1. The men in white coats: five cricket umpires explain the craft
‘Ian Botham was batting, three balls left and 12 to win. Wayne Daniel is running in to bowl and Botham backs away to prod the pitch and ask me, “Who are you backing in this one?” I told him, politely, to get on with it and he smacks the first one for six and blocks the next one, just to ramp up the theatre! He then dispatched the final ball for six. As he ran off he patted me on the backside with his bat and said, “You stick with me pal, I’ll make you famous.”’
2. ‘It reminded me I should not go quietly’: readers’ favourite UK No 1s
‘Some churches banned Imagine because it says “no religion”. I think you need to ask why it was being sung in churches in the first place. It’s because it’s more than a pop song – it’s a contemporary hymn, isn’t it?’
3. Donald Trump’s Tory cheerleaders have brought lasting shame on Britain
‘None outdid Michael Gove, comparing Trump to George Washington. The first president had also been misunderstood by Britain, Gove wrote in an unctuous interview with the 45th. He cast Trump as a “force of nature” who did not merit the “scorn and condescension” of his UK critics. To compensate for his countrymen’s discourtesy, Gove posed with his subject, grinning and giving the thumbs-up.’
4. JK Rowling says she is survivor of domestic abuse and sexual assault
‘In a 3,600-word statement published on her website on Wednesday, Rowling described in more detail than ever how she became involved in an increasingly bitter and polarised debate around the concept of gender identity.’
5. Miss Aluminium by Susanna Moore review – Hollywood gossip and trauma
‘The book bursts with brilliantly gossipy titbits, recounted with wry understatement, from James Stewart’s use of a toupee to the story spread by the mistress of Alfred Bloomingdale – he of the department store – that he “liked to sit ina custom-made high chair in baby clothes and a bib while she threw cold pablum [baby porridge] at him”.’
6. Rapper Wretch 32 shares video of police shooting his father with a stun gun
‘The rapper Wretch 32 has shared a video of his 62-year-old father being shot by police with a stun gun at his home in north London. The footage shows Millard Scott tumbling downstairs after an officer is heard to warn: “Police officer with a Taser. Stay where you are.”’
7. Has Ivanka Trump finally been cancelled?
‘I hate to break it to Ivanka, but not giving a commencement speech does not mean you are a victim of “cancel culture”. Indeed, it is remarkable that, despite standing by her father during endless atrocities, she has not been definitively cancelled by her circle of “liberal” high-society friends.’
8. Former INLA prisoner Malachy McAllister to be deported from US
‘McAllister served seven years in prison in Northern Ireland for attacks on police during the 1981 hunger strikes. After loyalists attacked his home in Belfast in 1988 he moved to the US. He set up a construction business in New Jersey, supported the peace process and became prominent in Irish American circles.
9. My dad was in prison throughout my childhood. I navigated a white world alone
‘As a biracial person – half black, half white – growing up in a mostly white city, I experienced a lot of passive racism in school. Not that I knew it at the time. At home, I never had my dad to turn to in these moments. My white mother never talked to me or my siblings about race, and that probably comes from the fact that her parents never talked to her about race. They didn’t feel they had to. They are all white.’
10. After Colston, figures such as Drake and Peel could be next
‘With petitions and social media campaigns proliferating, activists put together a website, Topple the Racists, compiling more than 60 of the proposed removals. They range from acknowledged slave traders such as Elihu Yale to more controversial inclusions such as Robert Peel, viewed as the founder of modern policing in Britain.’
How we create the antidote
Every day we measure not only how many people click on individual stories but also how long they spend reading them. This list is created by comparing the attention time with the length of each article, to come up with a ranking for the stories people read most deeply.
