Good morning and welcome to your weekend from a place I can only describe as “not New York City”. What with the FT Weekend Festival kicking off in the Big Apple in the afterglow of that historic Knicks win, it feels as though NYC is the only place to be today.

Here in London we have concocted an array of treats to console those of you without easy access to a penthouse overlooking Central Park, from a summer books bonanza to a surf special from the Victorian coast of Australia, How to Surf It in style.

And remember, wherever you are, at least you’re not wedged into a Hackney wine bar next to the cut-offs from a toddler’s day rave. Please enjoy that with a side of schadenfreude . . . 

Bob Iger’s (very) long goodbye

One person celebrating the Knicks’ glory will be Hollywood supremo Bob Iger. The man who ran Disney on and off for two decades is known to be a superfan. He is also known as the boss who cannot seem to leave the company he transformed. A series of delays, extensions and a botched succession after his first farewell saw him boomeranging back into the CEO seat in 2022. This spring, in several interviews for the FT Weekend Magazine with global media editor Dan Thomas, Iger drew back the curtain on those episodes and promised that this time he really does intend to step away. But, as the guy with the task of stepping into his shoes puts it, “to a great extent Bob was Disney”. Can he let go?

The Weekend Essay: Why are tech billionaires stirring up riots?

What on earth prompts a Silicon Valley mogul to take time out from his inexorable rise to the status of the world’s first trillionaire to post repeatedly about a riot taking place in a distant land? Elon Musk’s posts amplifying the hate-filled rhetoric of Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, aka Tommy Robinson, over the violence in Belfast last week have been relentless. Gabriel Gatehouse, author of a book about the politics of paranoia, explains why we should read Musk’s support for the new far-right less as ideology than deflection.

Column of the week: Jo Ellison on how Harry Potter ruined Britain

Of course there are some ways in which the narrative of irreparable British social decline peddled by Musk and his cronies does begin to ring true. In her column this week, Jo Ellison has put her finger squarely on one of them: the physical intrusion of the Harry Potter universe into every historic place of interest up and down the sceptred isle. From Edinburgh to Oxford, York to London’s King’s Cross station, there is no respite. Will no one save Jo from the Pottourists and their banal brand of wizardry?

Lunch with the FT: UN water chief Kaveh Madani

Kaveh Madani, a scientist in exile and formerly Iran’s chief environmental diplomat, has been branded a “water terrorist” and a spy. Conspiracy theorists have gone so far as to claim he has secretly helped Israel and the US to “steal” Iran’s clouds. In 2018, he was briefly locked up in Tehran after his criticism of Iran’s water management irked the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. In Venice for climate week, he tells Kenza Bryan why water is such an emotionally fraught issue in Iran, where for years the threat of “day zero” when the taps run dry has been a terrifyingly real one.

That’s it from me for this week. Feel free to send any thoughts to cordelia.jenkins@ft.com, or just reply to this email. Have a lovely weekend!

Get cooking | Georgina Hayden’s easy weeknight-friendly galette is packed with veg

Catch a movie | This week’s film reviews include Toy Story 5, Killing Anna and Welsh drama Effi O Blaenau

Crave the cool | Francesca Perry asks: can we make air-con sustainable?

Stay in | Simon Kuper on the unusual experience of watching the World Cup from home

Eat out | Jay Rayner reviews Cue Point, a smokehouse in London’s Notting Hill

Our Summer Books series would not be complete without some reading tips by book-loving FT readers. Here are some of your best books of 2026 so far. Take a look, and be sure to continue the conversation in the comments.