In holy matrimony 👰‍♀️

Happy Monday. Another new sponsor for the ‘Pot today gives an opportunity to share one of our favourite sponsorship stories, from way back in 2019.

Why pay millions for Messi or Ronaldo when £50k gets you into FIFA? Burger King thought outside the (penalty) box and sponsored Stevenage—the lowest-ranked pro team in the game. That tiny deal got their logo into FIFA, and with a viral “Stevenage Challenge,” the internet lit up with goals from top stars wearing Burger King kits. Genius-level value meal.

MARKETS

Data: Google Finance, 5-day Market Close

Notable UK earnings this week: Safestore (SAFE), Halfords (HFD), Speedy Hire (SDY).

Notable US earnings this week: Oracle (ORCL), Adobe (ADBE), Chewy (CHWY), Gamestop (GME).

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PROJECT WATCH

🌊 Sonardyne bags a contract to be part of UK’s first offshore carbon storage project. Read more

🔌 Seabed prep begins for Hornsea 3 export cable. Read more

🏗️ Northamptonshire Council sign £1bn regeneration deal with ECF. Read more

BUSINESS & FINANCE

Vodafone and Three. It’s official.
Vodafone and Three have officially tied the knot, creating a mobile monster called – rather imaginatively – VodafoneThree. With Vodafone owning 51% and Three’s parent CK Hutchison grabbing the remaining 49%, it’s a classic British-Chinese joint venture – 5G diplomacy with bars of signal strength. The new firm will be the UK’s biggest mobile operator, boasting deeper coverage than a tabloid scandal and just as much drama behind the scenes.

As part of their wedded bliss, the pair will pump £1.3bn into network infrastructure over the next year, with a ten-year total investment of £11bn. That’s a lot of masts for your mobile – and just in time, perhaps, to rescue all those poor souls still clutching a single bar of reception during the Glastonbury livestream. If all goes to plan, Britain may finally stop hovering by windows for signal like it's still 2005.

To help fund the ramp-up, the duo will chuck in £800m in equity, frontloading with £600m now and saving the last £200m for next year – perhaps after a bit of a lie down. The merged entity claims it’ll build one of Europe’s “most advanced” 5G networks. Bold words in a continent where 5G usually means watching TikToks slightly faster. Meanwhile, net debt is expected to hit £6bn faster than your data does when roaming in Europe (remember that freedom?).

With shares up 12% so far this year, investors are clearly in a better signal zone. As for the rest of us? Let’s just hope "better coverage" means fewer dropped calls and not merely better coverage on investor slides.

Wise to set sail for Wall Street
British fintech darling Wise has announced it's packing its bags and heading to the U.S., shifting its main stock market listing stateside and leaving London with a slightly embarrassed secondary listing. It’s like a long-term partner saying, “It’s not you, it’s… actually, no, it is you.”

Wise, best known for delivering the international money transfers process from something painfully akin to a Ryanair check-in process into a seamless few clicks, says having a dual listing will give it more flexibility. Translation: there’s more money, more analysts, and, crucially, more investor buzz across the pond. And while Wise insists it’s not abandoning the UK entirely, let’s be honest—it’s clear who’s now the side hustle.

POLITICS

Botched briefs & bionic bills
The UK's legal brains are tangled in a techy tightrope this week. First up: the long-awaited AI regulation bill has been pushed back again, now expected no earlier than May 2026.

Ministers say they’re working on a “comprehensive” law to tackle safety, copyright, and the existential dread of large language models knowing your nan’s cat’s neighbours. But creatives are fuming, claiming the current copyright carve-up shafts the arts harder than Wednesday’s pancake.

While the AI bill brews in the Westminster slow cooker, judges are slapping lawyers on the wrist for fabricating case law with ChatGPT-style tools. One case saw 18 out of 45 legal citations completely made up. The legal equivalent of trying to cite “The Goblet of Fire” in divorce court.

Fertile futures
Elsewhere in the kingdom of curious legislation, the Law Commission has opened the floor to resomation and human composting - funerals are going full eco. Water cremation, which dissolves the dearly departed in alkaline broth like the world's most respectful slow cooker, may soon be legal. The bones? Ground to ash. The liquid? Filtered and flushed.

