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IT’S A DAY of rest, and you may be in the mood for a quiet corner and a comfy chair.
We’ve hand-picked the week’s best reads for you to savour.
Here’s Sally Rooney’s first short story, published in the White Review, which is online now.
(The White Review, approx 20 mins reading time)
They are now the only two people in the upstairs waiting room of the dental clinic. The seats are a pale mint-green colour. Marianne leafs through an issue of NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC and explores her mouth with the tip of her tongue. Connell looks at the magazine cover, a photograph of a monkey with huge eyes. That night last week, Marianne had called him first to tell him that she and Daniel had broken up. Connell was in the bathroom when the phone rang and his flatmate Barry answered. When Connell came back, Barry said innocently: Hey, what’s the name of that rich girl you went to school with? You know, the one you like to fuck. Believing the query was sincere, Connell replied: Marianne, why? Then Barry tossed him the phone. She wants to talk to you, he said. When Connell lifted the phone he could already hear her laughing.
Robert Pattinson took his own photographs for htis GQ interview, and the interview itself is… kind of bonkers.
(GQ, approx 26 mins reading time)
The film studio hired a trainer who left Pattinson with a Bosu ball, a single weight, and a sincere plea to use both, but right now, he says, he’s ignoring her. “I think if you’re working out all the time, you’re part of the problem,” he says, sighing. By “you” he means other actors. “You set a precedent. No one was doing this in the ’70s. Even James Dean—he wasn’t exactly ripped.” He says that back when he was the star of the Twilight franchise, “the one time they told me to take my shirt off, I think they told me to put it back on again.” But Batman is Batman. Pattinson called another actor on the film, Zoë Kravitz, the other day, and she said she was exercising five days a week during their exile from set. Pattinson, well: “Literally, I’m just barely doing anything,” he says, sighing again.
What happened when six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months.
(The Guardian, approx 12 mins reading time)
The article did not provide any sources. But sometimes all it takes is a stroke of luck. Sifting through a newspaper archive one day, I typed a year incorrectly and there it was. The reference to 1977 turned out to have been a typo. In the 6 October 1966 edition of Australian newspaper The Age, a headline jumped out at me: “Sunday showing for Tongan castaways”. The story concerned six boys who had been found three weeks earlier on a rocky islet south of Tonga, an island group in the Pacific Ocean. The boys had been rescued by an Australian sea captain after being marooned on the island of ‘Ata for more than a year. According to the article, the captain had even got a television station to film a re-enactment of the boys’ adventure.
4. The chef who lost her sense of smell
Joshna Maharaj hadn’t been able to smell, but she worked as a chef so she tried to get away with it. Now, she has revealed her secret and starting to regain what she lost.
(BBC, approx 10 mins reading time)
One day she walked into a BBQ restaurant with friends and was the only one who couldn’t smell the meat smoker working its magic. “There was a moment where I retrospectively did all this math. ‘Wait a second, my nose is not working like it’s supposed to,’” she says. “And to be honest, at that moment, the idea of it filled me with enough panic – particularly with the professional implications of this – that I just shut it all down.”
5. The virologist who got Covid-19
Peter Piot is a scientist who was one of the discoverers of the Ebola virus in 1976. In mid-March, he contracted Covid-19, and here he explains what it was like.
(Science Magazine, approx 7 mins reading time)
It turned out I had severe oxygen deficiency, although I still wasn’t short of breath. Lung images showed I had severe pneumonia, typical of COVID-19, as well as bacterial pneumonia. I constantly felt exhausted, while normally I’m always buzzing with energy. It wasn’t just fatigue, but complete exhaustion; I’ll never forget that feeling. I had to be hospitalized, although I tested negative for the virus in the meantime. This is also typical for COVID-19: The virus disappears, but its consequences linger for weeks.
6. Saving the world from a cyber attack
Marcus Hutchins was just in his early 20s when he noticed what he suspected were the FBI staking out his house. Their appearance came after he had saved the internet from a massive cyberattack, which at that point was the worst in history.
(Wired, approx 62 mins reading time)
This legendary feat of whitehat hacking had essentially earned Hutchins free drinks for life among the Defcon crowd. He and his entourage had been invited to every VIP hacker party on the strip, taken out to dinner by journalists, and accosted by fans seeking selfies. The story, after all, was irresistible: Hutchins was the shy geek who had single-handedly slain a monster threatening the entire digital world, all while sitting in front of a keyboard in a bedroom in his parents’ house in remote western England.
…AND A CLASSIC FROM THE ARCHIVES…
In this crime story from 2018, Dan Wiederer writes about the murder of Michael Jordan (yes, that Michael Jordan)’s father in North Carolina, 27 years ago.
(Chicago Tribune, approx 25 mins reading time)
Yet so many odd circumstances surrounded Jordan’s death. Jordan’s body was not discovered in his car but turned up in a swamp in McColl, S.C., 11 days after the murder. Jordan was cremated Aug. 7 by a South Carolina coroner — as a John Doe before his body had been identified. His 1992 Lexus was not discovered on the side of the road where he had purportedly slept but abandoned in the woods near Fayetteville, N.C., 60 miles from where his body was found and after it had been stripped. A total of 21 days passed before family members reported Jordan missing.
