Bits #13
Things to read, watch, listen to, mull over
I’ve been working in NYC for most of the last week. It involved a lot of solo travel, so I’ve been in FULL content monster mode 👹 This is therefore a fever dream of a letter, jam packed with recs - and potentially a few things that make absolutely no sense - because I’m very jet-lagged. Have a great weekend!
15 Notes from the week:
Men seeking advice for prostate cancer have increased nearly sevenfold thanks to Chris Hoy. Reminds me of ‘the Jade Goody effect’ on cervical smears
Gisèle Pelicot should be awarded the highest order of merit, for all she is doing to expand our cultural understanding of violence against women: “I hear lots of women, and men, who say you’re very brave. I say it’s not bravery, it’s will and determination to change society”.
‘Brat’ is Collins Dictionary’s word of the year. I mean, it was always going to be wasn’t it (what’s follows Brat Girl Summer? Bloke Autumn, says Grazia)
I think ‘the discourse’ may have put me off reading Intermezzo (for now.) This is my first bout of pre-game cultural fatigue1 and it feels cleansing
Can influencing be taught? For $3,000, Valeria Lipovetsky thinks so (naturally, my brain leaps to Caroline Calloway and her mason jars)
Proof that I am happily approaching middle-age: I am boggled by the compliment “serving cunt”2 and find ‘butt scrunch’ leggings unfathomably revolting3
Amelia Dimoldenberg (finally) interviews Andrew Garfield for Chicken Shop Date and the vibe feels particularly tender
Saorsie Ronan goes viral for her response to her male colleagues joking about self-defence (bra-fucking-vo)
I have been officially ripped off for a flat-white: $7.61 if you please
How is Brandy Melville still one-size-fits-all? When you consider the kinds of things brands are called out for now, it is extraordinary that the store has not had some sort of cultural reckoning
Cano Water is an excellent concept, but I’ve not once been able to open a can of it on my own
I’ve watched the Panorama, I’ve read the experts, and like the co-authors of a new book about the case, I cannot decide if I think Lucy Letby is guilty. It’s a hideous hideous case, with so many loose threads
“Every day above ground is a good day” - my taxi driver in NYC
Fascinating the kind of media that prevails in this punishing landscape. In a recent issue of Hello! that I found in an airplane pocket, the magazine’s ‘social editor at large’, the Marchioness of Bath, called Victoria’s Secret “the crescendo of womanhood”. Um
This is the loveliest ad I’ve seen in ages. Agyness Deyn by Tyrone Lebon for Burberry
I cannot remember the last time a podcast gripped me as much as Kill List. I kept messaging the link to friends with the note, “THIS STORY IS INSANE!!” It’s about a tech journalist called Carl Miller, who received a tip-off from a hacker he knew, that there was an assassin website on the dark web - where you could pay to have someone murdered - with over 600 ‘kill orders’. The hacker had managed to squeeze through a security loophole into the ‘back end’ and now had access to every single kill order: the victim’s name, location, phone number, the amount pledged to “get the job done” and most troublingly, a ‘preferred way’ to do it.
The site itself is a scam, run by a man in Romania, ‘Yura’, who had no intention of - or ability to - kill anyone, who frames the scam in moral terms: how can you feel bad for ripping off people who wish to murder someone? - but the threat against life, is real. When the scammed realise that their $37,000 isn’t going to get anyone killed, what violence might they resort to, wonders Carl? Who else might they employ to do the job? Might they simply do it themselves?
Horrified, Carl and his producers employ local journalists all over the world, to go and break the news to those under threat. Some are bemused, some don’t believe him, some he cannot get hold of. The horror, of course - and this is important - is that all the kill orders for women came from men they were married to, or had dated.
The pressure is unsurprisingly immense - Carl and his producers cannot sleep for the responsibility they feel to ensure these people are safe. I won’t give away what happens, or how it ends, except to say it was a bit of a disappointing crescendo - but it would be impossible to maintain the momentum and energy of the first few episodes. Damp squib ending withstanding, it’s an incredible feat of investigative journalism. Terrifying for what it confirms about gendered violence, and absolutely worth listening to.
I don’t know what I was expecting from The Apprentice, but it definitely wasn’t a close-up of Trump’s tummy tuck and hair transplant. A neat reflection of excessive hubris but utterly revolting to watch. Ali Abbasi’s film about Trump’s early years in real estate is all over the news at the moment because Trump is threatening to sue everyone involved, including the toilet roll holder. Juice aside, it’s well worth your time - it’s fascinating, compelling and yes, gross.
Sebastian Stan is very good as a timid, tedious, soft-impact Trump, who somehow persuades a smart and witty Czech model, Ivana, to marry him, before turning into a narcissistic megalomaniac and the evolution of Trump into a real estate mogul - very much aided by Ivana - is interesting. But it is the story of Trump’s mentor, the nefarious lawyer and gay homophobe Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong at his very best), who actively passed laws which criminalised the queer community, which stayed with me.