Welcome to the final weekend of the summer. I hope you’re spending this semi-arbitrary marker of the relentless march of time on the beach, in the countryside, or (like me) adrift in that weird limbo between cricket season ending and footy season kicking off.
You’ll only need a spare 20 minutes to run the rule over the five yarns that caught my eye this week. And if you want a bite-size sample of the biggest stories as they happen, our weekday Morning Mail and Afternoon Update emails have you covered.
But it’s five o’clock somewhere, so let’s get into it.
1. To sit or not to sit?
You’ve heard of schadenfreude, but does your command of German extend to sitzpinkler? It’s onomatopoeia, of a sort, to describe a man who sits down to pee.
The Guardian’s UK feature writer Sam Wollaston counts himself among their number, and he’s not alone: Lionel Messi outed himself, while Larry David extolled its virtues on Curb Your Enthusiasm. “It’s more comfortable when you get up in the middle of the night; you don’t have to turn the light on and wake up, and you get to read.”
Are you taking the piss? Not at all. A 2020 survey in Japan found that 70% of men sit to, um, pinkle. And once you read what can happen with standing and splashback, you may start to consider a blanket ban on the practice in your household.
How long will it take to read: Four minutes.
2. A year of war in Ukraine
Friday marked the first anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and world leaders have responded in kind, from Vladimir Putin’s combative state of the nation address to Joe Biden’s surprise visit to Kyiv.
One of the most eye-catching stories from our series marking the anniversary is not so much a read as an interactive journey, as Pablo Gutiérrez and Ashley Kirk analyse how Russia has lost a fifth of the land it once controlled after the invasion.
What’s so special about this piece? The scale of the war is impossible to grasp from the daily headlines, often centred on cities and regions you couldn’t identify in a line-up. Gutiérrez and Kirk’s map enables you to swipe (or mouse-scroll) through the war’s major events as they happened, illustrating just how the Ukrainians fought back.
How long will it take to read: Two minutes. Or as long as you want to lose yourself in the data.
Further reading: Ghaith Abdul-Ahad’s first-hand account of what it was like in 2003 when the US army rolled into Baghdad to begin its occupation of Iraq.
3. US faces ‘incredibly intelligent, highly elusive’ new threat
Is Donald Trump’s border wall being built on the wrong border? Turns out fears of a migrant invasion from the south, real or imagined, may have diverted attention from the real threat: “super pigs”. They’re the result of cross-breeding domestic pigs with wild boar, and are poised to cross the Canadian border and infiltrate the north of the US.
What’s so super about them? Their size, for one, with one pig clocked at more than 300kg. They’re also smart, having deduced that by tunnelling up to two metres under snow they can see out extreme weather in their very own pig-sized cave.
How long will it take to read: Three minutes.
Further reading: “How do I kill the 30-50 feral hogs that run into my yard within 3-5 mins while my small kids play?” If that means nothing to you, here’s a breakdown of one of the more bizarre Twitter highlights of 2019.
4. Remembering George T Miller
A half-scan of last weekend’s headlines may have given you the impression the visionary Australian director behind the Mad Max saga had died. But George T Miller, his Scottish-born namesake, was responsible for an even more quintessentially Australian film: The Man from Snowy River.
Guardian Australia’s film critic (and Mad Max fanatic) Luke Buckmaster penned a fitting tribute to the filmmaker who died aged 79, taking in The NeverEnding Story II, the Aviator and, um, Les Patterson Saves the World.
The what now? The 1987 Barry Humphries vehicle was a monumental flop that is rumoured to have driven the then-treasurer, Paul Keating, to crack down on “rorts” in the film industry.
How long will it take to read: Two minutes.
5. Is Oxford Street ready for Mardi Gras?
Something vaguely resembling a buzz has returned to the streets of Sydney: WorldPride is well under way and Mardi Gras is finally returning to its spiritual home on Oxford Street. The famous strip, though, is a little under the weather via the triple-whammy of lockouts, lockdowns and the suffocating squeeze of gentrification.
Steve Dow takes the pulse of Sydney’s once-golden queer mile and finds the patient’s health is a matter of perspective.
Notable quote: “Oxford Street will never be what it once was,” says historian and resident Garry Wotherspoon. “But queers, we aren’t born into our community … we only discover our sense of difference coming into puberty. So there really is a need for a place for young queers to come and feel, ‘Yes, there’s plenty like me, and I’m not isolated’.”
How long will it take to read: Six minutes.
Further reading: Sydney’s evolution also continues apace on the city’s western fringe, where questions are being asked over why the NSW government is fast-tracking for possible housing an area with no public transport, inadequate water supplies and an endangered koala habitat.
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