Good morning, it’s Saturday 25 November, and one month til Christmas. Time hurtling by at a dizzying speed. Death coming for us all. (Especially, sadly, the art of cormorant fishing – have a look at this beautiful gallery.)
Meanwhile, I’ve found you some more interesting pieces from around the Guardian this week. It’s raining as I write this, which – actually, I’ve ceased trying to make meaning from the weather. But it soothes some deep part of my brain and does put me in the mood to read.
1. Who is Geert Wilders?
Another week, another new far-right figurehead. This time in the Netherlands, where Wednesday’s election brought a political shock that “catapulted Geert Wilders to the place he loves most to be: at the centre of attention”.
Pjotr Sauer takes a look at the leader of the anti-immigration Freedom party, “known for his distinctive platinum-blond hairstyle and his aggressive anti-Islam rhetoric”, and headed for power after 20 years as a political outlier.
Some food for thought:
Like other far-right leaders in Europe, Wilders has praised Putin’s rule, rallying against what he calls “hysterical Russophobia” on the continent.
He has credited his anti-Islamic position to disdain over the assassination of the radical anti-Islam film-maker Theo van Gogh in 2004 and his time on a kibbutz in Israel.
And what is it, a colleague mused the other day, with populist politicians and … hair?
How long will it take to read: two minutes
2. ‘Everyone’s really trying to stave off regret’
“I’ve never forgotten being told by a fertility doctor I once interviewed for a story: ‘If you think about it, women have to get almost all their life events into a period of about 15 years: career, having children.’”
This is Elle Hunt, weighing the uncertainty so many – particularly women – feel around parenthood.
“I’ve felt keen resentment that men are granted the luxury of a longer window in which to decide, and left to do so on their own terms,” she writes. “And I’ve felt daunted by the decades that lie ahead, if I do indeed remain childfree: how will I generate meaning and momentum, entirely on my own steam?”
She talks to Australian journalist Gina Rushton about the way we are socialised to believe “you’ll just know” if you want kids – and where to go when that question looms unresolved.
How long will it take to read: five minutes
Further reading: Donna Lu’s excellent piece from 2022 also gets into Rushton’s thinking, alongside several other Australian books – focusing especially on the implications of having a child as the climate crisis worsens.
As Rushton told Hunt in the piece above: “I’m fucking terrified about the next 50 summers I have in Australia … [but] most of these questions aren’t resolved whether you have a kid or not.”
Even further reading (and watching): the incredible Weight of the world series, which launched this week. We interviewed three pioneering Australian scientists, among the first to warn of climate change, about the toll it took on them and how they stay hopeful.
3. ‘Inherently charismatic’: the allure of the sea slug
In the space of a few weeks, not one but two people have waxed lyrical to me about nudibranchs. Growing trend? Maybe I just look sympathetic? Anyway, they are right, and I am now sea slug-pilled.
“There’s something inherently charismatic about them,” one enthusiast happily tells Helen Scales somewhere in the north Atlantic. Nudibranchs are small, “generally under a finger’s width”, and visually spectacular. And they are drawing in a growing community of divers and photographers.
There are something like 3,000 species worldwide, and 700 in Australia (which, with typical panache, christened one recent discovery the “fifo” – arguably better than the initial option, “Sluggy McSlugface”).
Why should I care about this? Look at them?!
How long will it take to read: three or four minutes. Then, a lifetime of mesmerised staring into rock pools.
4. Ripping apart a crime writer’s brain
Patricia Cornwall’s new book marks the 28th appearance in print of her hero, forensic pathologist Dr Kay Scarpetta. The bestselling American crime writer is considered the godmother of the modern forensic science genre.
Emine Sayer’s interview with her covers all kinds of interesting ground, like the way Cornwall’s research sends her down the rabbit hole on topics from Jack the Ripper to Bigfoot. (“You start digging into it, and you might find some evidence where you go: ‘Whoa, now I’m seeing this differently.’”) Or how she worked for six years as a morgue assistant.
How long will it take to read: five minutes
Further watching: not technically related, but I have been binge-watching Shetland for weeks now, mainly in a series of increasingly cold baths, and honestly can’t recommend it enough. A mild and lovely widower solving murders in a series of wooly crew-necks, yes, yes, yes.
5. Dissecting Netanyahu: the legacy Israel may not be able to shake
“While Netanyahu’s vision for Israel has been utterly discredited, there is no clear successor poised to break with it,” Joshua Leifer writes in a long read on the Israeli prime minister’s political formation and ongoing agenda. “The iron tracks that he laid may prove too hard to shift. The current crisis may very well mark the end of Netanyahu’s public career. But Israel may also be trapped in conditions of his making long after he is gone.”
The quote to remember: “Anyone who wants to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state needs to support strengthening Hamas,” Netanyahu told a Likud party meeting in 2019. “This is part of our strategy, to divide the Palestinians between those in Gaza and those in Judea and Samaria.”
How long will it take to read: at least 12 minutes
The numbers: At the time of writing, Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry reports more than 14,000 Palestinians have been killed – another 6,000 people are missing, feared buried under the rubble, and the independent Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor put the toll closer to 19,400. An estimated 1,200 people were killed in the 7 October Hamas attacks on Israel.
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