Top of the weekend to you all. This is my last 5GR for the year, so congratulations to us both: it’s been gruelling, but we made it. If you’re hosting a party over the silly season, my final offering of 2024 should help you get it properly rocking. Enjoy!
1. The internet sleuth with a hunch … about her dad
It’s not unusual for young families to move around often, but April Balascio’s upbringing was more erratic than most. As an adult she thought back on those moves around the US, often at night and with no time for goodbyes.
So she racked her brain for towns and dates until she landed on the right key words for her internet searches: “Cold case 1980 Watertown Wisconsin”. Then she gave a detective on the reopened case a call.
Not quite reformed: Balascio’s father, Edward Wayne Edwards, had been jailed for an early career as a scam artist. When he got out he wrote a book, Metamorphosis of a Criminal, which he handed out to new neighbours as a kind of calling card.
How long will it take to read: Five minutes.
2. Life advice, with Tim Minchin
One of the key pieces of advice in Tim Minchin’s new book of life lessons is one of the simplest: “Just be really, really good at what you do. Ideally the best.”
The Perth via UK via LA all-rounder tells Tim Adams over lunch that he has made himself a peerless “science-obsessed uber-rhymey polemicist pianist singer-satirist wanker”. He talks about an ever-evolving career with an unlikely highlight – making Phil the groundhog from Groundhog Day sing.
Going offline: Minchin has departed social media – he calls X the “extremification machine” – after being targeted by both left and right.
How long will it take to read: Three minutes.
3. Inside Denmark’s revolutionary neighbourhood
Fifteen-minute cities? So passe. Why have all of your basic amenities within 15 minutes of your home when you should be able to walk anywhere within five?
That’s the philosophy behind the growing Nordhavn district of Copenhagen, which has sprung up from an industrial landscape north-east of the city centre. Steve Rose meets the brains behind the carbon-neutral community where, for the most part, “cars are not welcome”.
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“We often see that these new city districts are born without a soul.” – Peter Bur Andersen of the design firm Briq on why planners “curated” the mix of retail in Nordhavn rather than let market forces decide.
How long will it take to read: Five minutes.
4. Becoming a heavy
Rachael Shephard had always loved a drink, but when her mother died unexpectedly she turned to the bottle big time. You’ve read these sorts of stories before, from divorce to hitting rock bottom. But the key takeaway is Shephard’s discovery when she decided to stop drinking: “Quitting wasn’t nearly as hard as I had expected.”
Test of sobriety: Five weeks after Shephard got sober, she learned a friend had been murdered. Instead of drinking, she cried more than when her mum died. “Not because I loved Sara more,” she writes, “but because I was allowing myself to feel the full weight of my sadness.”
How long will it take to read: Four minutes.
5. How to rock a dancefloor, according to the experts
DJing might look like a lot of button pushing and Jesus Christ poses, but even Fatboy Slim had to start somewhere – at weddings, the toughest dancefloor of them all.
How did he prepare? “You have to try to bring everything,” says the man born Norman Cook, “because you might get there and something’s working and something else isn’t.” That’s just one of the pro tips a bunch of working DJs share for anyone who fancies stepping up to the decks (or curating a playlist) over Christmas and New Year.
Know your product: DJ Paulette of Haçienda fame reckons technical skills are secondary. “Pay attention to your selection first. If your tunes don’t cut it, people won’t stay to listen.”
How long will it take to read: Four minutes.
Further listening: Fatboy Slim says 25 December is the only time he’d drop this drum’n’bass edit of a Christmas classic. Bassline!
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