1. Geoffrey and me: four decades with Boycott, on and off the field
‘As a broadcaster Boycott was ultra-reliable; he never missed his slot. Moreover, he recognised he was not being employed for his discretion. It would be a disappointment – and a surprise – to his employers and the majority of his listeners to hear Geoffrey start a sentence with “But on the other hand …”. One of his books is entitled The Corridor of Certainty.’
2. Ex-Lesotho PM paid gang to murder his wife, police say
‘Lesotho’s former prime minister Thomas Thabane paid a team of hitmen from a notorious local gang a down payment of more than $20,000 to kill his estranged wife, according to police statements.’
3. Liverpool need to rebuild but Werner may turn out to be a great non-signing
‘At £53m Werner was simply the right man in the wrong moment of total economic collapse. Such is the level of trust in Klopp and the club’s owners that this seems pretty reasonable. Footballing lore insists that great teams always build from a position of strength: a line that tends to overlook the wider truth that, weak or strong, in football you always need to be building, that even the finest teams exist in a state of constant disintegration.’
4. Fighting over statues obscures the real problem: Britain’s delusion about its past
‘There are not many countries as steeped in their own history as Britain appears to be, yet which are so ignorant about it. We look to history as a source of national self-justification rather than to learn. The potent idea that history might offer a warning rather than cause for self-congratulation – the idea that runs through the approach to history in modern Germany, for example – is nonexistent here. The net result is a void where a mature and modern relationship with Britain’s history should be.’
5. Tucker Carlson: advertisers desert Fox News host after he attacks protesters
‘A series of major US corporations, including T-Mobile and Disney, have said they will no longer advertise on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show, after Carlson was accused of racism for attacking anti-racism protesters.’
6. Trump complains about ‘ugly anarchists’ as police continue aggression on US protesters
‘On Wednesday night, Trump, who has repeatedly raised the specter of an armed crushing of the roiling protests coast to coast, tweeted that the mayor of Seattle and governor of Washington state need to “take back your city NOW. If you don’t do it, I will. This is not a game. These ugly Anarchists must be stooped IMMEDIATELY.” Trump followed this by tweeting, with no evidence, that Seattle had been taken over by “domestic terrorists”, abetted by Democrats.’
7. Robert Clive was a vicious asset-stripper. His statue has no place on Whitehall
‘When Robert Clive, who established British rule in India, died by his own hand in 1774, he was widely reviled as one of the most hated men in England. His body was buried in a secret night-time ceremony, in an unmarked grave, without a plaque. Clive left no suicide note, but Samuel Johnson reflected the widespread view as to his motives: Clive “had acquired his fortune by such crimes that his consciousness of them impelled him to cut his own throat”.’
8. Canadian conservation officer fired for refusing to kill bear cubs wins legal battle
‘Under the province’s policy, Casavant shot and killed the mother, but decided not to harm the cubs, who residents told him hadn’t been spotted eating food or garbage.’
9. X marks the spot: treasure hunters in shock after reported $2m find in Rocky Mountains
‘An eccentric New Mexico millionaire named Forrest Fenn said he hid the bronze chest in the Rockies in 2010. The only clues to the prize’s whereabouts were located in a cryptic 24-line poem written by Fenn and added to the last pages of his autobiography, The Thrill of the Chase.’
10. The Consequences of Love by Gavanndra Hodge review – a high achiever’s dark truth
‘The Consequences of Love is a courageous attempt at coming to an accommodation with loss. It’s also an inspired, at times bleakly comic narrative about living in a family so spectacularly dysfunctional that it could have formed the basis of a book in its own right.’
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.
