Advertisement

We need your help now

Support from readers like you keeps The Journal open.

You are visiting us because we have something you value. Independent, unbiased news that tells the truth. Advertising revenue goes some way to support our mission, but this year it has not been enough.

If you've seen value in our reporting, please contribute what you can, so we can continue to produce accurate and meaningful journalism. For everyone who needs it.

Shutterstock/ju_see

Sitdown Sunday: The secret life of mushrooms

Settle back in a comfy chair and sit back with some of the week’s best longreads.

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.

1. Toddlers in Japan

A fascinating short show on Netflix sees toddlers sent to do a range of jobs. But is it indicative of real life in Japan?

(The New York Times, 5 mins reading time)

As the children navigate crosswalks and busy public places full of adults, a narrator describes their incremental progress in breathless tones, like a commentator calling a baseball game in the ninth inning. And the toddlers strike up conversations with the strangers they meet along the way.

2. The Karen who cried kidnapping

The story of a mum who got tangled up with an influencer.

(Elle, approx 14 mins reading time)

 In a two-part Instagram video filmed from the driver’s seat of her SUV six days later, Sorensen spun a terrifying tale about a “[not] clean-cut” man and woman who nearly succeeded in kidnapping her two young children. Sorensen claims the couple started talking about her kids’ ages and fair complexions somewhere near the spray-paint aisle, then followed them out to the parking lot. According to Sorensen, the couple held hands and walked about halfway around her car several times before the man tried to snatch her stroller.

3. The secret life of fungi

The life of mushrooms is weird and wonderful.

(FT, approx 20 mins reading time)

 Of the edible fungi, it’s perhaps the truffle that is our furthest stretch. It looks like a leathery rock or possibly a particularly coherent lump of dirt, and we still can’t cultivate it with any success. If you asked any group of normal, non-food-nerds to describe its smell, they’d say it was redolent of an unhygienic gym-bag, and they’d be appalled at the thought of putting it in their mouth. Yet truffles are some of the most costly foodstuffs, by weight, in which humans trade — a trade that often involves smuggling, violence, organised crime and even murder.

4. Growing up mixed race

Natalie Morris, who has written a book about being mixed race, writes about how losing her father led her to think deeply about her Jamaican side.

(The Guardian, approx 10 mins reading time)

Like many people who lose a father at a relatively young age, I’ve asked myself, who am I without him? Am I living the life I should be? Would my decisions make him proud? But beyond that, my dad was for me the one person who could reaffirm my sense of self, who could tell me who I was with little more than a look. And he was no longer here.

5. Vending machines

A fascinating day in the life of (almost) every vending machine in the world.

(The Guardian, approx 29 mins reading time)

For decades I’d been a steady and unquestioning patron. I figured that by spending some time in the closer company of the machines and their keepers, by immersing myself in their history, by looking to their future, I might get to the bottom of their enduring appeal. What made entrepreneurs from the Victorian age onwards want to hawk their goods in this way? What made generations of us buy?

6. Hillsborough

As the Hillsborough anniversary approaches, a look back from 2021 at how the families were failed by the system.

(The Guardian, approx 20 mins reading time)

The people who died at Hillsborough were trapped against a high metal fence at the front of the Leppings Lane terrace, the kind built at many grounds to prevent people invading the pitch, in an era when hooliganism by a minority of thugs led to the demonisation of all football supporters. Behind the fence, railings divided the terrace into a series of “pens”. Built to enable greater police control of supporters, when the pens were overcrowded they became iron cages from which there was no escape.

… AND A CLASSIC FROM THE ARCHIVES…

Snoop Dogg turns 50 and looks back at his life – and forward at his future as a label executive.

(GQ, approx 33 mins reading time)

Snoop’s not an OG in the slang-term way. He’s an actual original gangsta. Calvin Broadus Jr. beat a first-degree murder charge in 1996. He stood up to Suge Knight and left Death Row Records for Master P’s No Limit Records in 1998. We were stunned. It was like LeBron James leaving the Cavaliers for the Miami Heat. Unheard of, in those dangerous hip-hop times. Many of us thought Snoop could get killed by a California crew for jumping to Louisiana. Not only did that label switch give birth to C-Murder’s “Down for My N’s” (a 1999 Southern rap classic and big middle finger from Snoop to his former boss), but Master P gave Snoop a Ph.D. in the music business. He crip-walked into the 2000s empowered, and ascended to even greater heights, on his own terms.

