Top of the weekend to you all. If you’re enjoying this winter that feels like spring, I envy you. If it’s filling you with existential dread, may I present this selection of reads (mostly) brimming with hope, joy and ways to escape the day-to-day.
1. ‘I’m taking August off – and so are all my staff’
Underworld turned the idea of Two Months Off into nine minutes of nirvana. The British chief executive Jo Hunter is halfway there, giving her workers the entire month of August off on top of their fully paid four-day week and standard annual leave.
What started as an experiment in 2022 is now baked into employee contracts. The result? Motivated staff, free-flowing ideas and income up nearly 50%.
The rationale: “Without allowing people adequate time to recharge and reset, they suffer. And so will the systems relying on them.”
How long will it take to read: Two minutes.
2. Meet the DJ who’s terrified of DJing
Stefan Kozalla, aka DJ Koze, knows how to knock out a summer anthem. Playing them to a ram-jammed dancefloor? Not so much.
“Sometimes I feel hunted by a crowd of dogs on testosterone and cocaine,” Kozalla confesses of stepping up to the decks in a rare – and highly entertaining – interview with Alexis Petridis.
“The truth is overrated”: Kozalla on the question of whether his 2023 track of the (northern) summer contender, Wespennest, was really written in a Benedictine monastery in Indonesia.
How long will it take to read: Four minutes.
Further listening: This Spotify playlist of his productions – or just proceed directly to his melancholic, spectacular DJ-Kicks mix.
3. Stage-three bowel cancer at 36
“Far from a battle you arm up for, I found cancer to be a disease that renders you passive, immediately – something to accept and yield to.” – Josephine Tovey, deputy national news editor at Guardian Australia.
It took three weeks – and multiple hospital admissions, misdiagnoses and discharges – before Tovey learned she had bowel cancer. Front of mind: the potential loss of fertility that can come with cancer treatment. But her story has a happy ending.
How long will it take to read: Four minutes.
4. Life after the Beirut explosion
The footage is no doubt seared into your brain: smoke billowing from the port of Beirut before an explosion sends shockwaves across the Lebanese capital like the Death Star had just been detonated.
“The destruction started many miles before you entered the capital,” writes Dalal Mawad, who documents the aftermath in a new book. Three years later, many of the survivors are still just surviving.
What you may have forgotten: The sonic boom rattled the city during the first year of Covid. And Lebanon was already grappling with a financial crisis before the twin disasters struck.
How long will it take to read: Nine minutes.
5. ‘Psychedelic concierges’ are a thing
One man’s “glorified drug dealer” is another’s “psychedelic concierge”. So says Mark Zapolin, who’s going all Nine Perfect Strangers with Fortune 500 executives and Middle Eastern royalty, linking them up with the ketamine clinic that’s right for them.
One satisfied customer? Jordan Belfort, aka the Wolf of Wall Street, who wanted to quit a decade-long opioid blocker habit. His verdict: “Ketamine is spiritual and heavy, but worth it.”
A word of caution: US psychiatrist Gregory Barber warns that Zappy and his ilk may be “overstepping the current state of psychedelic research and regulation”.
How long will it take to read: Four minutes.
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