Top of the weekend to you all. My timeline was this week consumed by props for an unlikely intervention (Macklemore goes full Rage Against the Machine) and appreciation for a flawed hero (Steve Albini, who has featured in Five Great Reads before). Accordingly, this week’s selection is a villain-free zone. Enjoy.
1. The sisters ‘destroyed’ by Saudi Arabia over tweets
Manahel al-Otaibi has just been sentenced to 11 years in a Saudi prison for terrorism offences. Her crimes? Uploading pictures of herself with her head uncovered, and social media posts supporting women’s rights.
Her sisters, Maryam and Fawzia, have also been targeted by Saudi authorities for social posts criticising their home nation’s strict patriarchal society. Maryam is trapped under a travel ban. Fawzia, from her new home in Edinburgh, says of her sister: “She feels she will be disappeared by the regime at any moment.”
#IAmMyOwnGuardian: In 2016 the sisters were among the first to post calling for the end of the male guardianship system, which dictated that women needed the permission of a husband, father or male guardian to marry or travel.
How long will it take to read: Four minutes.
2. A daughter’s search for the real Mama Cass
The most famous story about “Mama” Cass Elliott – that she died choking on a ham sandwich aged 32 – was cooked up by her manager to quash any speculation drugs were involved. That is just one of the myths shattered in a new book by Owen Elliot-Kugell, who was seven when her mother died in 1974.
“My mom was a forward-thinking woman-of-size who made it in an industry that was largely controlled by men,” Elliot-Kugel says of the Mamas and the Papas singer. “That makes her story timely.”
Wilson Phillips: Elliot-Kugel was booted from the supergroup featuring the offspring of Brian Wilson (Beach Boys) and John Phillips (the Mamas and the Papas) before they recorded their lone hit, Hold On, because her voice was too loud.
How long will it take to read: Five minutes.
3. ‘Hopeless and broken’ … but determined to keep fighting
I know, I know – it’s been a long week and you’ve got a lot on your plate. But imagine being a climate scientist, your entire life consumed by the most important story of our time as world leaders are mostly consumed by who “owns” which patch of water or land.
How do they push on when many believe the 1.5C heating target that politicians struggle to deliver concrete action towards achieving could end up being a catastrophic 3C? We surveyed 380 top climate scientists – this is what they said.
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“I’m relieved that I do not have children, knowing what the future holds.” – Anonymous
How long will it take to read: Seven minutes.
Further reading: A UN expert reckons the global economy being prioritised over the environment suggests “there’s something wrong with our brains”.
4. Can this man teach us how to age well?
My hip flexors still haven’t recovered from running my last (but not final) half-marathon at 42. John Starbrook, known by his friends as “the Legend”, ran the last (and likely final) of his 52 full marathons aged 88.
Now 93, he’s content to hit the gym six days a week and play a spot of water polo. Phil Daoust, 60, joins him in the pool.
How long does “the Legend” reckon he has left: “People say, ‘Oh, you’ll go on to 100!’ But I don’t care how long I go on for, as long as I’m not in any pain.”
How long will it take to read: Four minutes.
5. Oral history of a tolerable, I suppose romcom classic
“That one’s really funny.” The director Mike Newell was in his agent’s office when the agent’s secretary drew his attention to a spec script by Richard Curtis (fresh from co-writing Blackadder). Two years later Four Weddings and a Funeral was a global hit and its leading man, Hugh Grant, was a star.
Thirty years after its release, some of the key players take you behind the scenes.
On the cheap: The film-makers kept costs down by not using a production designer (inconceivable!) and hiring posh extras who wore their own suits and frocks. It returned US$245.7m at the global box office in 1994 on a budget of less than £3m.
How long will it take to read: Five minutes.
Further reading: Steve Albini would probably despise Baz Luhrmann’s Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen) – I am at best ambivalent about it – but its origin story is an interesting early case study of an internet hoax going viral.
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