Then there’s human composting, where the deceased are cocooned in straw and wood chips, transforming into rich, loamy soil in a few tender months. It's green, it’s serene.

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ACROSS THE POND

Where to start? The President and his former best-mate billionaire insulting each other online, National Guard deployed to riots across LA, travel bans for countries, and the big beautiful tax-break.

Old Blighty dodges 50% steel tariff after all
The UK has managed to sidestep a bruising tariff hike imposed by our friends across the pond. While the US slaps a 50% duty double-whammy on steel and aluminium imports, the British brace for a far more palatable 25%. Mind you, this leniency hinges on the ratification of a nifty little trade deal, with a deadline of 9th July.

The shipments of steel that were already halfway along their journey to the US, will breathe a sigh of relief as the 25% tariff remains unchanged in the face of the 50% threat - a curveball thrown last week that had companies wondering if there would still be a customer as their steel crossed the pond.

Hopefully, the combo of Britain's quick-witted resolve and Starmer's steely stare can keep our metal imports afloat, as the UK plays this tariff tango with tact, charm, and a dash of British pluck – all while keeping an eye on the July deadline. Let us hope the US doesn't stiffen the rates before we can put the kettle back on.

US and China talks in London
Last Thursday, Trump and Xi Jinping talked tariffs on the phone. Amid ominous trade disputes involving enough minerals to keep geologists giddy, these two have resolved to have each other over and dispatch their zealous staff to negotiate in the interim - the chosen location, none other than London itself, starting today. Welcome fellas.

The world looks on in bated breath as both nations dodge Perez Hilton levels of drama to ease tensions. China's dominance in rare earth minerals has more than a few investors wringing their hands. Meanwhile, America plays hardball by withholding crucial imports that make silicon chips smarter and nuclear plants hum with existential energy. That’s before you start talking Taiwan and fentanyl - good luck, London.

TECH

Joy-cons and jellybeans
Step aside PS5, there’s a new toy in town. Nintendo just dropped the Switch 2, and it’s chunkier, clunkier, and slicker than a greased-up gizmo.

Under the hood? A bespoke Nvidia brain. Social features let you chat, stream, and share games, while the £395 price tag might make your wallet weep louder than a Goomba in a boss fight. Oh, and yes it still plays the old Switch games, because even nostalgia has a software patch.

Parcel-power
Amazon, meanwhile, is taking “fast delivery” to “mildly terrifying”. Word on the street is they’re testing humanoid robots, bipedal droids, that could soon be springing out and about like metallic jack-in-the-boxes with your whatnot.

In the actually defying physics department, scientists at the University of Waterloo have unveiled a gummy bear-esque orb that can roll down vertical surfaces. Not slide. Not fall. Roll.

Thanks to its squishy mousepad-meets-jellybean construction, this pea-sized physics rebel grips and flips its way down glass walls at a stately 0.5mm per second. Sure, it won’t win races, but it just rewrote the movement manual and may soon be crawling through Martian pipes or spelunking where no bot has spelunked before.

WORLD

Iran bans the bark
In Iran, the crackdown on canine companionship has gone walkies. Officials have expanded the 2019 Tehran dog-walking ban to 18 more cities, banning pooches in parks, pavements, and your passenger seat. Authorities claim it's about health and public order, but really it’s paw-litical control.

Dog ownership has long been frowned upon in Iran's theocracy, with pets seen as Western and "unclean". Yet despite arrests, dog confiscations, and a history of proposed floggings, ownership growing, especially among young Iranians as a quiet rebellion.

Statues falling, tempers rising
Kyrgyzstan, Lenin has taken a tumble. The tallest Lenin statue in Central Asia (a 23-metre titan towering over Osh) was quietly dismantled. Authorities say it’s about tidying up the cityscape; critics read between the chiselled lines, seeing another step in Kyrgyzstan's slow pivot from Soviet shadows.

Further west, Rwanda has rage-quit Eccas, Central Africa’s regional bloc after being blocked from the rotating chairmanship. The reason? Accusations of meddling in DR Congo via M23 rebels, backed by evidence from the UN and some very frosty French frowns. Kigali called it “imposed diktat”; Congo called it “aggression”. One thing’s certain: this bloc is anything but united nations.

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