Monocle Weekend
Edition: Saturday

Settle in for a Saturday read that celebrates the winter season and the publication of our seasonal Alpino newspaper. We’ve got all the gear you need for a snow glow-up, including the business-class pyjamas to wear en route to the slopes. Then The Monocle Concierge shows us around Stockholm, we catch up on the latest Christmas releases and put the winter blues to bed in Buenos Aires, where La Bomba de Tiempo sets the tone. To start us off, Andrew Tuck wades into the frigid waters of social media.

I watched a 15-second video on social media (give me a break, we all have weak moments) of men in a boat in Arctic waters saving a polar-bear cub. They help the furry bundle clamber up the side of their vessel and it responds by nestling in one of the crew’s arms. Since it was first posted in November, this clip has spread across Instagram apace and has notched up 129 million views on Tiktok.

Now look at it a few more times (I told you, don’t get judgy) and things begin to seem a little off. The cub gets smaller as the video proceeds – its paws are almost like human hands in some shots – and, in several frames, its visage is more canine than ursine. It’s another AI-generated confection, though it’s just billed as “a cute polar bear rescued” with no mention of its fakery (go on, give in, have a look).

But that’s not the interesting part. What really catches your attention is what unfolds in the comments. Of course, there are the dimwits who believe that this is real and post banalities such as “Look how happy the bear is!” Or dafter still, “Aww, now I want to rescue a polar bear. Put it on my bucket list!” Then comes the riled, who angrily type that “It’s not real!” But there’s another group that’s wise to the ruse and wants to believe it anyway. “I don’t care if it’s fake, this has restored my faith in humanity,” chimes in one viewer, while another adds, “I don’t care if it’s AI, it warms my heart.”

I got hooked on reading these comments because they reveal a shift that’s happening all too swiftly: people – lots of people – no longer worry whether what they watch or read is real or fake (good news for politicians). They don’t worry that a 15-second AI video doesn’t declare that it has been whipped up on a laptop. For them, this has equal import to, say, a David Attenborough documentary. In fact, they probably prefer the fabrication because it lasts 15 seconds and has a happy ending. Cinema, theatre and great novel writing has always had the power to entrance, to get us to suspend our disbelief. But we knew where the border between fantasy and reality ran. Now with AI we are entering a world where those lines will be harder to discern – and many people just don’t care.

I have mentioned the polar bear to a few people this week and it has triggered some conversations about AI that have left me bamboozled at the speed of change being delivered by this technology in so many industries. But also made me wonder why there’s so little push back. On Sunday I was at a party and got into a conversation with a senior lawyer who explained how it had transformed his work. Now, when thousands of documents are dumped on him during the disclosure phase, he can search them for key words and have salient points summarised in hours. Just a couple of years ago this would, he said, have taken weeks. Sounds great. But then the harder bit to digest. He also asks AI to prepare his argument, to create a defence. He then tweaks it, bringing his experience to bear. But AI is writing the initial defence. And in another five years, will any of us need lawyers?

A friend working in the world of big-budget films then tells me how the agent is at risk of extinction because people are creating an AI tool that will simply cast a film for you. Just type in the budget, the ages of the characters, ethnicity, gender etc., and it will come back to you with a suggested cast. And, anyway, in the future some of the actors might simply be human versions of that polar bear, he adds.

I have also had lots of sunnier conversations about AI but I keep thinking about that polar bear and this new willingness to believe in the unbelievable. To refuse to listen to the tellers of truth for fear it will mess with your take on how the world should be. Perhaps reality will prevail – after all, if you head to the Arctic to cuddle a polar bear, your fantasy is likely to turn out to be deadly.

Mondays tend to vex the urban traveller (writes Tom Vanderbilt). After busy weekends, museums and restaurants are often closed. Your leisure is of small concern as the greater populace shuffles back to work and the general mood downshifts a bit. But Buenos Aires has a salutary antidote to the Monday blues.

Every Monday at 20.00 for the past dozen years, percussion ensemble La Bomba de Tiempo (“Time Bomb”) has had porteños and tourists alike thrumming to a sinuous, infectiously hypnotic improvisatory groove. La Bomba has evolved into one of the hottest shows in town. It was created by musician Santiago Vázquez, who invented a language of more than 100 hand gestures called ritmo con señas (or “rhythm with signs”) to guide the band’s 13 percussionists. The group picked Monday evening because it was the only time when they were all free. Now the event drags the weekend into the new week.

Taking place on the large open-air patio of Ciudad Cultural Konex, a noted cultural institution near a former olive-oil factory in the working-class neighbourhood of Abasto, La Bomba shows typically feature several invited musicians. Uruguayan singer Martin Buscaglia recently traded syncopated guitar rhythms with the drummers and sang, playfully, in Spanish: “La Bomba sent me an invitation and I said, ‘Of course, why not?’”

On a recent visit, I repaired to the stalwart parrilla Lo de Jesús, which, at near midnight on a Monday, was festively packed. It put me in mind of a line from the Mexican singer Julieta Venegas, once sang with backing by La Bomba: “Buenos Aires está despierta todo el tiempo, como el agua necesita movimiento.” – “Buenos Aires is awake all the time, like water needs to move.”

