“There is no cure for insecure, badly paid, demeaning work.” This ferociously good piece by Tabitha Lasley in the Guardian shines a light on a side of Britain nobody really wants to acknowledge. If you read one thing this week, make it this
Seven ways to cope when everyone you know is on holiday in Europe
This behind-the-scenes look at what it takes to put together the Oxford English Dictionary is fascinating [“Editors draft in pairs, swapping entries in a kind of informal peer review, after which their words go to etymologists, bibliographers, the pronunciations team, external consultants and finalisation editors. The first step of this process can take anything from a few hours to a few weeks, depending on the word: there are more than 200 senses, for example, of the verb “run”. ]
The final hours in a Texas abortion clinic, how abortion clinics are preparing for a post-Roe reality, the abortion stories that we don’t hear, and what abortion looks like in every state right now
A rightfully outraged account from one of the women who witnessed a man attempt to run people down with his car at an abortion rally [“I witnessed a man try to kill people and in response, people told me I should be nicer.”]
How to build a good day when you’re full of despair at the worldLunch with Hilary Clinton
In tech news: A new Amazon Alexa feature can mimic any human's voice using less than a minute of recorded audio, Spotify has launched a new karaoke mode, Pinterest has a new CEO and he’s been tasked with turning the platform into a shopping channel, Facebook is banning people who say they will mail abortion pills, and you can now filter out ads on Facebook and Instagram by topics that might be triggering (for example, weight loss, pregnancy, booze)
Can a company that cuts down millions of trees a year ever truly be sustainable?
This week, Melbourne stole the title of most liveable city from our very own Adelaide and Anna Spargo Ryan has written such a delightful love letter to Melbourne that it almost makes it okay
After years of waning union power, the rising cost of living has culminated in the largest scale industrial action in decades across NSW and much of the UK. An unlikely celebrity has emerged from the chaos in UK union boss Mike Lynch, whose straight talking media appearances have consistently put journalists and political pundits on the back foot, and hilarity has ensued (check out this highlight reel for some gold)
Inside Nancy Meyer’s dreamy provincial LA home
Bono washed up on BBC’s Desert Island Discs podcast this week and if you can bear listening, you’ll learn that he has a surprise half brother and that even his own band finds him annoying
And in other news: A family living in WA discovered a new species of fluffy crab that wears a sponge as a hat, how many Arnott's chocolate biscuits from the 1980s do you remember, the best wedding vows ever, if a foetus is a baby, dating app woes, don’t spend your money on expensive pheromone perfumes and try vabbing instead, this dog grooming hack is genius, the trailer for Hocus Pocus 2 has just dropped and we’re already planning our sleepover snacks, a lesson in lentils, the most rotund bear you’ve ever seen, it’s shaping up to be a hot regression summer, 11 first date ideas, and polio has been detected in the UK (we really are back to living in the 1940s)
