Top of the weekend to you all. An Australian survival story is the centrepiece of this week’s selection, which includes perhaps the most ripping yarn I’ve shared in this newsletter. To paraphrase the poster on Fox Mulder’s wall: “You’ll want to believe.”
1. Life as a triple zero call-taker
When Bunny Banyai turned up to work as a triple zero call-taker, she learned she would get a 30-minute break every 90 minutes to help limit burnout risk. “It seemed excessively generous,” she writes, “until you’ve spent your first hour and a half on the phones.”
Banyai learned that for every part of the job she loved, there were five that she hated – from pest callers to “the grinding gravity of it all”.
A police dispatcher’s advice: “You can’t do this job for too long,” he said, “or you’ll wind up an absolute husk.” Banyai stuck it out for months.
How long will it take to read: Two minutes.
2. Drake’s very public Super Bowl shaming
Having a song written about you sounds quite lovely, unless you’re Drake – who was no doubt enjoying a lovely Monday morning while on tour in Australia – and Kendrick Lamar is taking you down in Not Like Us, a diss track watched simultaneously by hundreds of millions.
How does the rapper recover from a Super Bowl moment in which even Serena Williams, a rumoured former flame, was on the dancefloor? Crisis PR experts weigh in on what Drake should do next.
The Taylor Swift solution: Swift’s response to a lengthy beef with Kanye West and Kim Kardashian was to disappear until the release of her Reputation album – on which she addressed the backlash in her own terms.
How long will it take to read: Three minutes.
In case you missed it: Our review of that Super Bowl show, which you can watch on YouTube here.
3. ‘The landslide does not define me’
The long-running How We Survive series has finally turned its attention to Australia and Stuart Diver, who in 1997 was caught in a landslide which destroyed a Thredbo lodge and killed everyone else in it – including Diver’s first wife, Sally.
“I look at that 27 years on and I can’t work out how I survived,” says Diver today. He recounts his 65-hour ordeal, why he sounded so calm when interviewed post-rescue and the trauma of losing his second wife, Rosanna, in great detail.
Warning: this is read is not for the claustrophobic.
***
“You actually get an amazing feeling of calmness come over you.” – Diver on how he felt in his most extreme moments of helplessness beneath 4,000 tons of rubble.
How long will it take to read: Five minutes.
4. A month without single-use plastic
If you’ve never tried to do a plastic-free grocery shop, take a look at your list and see what you would have to scratch off. The first time we did this at home our minds were blown.
Why go through the hassle? Reducing your footprint has to start somewhere. But as Emma Beddington discovered in week one of trying to go a month without single-use plastic, it instantly renders many aisles of the supermarket off-limits.
Un-fun fact: According to the UN Foundation, there is already enough plastic in the oceans to fill 5m shipping containers.
The holy grail: If anyone has found a plastic-free solution to corn chips outside of “bake your own”, my inbox is waiting for your email.
How long will it take to read: Five minutes.
5. Two hikers snapped a UFO pic – and haven’t been heard from for 35 years
As promised, the story that has everything – starting with a 1990 photo of what appears to be a giant diamond-shaped aircraft flanked by a Harrier fighter jet above the moors of Scotland.
The Ministry of Defence was informed. A newspaper declined to run the story. The alleged photographers promptly disappeared. And debate rages over whether the photo was a prank, a hoax, an optical illusion or something else entirely.
Memorable cameo: A wet night. A hotel car park. A black car. And two men in dark suits.
How long will it take to read: Five minutes.
Sign up
Enjoying the Five Great Reads email? Then you’ll love our weekly culture and lifestyle newsletter, Saved for Later. Sign up here to catch up on the fun stuff with our rundown of must-reads, pop culture, trends and tips for the weekend.
And check out the full list of our local and international newsletters.
