Dear readers, this week I’ve been vibing on yacht rock co-written by a three-year-old and Jesse Jackson’s Sesame Street appearance. A much-needed dose of joy before delving into this week’s selection, which tends towards the darker side.
1. To whom does a story belong?
In 2024, Kamel Daoud, a celebrated Algerian writer living in France, won the biggest award in French literature. His novel, Houris, told the story of Algeria’s brutal civil war through the eyes of a 26-year-old woman.
Eleven days after the awards ceremony, a woman appeared on an Algerian news show. Saâda Arbane claimed Daoud had stolen her personal details for his bestseller. How? Arbane’s psychiatrist was Kamel Daoud’s wife, and Arbane had “told her everything”.
Daoud argues there is no basis for such claims, and that his work is based on many stories from the Algerian “black decade”.
What happened next? Arbane, who refused Daoud’s request to write her story, is suing the author in Algeria and in France. Daoud’s defence has hinged on his persecution by the Algerian state.
How long will it take to read: Fourteen minutes.
2. Burnout: separating the facts from the myths
It’s only February and you’re feeling rundown already? You’re not alone – one survey suggests more than 75% of employees suffer burnout on the job.
Does it only affect weak people? Is work always the cause? Zing Tsjeng checks in with some experts to help bust the burnout myths.
Is taking a holiday a cure-all? A short break won’t make a difference. Depending on the severity of the burnout, experts recommend three to six months off.
How long will it take to read: Three minutes.
3. ‘The kids don’t get days off. Nor should you’
Greg Squire had worked as an undercover investigator for US Homeland Security for about a decade before his daughter realised he might not be a postman any more. He’d kept his job – tracking down paedophiles who operate on the dark web – private as most of it felt too terrible to share.
But he agreed to let the BBC follow him on the job for seven years. Anna Moore meets the central figure in Storyville: The Darkest Web, who says it takes “a little bit of courage” to see what he sees on sites that are “run better than businesses”.
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“I knew people were trading and sharing images of children, but honestly? I think, naively, I assumed it was a bit more … ‘vanilla’.” – Greg Squire
How long will it take to read: Five minutes.
4. Inter’s need for speed
Doping was rife in Italian football in the early 1960s and at the Milan club Internazionale it was head coach Helenio Herrera running the program. HH administered whatever it took to give his players a competitive edge: amphetamine pills, altered coffee, sugar mixed with strange powders, and vitamins that weren’t vitamins.
It didn’t come out until one of his players released a whistleblowing memoir in 2004 – mainly because, as ever, the dopers were two steps ahead of the dope testers.
Brutal side-effects: Marcello Giusti took one of the white pills that was going around before a game in 1962. At full-time he freaked out, climbing the walls in the dressing room and drooling at the mouth like a rabid dog. And all without taking the field.
How long will it take to read: Three minutes.
Further reading: Meanwhile at the Winter Olympics, the sport of curling is in meltdown over an alleged “double touch”.
5. Australia’s imminent great wealth transfer
Baby boomers – dubbed “the richest generation to have ever lived” – are expected to hand down $5.4tn in Australia over the next 20 years. Celina Ribeiro asks prominent economists what this could mean for social mobility, economic equality, faith in the fair go and even, potentially, faith in democracy itself.
Concerning trend: The gap between middle-wealth and high-wealth households is widening while the gap between middle and poor is getting smaller. Or, as the economist Melek Cigdem-Bayram, puts it: “This ‘middle’ is starting to hollow out.”
How long will it take to read: Five minutes.
Further reading: Four ideas that could offset inheritance inequality in Australia.
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