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Porridge (oats) is one of the very few cereals left that doesn’t have up to 30% sugar added to make it attractive for children. It is an ancient Irish recipe and is very healthy very easily digested, low G.I, high fibre, low gluten food. It was our native main carbohydrate, the Asians have their rice, the Italians have their pasta, the Chinese have their noodles, the native South Americans have their tubers (potatoes) before the English foisted them on us for their own profit, but us Irish had our oats.
Tristan,
Think you’ll find oats are ancient in most countries. Staple diet for Roman Armt, being eaten in Empngland long before Raleigh brought potatoes in.
Plant cereals were common amongst all the people’s of Europe, Germans took to rye, Celts to barley, Romans to wheat, the Irish to oats.
I must be the only person in Ireland that is hungry afain within an hour of eating porridge. For some reason I don’t seem to hold that full feeling for too long.
That is due to its high level of carbohydrates as opposed to protein and fat.
Add some milk to it and have some eggs
You need to add something to it. For example almond butter (healthier than pb and good source of protein – will fill you up) and some fruit of your choice
I had porridge cooked with raisins then added honey, a chopped banana and covered it all with yoghurt. Gorgeous.
Surely you can’t be cereal?
I’m exactly the same jane. I add bananas, seeds, nuts at times and now matter how much I burst myself eating the stuff I’m still hungry in an hour. And it also tastes like muck to he honest
Make it with milk most mornings before work and I have to say there’s nothing else I can have for breakfast that gives me the same full feeling right through the morning. Only add cinnamon and honey to it so I’m not bulking it with anything but I do eat Jumbo Oats which maybe are slower release carbs or something like that. Instant oats are probably just rubbish that will have you hungry again in an hour alright!
I like to add instant coffee granules to mine. It tastes gank but it saves me the hassle of having to make coffee as well. And I eat it in the shower so I save even more time in the morning. My breakfasts are very efficient
I am cereal, and don’t call me Shirley.
It’s made from oats. Lots of cereals are made using oats. So why is porridge different? I love porridge and I say it’s cereal so you can take that as the answer.
Oats is a cereal crop, so yes porridge is a cereal. It’s like saying black is white..
Porridge being a rolled and cooked oat 100% falls under the definition of a cereal and as it is largely consumed for breakfast it is 100% a breakfast cereal. If these chances don’t include it on their menu in their new café then they’re already the laughing stock of London.
Yes, Ronnie Barker was hilarious in it.
God awful attempt of a joke.
Great series. I would agree its a series.
Well its made from cereal; so therefore its a cereal. Why is this so complicated?
Rice is a cereal grain so am i having cereal with my chicken curry?
Why can’t you people have Yes or No answers in your polls. It makes the poll pointless when you have stupid answers. What kind of an answer is “No, where’s it’s mascot” and “I know it’s a cereal, but it’s not a cereal, cereal”. I understand this is a lighthearted poll but you do it a lot on serious polls. I mean why f*(king bother?
Do you agree with John?
-Yes. He is right in a righty wrong way
-No. He is wrong, but he is grand
-Can’t we just get along? Except he seems very angry.
I pick C, or is it 3, you forget to mention. Why bother doing a poll if you don’t apply the selection letter/name rule.
I hear you John! Equally frustrating when you see ‘I don’t know/undecided’ option as well. If you don’t have an opinion…don’t vote! Have to admit though, I did choose the gimmicky vote in this case!
Love you!
I wonder if its actually the bother of making the porridge that they dont put it on there menu as apposed to a bowl of céréal and a jug of milk. A lot less hassle
Oats were the staple food of the Irish diet before the arrival of the potato. I remember reading it had the highest fat content of the cereals and so was preferred. Also easily baked into bannocks over an open fire so easily stored and transported. I’ve a load of slides to go with the lecture if anyone is interested….
Porridge with a bit of salt and pepper.
Workmates look at me like there is something seriously wrong with me.
My kids love it with a spoon of Nutella in the middle let it melt with the porridge it’s delicious
It is by definition a cereal. Oats are cereal crops.
Oat is a cereal grain
Porrige worrige ! Not again !
Can I have cereal instead ?
I classify it, as with the Duck Billed Platypus, a semiaquatic egg-laying mammal
Some people have to get their oats from somewhere ☺
Not a cereal in our house. We eat porridge 6 days a week with fruit and on Sunday’s kids can have cereal or French toast or pancakes. They don’t ever pick porridge for the cereal option!
Years ago teaching in an inner city primary school 5th class, I asked “What cereal grain grows in a paddy field…?’
I bust a gut laughing when the kids hollered back, “Cheerios miss, Wheetos, Cornflakes….”
Heretics! It is obviously not a “cereal” cereal . You can’t just pour it out of the box and pour some milk on it and go.
I despair for humanity.
If you put hot milk on your Weetabix its still a cerial.
I pretend I like it but really look forward to the empty bowl.ummmmm porridge its great!!
Agree
have your say