Thursday
World Cup questions: what did Zidane’s headbutt in Berlin mean?
‘A World Cup that began a month ago in Munich is entering the final moments of overtime. Marco Materazzi puts his hand on Zinedine Zidane’s back, seeming to guide him quite gently out of the way. Zidane turns, says something and walks away. He has two minutes and 10 seconds left of his career as a footballer.’
Ahmaud Arbery killing: man called 911 to report ‘black male running’ prior to shooting
‘The full recordings, obtained by the Guardian, come after new video footage showing Arbery’s killing in February was released this week, prompting widespread outrage and raising questions over why no arrests have been made. Transcripts of the 911 calls have been previously reported by local media.’
Twenty years on, what has having a mayor done for London?
‘Twenty years ago this week, London began a journey into a political unknown. For the first time in history, its voters were asked to directly elect a mayor. Their answer was a twist of irony. They voted for the same man who, 15 years earlier, Margaret Thatcher had sacked as London’s previous “indirect” leader, Ken Livingstone. They chose the devil they knew. Has the game been worth the candle?’
Julie Andrews: ‘I was certainly aware of tales about the casting couch’
‘Andrews has always radiated a nourishing kind of goodness, although she makes an embarrassed laugh when I bring it up: “It’s hard to know how to respond to questions about [my image], Hadley. It’s just how it’s always been,” she says, careful to use my name in response to almost all my questions. It’s a gesture that feels entirely of a piece with Andrews, something born of careful good manners and precision.’
The hidden findings on George Pell are now clear: he could have protected children from abuse. He didn’t
‘This is the portrait of a deceitful man. We have waited over two and a half years but now we can read the unflinching verdict reached by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse on Cardinal George Pell.’
Friday
Experience: I found a stranger in my front room
‘It was early on a Monday morning, about 5.30am, and I’d got up to use the toilet. Afterwards, I nipped into the kitchen to get a drink. As I stood at the sink, I could hear snoring from the living room. At first I thought it was the dog. Then I realised it wasn’t. I went into the room to find a stranger asleep on the sofa. He was wearing a grey Adidas tracksuit and, bizarrely, only one shoe. I stood there in my shorts and T-shirt, staring at him.’
‘Why didn’t he help those little boys?’: how George Pell failed the children of Ballarat
‘He did know, the commission’s unredacted report found. It was “implausible” other senior figures kept Pell in the dark about the offending of Ridsdale and others, the report said. Pell told the royal commission in 2016 that when he did eventually learn of Ridsdale’s abuse of children, it was “a sad story and it wasn’t of much interest to me”. Pell accompanied Ridsdale to court in his first appearance in 1993. Ridsdale remains in jail, and is believed to have offended against children hundreds of times.’
#IRunWithMaud: thousands of runners pay tribute to Ahmaud Arbery
‘The idea for a global run in Arbery’s name came from his high school football coach, Jason Vaughn, who last saw Arbery when they crossed paths on a run. Arbery loved running. Now, the hashtag #IRunWithMaud has travelled the world, with runners from London to New York completing the 2.23-mile trip – a tribute to the date of his death, which occurred on 23 February.’
The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren review – fallouts and fabulous disasters
‘“To be bad is good, because to be good is simply boring,” the formidable Rose Corré Isaacs would tell her grandson, Malcolm McLaren, a mantra that he would live by. As Paul Gorman’s mammoth biography illustrates, McLaren was never boring, but he could be a dreadful pain in the arse.’
David Sedaris: ‘Alan Bennett’s Talking Heads is pretty much the best thing ever’
‘The book that changed my life? Kurt Vonnegut’s Breakfast of Champions. A friend read it out aloud to me when we were hitchhiking across America in 1976, and it made me think: “That’s right – books!” After high school I had forgotten about them. As soon as I got a stable address, I secured a library card, and started making up for lost time.’
Saturday
The real Lord of the Flies: what happened when six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months
‘I began to wonder: had anyone ever studied what real children would do if they found themselves alone on a deserted island? I wrote an article on the subject, in which I compared Lord of the Flies to modern scientific insights and concluded that, in all probability, kids would act very differently. Readers responded sceptically. All my examples concerned kids at home, at school, or at summer camp. Thus began my quest for a real-life Lord of the Flies.’
Could Assad row with cousin tear down Syrian regime?
‘A defiant tyrant and his ruthless wife square up against the family oligarch, with the spoils of a nation at stake. It could be standard Ramadan television fare, but not this year. Instead, all the intrigue of Syria’s ruling family has been laid out in a spectacular real-life drama that has gripped the country and the region.’
‘Every stone will be uncovered’: how Georgia officials failed the Ahmaud Arbery case
‘In the days and weeks after Ahmaud Arbery was shot and killed, multiple Glynn county law enforcement officials failed to thoroughly investigate his death and, in one case, refused to allow police officers to make arrests, the Guardian has learned.’
Tim Dowling: can I turn myself into St Francis of Assisi?
‘“How’s your other project going?” She is referring to my long-term goal to get the birds of the air to land on me, as if I were St Francis of Assisi. This involves sitting very still in the garden for long periods, with a crossword puzzle and a little pile of seed on each knee.’
Blind date: ‘I’d had quite a lot to drink and broke into song’
‘First impressions? Is this a person being held against their will? He was sitting in a dimly lit room that looked a bit like a scene in Homeland. Once he turned on the light, I could see he was handsome.’
Sunday
A century on, whatever happened to Labour’s firebrand lost leader?
‘What he discovered, and recorded in a recently updated biography, remains one of the most remarkable stories in the history of British politics and one of its biggest unsolved mysteries. For a brief period at the start of the last century, while still in his twenties, Victor Grayson became the most famous socialist in England and a potential Labour leader. Then, 100 years ago this September, he vanished without trace.’
What does it take to get really great service in restaurants?
‘Sometimes terrific service is a sleight of hand. It is the magnificent Silvano Giraldin, at Le Gavroche, taking my order with an encouraging grin on his face, his hands clasped behind his back. He is so compelling that I do not notice the commis waiter four feet away listening in and taking my order.’
Hebridean island divided after memoir explores darker fringe of Highland life
‘A constant theme is that the magnificent Hebridean landscape has a darker fringe. Calidas describes continuing intimidation and abuse at the hands of some islanders. They object to her presence on the croft as an outsider, as English, as of mixed heritage and, later, as a single woman daring to work the land like a man.’
Apropos of Nothing review – Woody Allen’s times and misdemeanours
‘This is a horrible, painful and, above all, highly opaque story, and it always will be – up to, and including, the day it is inevitably mentioned in the first paragraph of a long newspaper obituary.’
Oligarch’s wife brings son into high-stakes divorce case
‘Attempts to secure the assets awarded following Britain’s biggest, bitterest marital breakup may hinge on how the high court views an arcane financial practice dating back to feudal times.’
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.
