Top of the weekend to you all. At the end of another episode of “America – wtf?” I’m sure you’ve had your fill, but I must share this observation Marina Hyde made about two-and-a-half days after the Trump rally shooting: “The experience of watching such an extraordinary historic event fail to stop everything for a while has been unsettling.”
Take as long as you need to contemplate that, then read on.
1. Does Charli xcx’s Brat herald the end of clean living?
Charlie xcx’s Brat is the album of the northern summer, and it’s making its presence felt beyond pop charts and dancefloors. The implicit message of the album has been summed up as “feminine contradiction”, its sound described as “recession pop”.
Xcx describes the Brat aesthetic as “pack of cigs, a Bic lighter and a strappy white top with no bra”. It could also be seen as a rebellion against the highly groomed “clean girl” ideal. It may even have parallels in the kink community.
In short – it’s complicated. Zoe Williams peels back the layers.
How long will it take to read: Five minutes.
Further reading: As Charli xcx’s influence grows, Katy Perry’s latest has critics (including ours) sharpening their pens. Meanwhile, for men, beards are alpha and “rat boys” are in.
2. ‘Eight men own half the world. Where does this end?’
Danny Sriskandarajah is not afraid of a challenge. His last job? Chief executive of Oxfam, a role he took on when the charity was reeling from revelations some staff had paid Haiti earthquake survivors (and possibly children) for sex.
Now, as the head of the New Economics Foundation, a thinktank founded 40 years ago to fight neoliberalism, he has concerned himself with saving democracy and tackling gross inequality. Exhibit A: the foundation’s proposed “extreme wealth line”. “There’s the extreme poverty line, the line below which it’s socially unacceptable for someone to have to live,” he says. “Why can’t we have a similar one for the upper limit?”
How to make a difference: “Start with whatever you’re passionate about. It could be as simple as the kids’ football club. Get involved, volunteer, connect with your community – do stuff.”
How long will it take to read: Four minutes.
3. What happens if your sorrow doesn’t seem appropriate?
Grief can manifest itself in myriad ways, from depression to self-destructive behaviour. When Daisy Buchanan lost two friends in close succession, she wasn’t sure what to feel. Was she close enough to them to feel sad? Had they even loved her at all?
Then came the pandemic, when “the wall fell away”. “Grief wasn’t proof of the impact I’d had in John’s life, or Andrea’s,” Buchanan writes. “It was proof of the love they’d brought to mine.”
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“Even when we feel that we can openly claim our grief, it’s heavy and hard to navigate. When we don’t think we have a right to our sadness, it’s impossible to heal.”
How long will it take to read: Five minutes.
Further reading: Lech Blaine on surviving a car crash as a teenager that left three of his friends dead.
4. How Greg Louganis survived
I can still remember watching it as a child: Greg Louganis collecting a diving board with his head, then coming back to collect Olympic gold with his next dive in Seoul.
What we didn’t know then about arguably the greatest male diver of them all is that he was HIV-positive and hiding his sexuality, all while in an abusive relationship with his manager. Louganis opens up to Chris Godfrey on the circumstances around his 1988 triumph and battling feelings of inadequacy over three successful Olympic campaigns.
On why it took him years to rewatch his winning dives: “I knew I was capable of better.”
How long will it take to read: Eight minutes.
Further reading: The Paris Games unofficially kick off on Wednesday ahead of the opening ceremony on Friday – we’ll have it all covered here.
5. The delicate art of treating ADHD
Jack Goulder learned as a junior doctor in a UK mental health clinic’s ADHD team how difficult diagnosing the condition could be. “It can be a slow, patchwork process involving multiple interviews, questionnaires, computer tests and school observations,” he writes, “like trying to reconstruct a reel of film from jumbled stills.”
Over his six-month placement he grappled with the subtle differences between treating “hyperactive” children and those with attention deficit, whose problems were harder to spot.
One parent’s reaction to learning her child probably did not have ADHD: “Well if he doesn’t, is he just bad?”
How long will it take to read: Ten minutes.
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