Good morning all, we made it to Saturday. This week the world marked one year since the devastating 7 October attack, and Gaza’s oldest and youngest victim is a moving story I will hold closely. Meanwhile, ferocious Hurricane Milton made landfall in the US, and we watched on in fear.
Let this be your somewhat lighter list, filled with intrigue, reflection, new possibilities, love and something perky to finish.
1. When Bill Little was 26, he took some cattle for a walk. He’s never stopped walking
Bill Little has been droving for 40 years. He and his team in central Queensland are a modern workforce: experienced drovers riding ahead of horse-loving youth, unexpected stars of the dusty country.
The uptick in road transport in the 1950s curbed the art of moving large herds of livestock along stock routes, Mandy McKeesick writes, until a renaissance of sorts happened in the 1980s.
Two-week-itis: Little gives the new generation two weeks until “the gloss has worn off … That’s when they work out if they really want to be here”, he says. Personally, it was the pictures taken by Guardian Australia’s picture editor Carly Earl that drew me in. I’m not cut out for this work.
How long will it take to read: three minutes.
2. ‘My whole life I was told that the divine was somewhere else’
As a child, Sarah Blasko was waiting for the apocalypse. Raised in the Pentecostal church, today she’s a recovering Christian, having had to remodel her brain, she relays to Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen. On her new record – fused with themes of hope, liberation and release – she excavates her ghostly past while trying out a new way of being: in the moment. (Something we should all try more.)
Two decades have passed since the singer-songwriter released her debut album (which she re-listened to very recently and cringed – relatable queen), and the music industry has changed a lot. Artists such as Charli xcx double as content creators, but Blasko refuses to. Although she would love to be invited back to music festivals.
Petition to get Blasko on a lineup? “When you’re old, you don’t get asked to the youth festivals … that gets a bit disappointing,” she says.
Julia Jacklin on her religious upbringing: In 2022, the singer-songwriter told the Guardian she had only recently discovered how much early Catholic messaging shaped her life, particularly her “relationships with people and my sexuality”. But she also said the closest she’d ever “felt to God was watching Jesus Christ Superstar”. Another relatable queen.
How long will it take to read: four minutes.
3. The scandal of food waste
In some cultures food waste is considered worse than killing someone. In a cost-of-living crisis, food wastage is surely ludicrous?
Danish food waste campaigner Selina Juul says it’s the “bulk deals” and making “larger sizes more economic” that becomes a cycle of “buying three, paying for two, wasting one”. Of course, that is after other forms of food loss: unavoidable crop and livestock losses from climate, or the avoidable supply chain failures and over demand. But there is hope in this long read.
A new possibility: Denmark reduced its food waste by 25% in just five years. Julian Baggini explains it was a result of many small changes.
Will we ever feel about waste the way we do drink-driving? I emailed the local council to order a caddy compost bin for my new rental. The reply read I needed to get part of the program asap to ensure my organic waste didn’t go to landfill where it creates climate changing methane. Fair.
How long will it take to read: about eight minutes.
4. Marina Abramović holds court
Marina Abramović is “brilliant, hilarious, sometimes preposterous, and almost entirely about Abramović, about whom she is rather pleased”, Guardian’s Sam Wollaston writes of the godmother of performance artists, whom he got to sit directly in front of, well, with a screen in-between.
Abramović’s next big work? A first-time exhibition opening in Shanghai, with “an enormous amount of crystals” but no nudity, because of China’s restrictions. A predictable famous person might be guarded, wanting only to talk about their work, but Abramović’s honesty is refreshing in sharing how loved she feels. Not enough really, really famous people do that.
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“In some countries I can’t walk without a bodyguard. In Italy, the women will run on to the street and give me a baby just to hold … Honestly I’m loved, it’s true, it feels really great.” – Marina Abramović
The 77-year-old would like to make it to 100: Why? Because that’s when you really get respect, she says.
How long will it take to read: five-and-a-half minutes.
5. Do boobs need to hold themselves up?
If you thought the debate about whether bras make boobs more or less perky was out, let this story be your in, your conversation starter. Madeleine Aggeler is still thinking about it, we are all still thinking about it! She gracefully asks the experts – even a “Bra Doc” – who have differing opinions. You’ll be left hanging or feeling supported.
Further reading: A perfect time to point to a column that lives rent-free in my mind. Zoe Williams’ take on Kim Kardashian’s next trick: A bra to make you look turned on by absolutely everything.
How long will it take to read: two minutes.
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