Readers like you are keeping these stories free for everyone...
A mix of advertising and supporting contributions helps keep paywalls away from valuable information like this article. Over 5,000 readers like you have already stepped up and support us with a monthly payment or a once-off donation.

Close
Comments
This is YOUR comments community. Stay civil, stay constructive, stay on topic. Please familiarise yourself with our comments policy here before taking part.
Leave a Comment
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Sean ORegan
    Favourite Sean ORegan
    Report
    Mar 2nd 2013, 7:40 AM

    so Master Allen is concerned for the victims…. or his chance to get a slice of the financial action… I say we set up a pro bono volunteer service to help the elderly ladies fill in the forms and bypass the legal parasites… Any volunteers?

    41
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Bo11ocks_to_this
    Favourite Bo11ocks_to_this
    Report
    Mar 2nd 2013, 7:43 AM

    Lawyer complains that his Gravy train has left the station without him.

    27
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Declan
    Favourite Declan
    Report
    Mar 2nd 2013, 10:27 AM

    Those misfortunes should be allowed every possible state assistance now that most if them are in their twilight years. The state took away their childhood, let us not allow them to pass away without real meaning.

    6
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Kevin Whyte
    Favourite Kevin Whyte
    Report
    Mar 2nd 2013, 8:58 AM

    I would like to see legal advice for the nuns who ran the laundries.
    Most nuns hand over their income to their order thereby working for their keep. Just like the ladies.
    It was a crap situation all round.
    Society at the time was responsible. The parents who locked their”erring daughters” into the laundries were responsible.
    The people who walked past these places were responsible.
    The business’s that used the service were responsible.
    The government rush to get compensation is quiet hateful.
    Sisters, get legal advice. You will not be thanked if you allow yourselves to be made doormats of.
    Other charitable organisations should beware. As society changes, what you do today as charity, may be viewed as abuse in 30 to 40 years time, with the then government trudging to strip your funds to compensate the “victims” you are helping today as best you know how.
    We let these laundries exist as a solution to our attitudes and now we want to lay the blame pin them, demanding compensation .
    Sisters, get legal advice. You will protect all other charities from the actions of greedy governments by doing so.

    4
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Shoe lady
    Favourite Shoe lady
    Report
    Mar 2nd 2013, 9:22 AM

    Who is this “we”? I for one did not know about these laundries until the 1990s when they applied to move the graves at Gracepark.

    And in general, women entered the Orders voluntarily and knew they could leave. Magdalens were often taken from their homes in the middle of the night and dumped in laundries, many not knowing they could leave, many whose families were told they had run away. Then they were put to work in awful circumstances. There is no comparison between the nuns and the girls.

    As for legal advice – as in every situation, all parties should have it. It should be capped to avoid abuse of the system. You can be damn sure the Government will have a truck load of (expensive) lawyers on its side paid for by the Irish taxpayer.

    9
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Harry Byrne
    Favourite Harry Byrne
    Report
    Mar 2nd 2013, 10:11 AM

    well said shoe lady

    5
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Declan Noonan
    Favourite Declan Noonan
    Report
    Mar 2nd 2013, 12:13 PM

    I don’t like to see the lawyers get any money from this but if a individual seeks expert legal advice then it’s their choice and nobody has a right to stop them. If they choose to go this route they should expect to pay their lawyers from their own compensation.

    4
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute chris
    Favourite chris
    Report
    Mar 2nd 2013, 11:00 AM

    There is no way lawers should be involved at the expensive of tax payers,lawers have in the past grossly overcharged and it should be made clear to them the gravey train has run dry.
    What a hard neck they have,they who benefit from free legal aid system and high prices they charge

    4
Submit a report
Please help us understand how this comment violates our community guidelines.
Thank you for the feedback
Your feedback has been sent to our team for review.

Leave a commentcancel

 
JournalTv
News in 60 seconds