mars” Musk, you cannot simply own a mere factory – a “gigafactory” is much more like it. Musk’s Tesla has built what it calls Gigafactory 1 for manufacturing batteries in the Nevada desert and, to be fair, it is not just mega, it is really quite giga – or at least it will be. The plant, which is 14 per cent complete, will be about 3,200 acres when it is finished, which is estimated to be in 2020. At this point it will have the largest physical footprint of any building in the world, unless some other modern-day industrialist can construct a 3,201-acre warehouse between now and then. Tesla is spending about $5 billion (€4.5 billion) on this, and then Musk plans to build a Gigafactory 2 and a Gigafactory 3 . . . It’s his masterplan.
Getting to know: The Man Engine
A new monster has been stalking Britain, and it is the Cornish Man Mining Engine. Unveiled this week to crowds who were hopefully warned in advance, the UK's largest mechanical puppet has begun its 209km (130 mile), steam-powered journey across the entire length of the Cornish mining world heritage site, and will be frustrating motorists from Tavistock in Devon to the Geevor Tin Mine in Cornwall. The 10m (32ft) high Man Engine was created to mark the 10th anniversary of the mining landscape being added to the Unesco list, and definitely not as some kind of Wicker Man tribute, though there is a strong chance it will be in the next series of Doctor Who.