Shopping for my annual Christmas flight home to Australia and attempting to wrangle finances and miles into a relatively comfortable seat up front, I happened across a few attempts to entice me with business-class pyjamas (writes Andrew Mueller). Not all airlines offer these but those that are available are a curious, and curiously homogenous, sartorial subculture. They tend towards the neutrally coloured, and possibly in deference to what airlines imagine are the rarefied sensibilities of their fancier passengers, they are unobtrusively branded. Lufthansa’s are identified only by a discreet tab on a side seam of the shirt and Qatar Airways can be recognised by something similar on the hem. Qantas is an outlier, slapping the airline’s name across the back of the shirt and emblazoning its flying-kangaroo logo on the front – in this realm, as in so many others, my people disdain subtlety.

I have seen people put business-class pyjamas on in-flight and shuffle around the cabin in the accompanying slippers quite contentedly; an absence of self-consciousness that I could not decide whether I was impressed or appalled by. Once, encouraged by an upgrade into one of Qatar Airways’s secluded business-class cubbies – and by the fact that there is a lot of time to kill en route from London to Melbourne – I tried them on, felt ridiculous and changed back. I kept them, however, because on land they’re very comfortable.

They might, of course, just be an attempt by airlines to lull passengers into forgetting that they have spent a small fortune to effectively sleep a single night in a dormitory. But the utilitarian drabness of these garments makes them a less effective lure than they might be. Colourful pictures of whooshing aeroplanes are a frequent motif of children’s pyjamas: if we’re going to do this, we might as well go all in.

How do you stand out on the slopes? Your prowess on skis will help but if you really want to be noticed, you’ll need skiwear with bold silhouettes and bright colours. It’s practical too, chunky, warming and light. To see our full list of recommendations, pick up a copy of the Alpino newspaper today.

The Monocle Concierge is our purveyor of top tips and delectable recommendations for your next trip. If you’re planning to go somewhere nice and would like some advice, click here. We will publish one answer each week.

Dear Monocle Concierge,

I have been reading Monocle with great pleasure and eagerness to try this out. I am heading to Stockholm for a conference but have some free time. I have already sorted out museums but could you recommend some coffee spots, restaurants and bars?

Thanks in advance,
Job Bezemer

Dear Job,

What a great idea to get out of the conference room and explore Stockholm, which is particularly charming at this time of year. Remember to layer up, there’s a chill outside but inside the Swedes have their fires lit.

To kickstart the day you’ll need a coffee and something sweet, or as the locals call it, fika. Head to Stora Bageriet, which has branches in Vasastan and Östermalm. Order a saffron or cinnamon bun, recently crowned the best in town by Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet. The pistachio pain Suisse is equally unmissable, be sure to take one for the road.

Alternatively, you could head to Café Svenskt Tenn’s on Strandvägen and combine a snack with some shopping. Svenskt Tenn is a beloved Swedish interior design shop and the perfect place to pick up small souvenirs such as illustrated placemats or handmade Christmas ornaments. Its café is run by Estrid Ericson together with Petter Nilsson, the owner and chef of acclaimed restaurant Petri. Its menu changes with the seasons but filling pies and homemade ravioli are always on offer.

After perusing a few museums your appetite is sure to return. Thankfully, Stockholm offers a mix of innovative fine dining and casual bistros that reflect the city’s international talent. If you’re visiting for the first time, book a table at Teatergrillen for Toast Skagen and Biff Rydberg. Since opening in 1945, this restaurant and its crowd has remained keenly theatrical.

Another great option is Rolfs Hav, a new seafood-focused sister restaurant to the beloved Rolfs Kök by canny restaurateur Klas Ljungqvist and chef Johan Jureskog. A tantalisingly fresh menu includes oysters, goose barnacles, lobster rolls, prawn cocktails and chowder.

Seafood-loving locals will often pop into the bar on their way home from work in hope of nabbing a stool, so get in before rush hour and the world will be your oyster. For an aperitivo, opt for Röda Huset (Swedish for “The Red House”). Here, bartenders use Nordic ingredients for cocktails, such as rhubarb and fig leaf. Once you’re suitably enthused by the elderflower-infused gin, it might be time to call it a night. If you’re lucky, you’ll have a room at Ett Hem.

Herno has been given the incentive and investment to innovate by its president, Claudio Marenzi, as the brand seeks to expand from high-end outerwear to wider clothing markets. We sat down with Marenzi as part of a longer interview that you can find in the pages of the Alpino newspaper.

What innovations are you currently focusing on?
The new norm for us is developing performance fabrics that are also sustainable. Sometimes this is possible, sometimes it’s not. In my opinion, to be sustainable you also have to be honest. For example, you sometimes still need to use the old Gore-Tex, with less sustainable lamination, because it’s warmer. It might not be as environmentally friendly but if you’re hiking 8km in the cold, it will keep you alive.

What will 2025 bring?
This is the moment to invest in order to be ready when the market course corrects.

Why is in-house production such a key part of the brand?
Like many of our Italian peers, we believe in the “Made in Italy” label and the overall Italian approach to design and craft – 50 per cent of our products are produced in Italy. In terms of retail and development, everything takes place in our Lesa headquarters. A team of 60 people is dedicated to making prototypes, some of which might never launch. It’s a big cost but it means that our designers, including junior ones, are free to experiment.

For more sartorial inspiration for the winter season, pick up a copy of the Alpino newspaper, available online and on newsstands now. Or, better yet, subscribe to Monocle so that you never miss an issue. Have a super Saturday.