Top of the weekend to you all. A gentle reminder to my fellow Australians that there is a time and place for the “Oi! Oi! Oi!” chant and that was Sydney almost a quarter of a century ago.
With that Olympics-related PSA out of the way, go the Boomers, go the Tillies – and rest assured that from here this newsletter is a sport-free zone. Kind of.
1. ‘We pledged not to eat each other’
When Dougal Robertson sold the farm to sail his family around the world, he wanted to teach his four children about life. Mission accomplished: their ship was attacked by orcas, forcing its six passengers on to a raft where they barely survived on rations, turtle meat and by sucking the eyeballs out of fish once their tinned water ran out.
Dougal’s son Douglas, who was 18 when the Robertsons abandoned ship in 1972, recalls the 38 days lost at sea, the joy of the rescue, and how the family members coped in the aftermath.
The honorary Robertson: Robin Williams – a financial analyst, not the other one – joined the voyage 12 months in. The deal was he would teach the children English and maths to pay his way, but Douglas says his role became even more vital. “When you’re on a raft in the Pacific it’s fantastic to have someone who can just talk. To hear that human noise. He kept everybody’s morale up with his chirpy chitchat.”
How long will it take to read: Six minutes.
Further reading: The rest of our How we survive series.
2. Shooting down some ‘nepo baby’ myths
Sirin Kale’s interview with the actor Zosia Mamet – who you may know from Girls, Mad Men or, umm, Madame Web – is a fairly standard celebrity profile until conversation turns to her family. Mamet’s mother (Lindsay Crouse) is an actor who dieted constantly as her daughter grew up. Mamet says that contributed to her own eating disorder, although she makes clear she does not blame her mother. And her father, the playwright David Mamet, told a book festival in April that Hollywood diversity targets are “fascist totalitarianism”.
Mamet argues that being a so-called “nepo baby” has at times made forging her own career more of a challenge. “Because people knew I was coming in with a famous name,” she says. “It meant that I was walking into the room with baggage.”
On why Madame Web was such a turkey: “Nothing creative made by committee is ever brilliant.”
How long will it take to read: Five minutes.
3. ‘My family were all Nazis – and they had no regrets’
Martin Pollack was 14 when he learned his biological father, Gerhard Bast, had been an officer of the SS and a leading member of the Gestapo. His mother was also a Nazi, as was his stepfather, his uncle and his paternal grandparents.
Pollack ceased contact with his family as an adult and didn’t delve into their dark past until after his mother had died. By that stage in his late 50s, he learned his father was not a “monster” or a “sadist” but an “ordinary man” – and there were many like him. “Of course his deep involvement in the murderous Nazi regime was partly an outcome of his upbringing, but this doesn’t minimise his guilt,” Pollack says. “He knew what he was doing.”
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“I sometimes think my family members would have become admirers of Putin and his ilk. They were convinced that democracy was poison and only a strong man can save us.” – Pollack on the echoes of national socialism that still exist
How long will it take to read: Ten minutes.
4. Why it’s time to start panicking about AI
The novelist and playwright Daniel Kehlmann wrote in 2020 about his experiment with a large language model – a type of generative AI. He urges anyone interested not to read that book. “It is so outdated it’s as though it came from a different period in world history,” he writes, “like a text about the first railways or a biplane airshow.”
Developments in the field are happening fast. There is a lot of money to be made. And Kehlmann argues it is time for governments to summon the collective will “to rein in AI’s powers and protect life as we know it” before it is too late.
A warning from the writers’ room: One of Kehlmann’s friends recently road-tested a screenplay AI. The TV series it created and scripted from his prompts was so convincing he said he’d be out of a job in three years.
How long will it take to read: Four minutes.
Further reading: Speaking of art that machines could churn out, electro house is back.
5. The man who ate 159 tacos in 10 minutes
Takeru Kobayashi is competitive eating’s first elite athlete – not that you’d know it by looking at him. At just 68kg and 5ft 8in he’s a welterweight in boxing terms, but when it comes to smashing ridiculous amounts of food down his gullet his glut of world records make him the undisputed heavyweight champ.
Now 46, Kobayashi is making a comeback – in a livestreamed Netflix special, naturally – against his fiercest rival, the American Joey Chestnut. Why is he putting himself through six months of intensive training (surprise ingredient: lots of water) after five years out of the game? “I never had a retirement match.”
Long-term injuries: Kobayashi is as battered and bruised as any sportsperson, though his ailments are unique: arthritis in the jaw from excessive chewing and tooth erosion among them.
How long will it take to read: Four minutes.
Further reading: A former Olympic gymnast on why being super fit doesn’t necessarily mean being healthy.
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