In partnership with
👋 Good morning! It’s Saturday 21 February 2026. I’m Neil McIntosh, editor of The Early Line, and it’s great to have you here.
🙏 Thanks, as ever, for your continuing support of The Early Line as a paid subscriber.
📣 You’re reading the weekend edition of The Early Line. Paying subscribers get the full version, with six talking points and film, TV and sporting recommendations for the week ahead.
They also have my huge thanks for making the whole newsletter possible. If you’d like to join their ranks - thankyou! - you can upgrade here.
And if that’s not for you, no problem: see you on Monday when the free Early Line is back at 7am.
Have a wonderful weekend, all!
🌧️ The weekend’s weather: It’s going to be a wet weekend for Glasgow, Edinburgh and Inverness, although Aberdeen will see less rain today, and maybe even some sunshine tomorrow. London will be dry today, wet tomorrow. (Here’s the UK forecast).
And here’s all you need to know this morning:
SIX THINGS TO TALK ABOUT
Ukraine: a war foretold | The adult gap year | Cut your cancer risk with food | The madness of Kid Nation, remembered | The Glasgow coffee house that’s the UK’s finest | La Casa, a remarkable Scottish home
🍸 “A war foretold” is a remarkable piece of reporting by Shaun Walker of the Guardian: how the CIA and MI6 got hold of Vladimir Putin’s plans to invade Ukraine, but struggled to get anyone to listen.
Even in the final days before the invasion, vital players - such as France, Germany and even Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy - failed to see disaster approaching.
It’s well worth your time this morning.
There’s a lot that is new here, but also older knowledge placed within a new context. For instance, we knew that Putin was turned towards his plan - turned mad? - during the Covid lockdown of 2020, when - isolated - he avidly read up on Russian history “and pondered his own place in it”.
What we couldn’t have seen, until now, was how a subsequent string of parliamentary and espionage actions was “Putin getting his ducks in a row before implementing the big Ukraine gambit,” as Walker puts it.
It’s a story which makes Ukraine’s partial success in repelling the Russian attack - at the cost of 55,000 Ukrainian, and 400,000 Russian, lives - all the more remarkable. They really did not have much time or ability to prepare because officials across Europe could not bring themselves to believe that Putin would act so irrationally, or in such a direct way.
Also poignant: the links within the piece to contemporary reporting, such as this piece from February 2022, which paint an accurate but slightly incredulous picture of the disaster that lay ahead. (Guardian)
Upgrade to read the full Party Line, and find out which Glasgow coffee house - a “hidden gem” - has been named the UK’s finest, and one of the best in the world. Plus: an utterly remarkable Scottish home on the market, the rise of the adult gap year, and how to reduce your cancer risk with particular foods.
PLUS: find top TV, film and sporting picks for the weekend, as the Winter Olympics winds up, and the Six Nations hots up.
Health, Without the Hassle
Between work, family, and everything else, most people aren’t looking for another complicated wellness routine. They just want something that works.
AG1 Next Gen is a clinically studied daily health drink designed to support gut health, fill common nutrient gaps, and help maintain steady energy. One scoop a day, and you’re covered.
Start your mornings with AG1 and get 3 FREE AG1 Travel Packs, 3 FREE AGZ Travel Packs, and FREE Vitamin D3+K2 in your Welcome Kit with your first subscription.
Subscribe to The Early Line to read the rest
To enjoy the rest of today's Party Line, become a paying subscriber. You'll get web access to the rest of this post immediately, and the full edition emailed to you every Saturday from next week. Paid members also have full archive and commenting permission on The Early Line's website and, of course, my huge gratitude - because they sustain The Early Line for all.
Upgrade today