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Russell Brand was found guilty of one count of rape and three counts of sexual assault on Thursday. Alamy Stock Photo
Series7 deadly reads
Sitdown Sunday: The downfall of Russell Brand
Settle down in a comfy chair with some of the week’s best longreads.
IT’S A DAY of rest, and you may be in the mood for a quiet corner and a comfy chair.
We’ve hand-picked some of the week’s best reads for you to savour.
1. Russell Brand
On Thursday at Southwark Crown Court, a jury found Russell Brand guilty of one count of rape and three counts of sexual assault. This article from The Guardian examines the downfall of Brand.
(The Guardian, approx. 13 mins reading time)
“In the early 1990s, when he was a student at the Italia Conti theatre school, a teenage Russell Brand became so fixated on a classmate that he followed her for 200 miles, trailing her through the streets of London before sneaking, ticketless, on to her train to Wigan.”
2. Perfect Pitch
A 66-year-old school music teacher suffered a brain injury in a motorbike accident. When he woke up, he was a musical genius.
(The New York Times Magazine, approx. eight mins reading time)
“As music from a jazz quintet played, he started calling out the chords — complex chords, like C minor 9, F 13 sharp-11, G minor 13.”
3. The last town criers
A journalist went along to the World Town Crier Tournament to see who is the best of the best when it comes to the old art of town crying.
(Dispatch, approx. 13 mins reading time)
“As shoppers ambled past the stage in Eastgate Square, an indoor shopping centre in Chester, few could have grasped that they were bearing witness to a career-defining competition.”
4. Extreme diets
People are eating everything from roadkill to raw animal organs because they believe they are better for you. But why?
(The New York Times Magazine, approx. 20 mins reading time)
“The brain slithered as she pulled it from its container and held it up for me to admire. Then, as though it were a juicy apple, she took a bite of the raw meat. ‘Mmmm,’ she said. ‘This is so good.’”
5. Journalism or friendship?
A journalist spent five years investigating a convicted murderer. Were they friends by the end?
(Longreads, approx. 25 mins reading time)
“When Robin walked in, my first thought was how little he matched what I had expected. He was tall and trim, calm in a way that seemed entirely unperformed. The man who had been photographed entering court looking gaunt and hollow-eyed had filled out; more than a decade of prison routine seemed, paradoxically, to have done him good.”
6. What happened to lab-grown meats?
Meats created from lab-grown animal cells were predicted to slow down climate change and create a sustainable food source. Why didn’t it take off?
(The Guardian, approx. 25 mins reading time)
“The event – the theatrical reveal, the PR spectacle – triggered a kind of gold rush. One hundred and forty companies sprang up in six continents, trying to replicate what Post had done with beef across a range of other species: chicken, pork, fish, even quail. Investment to the tune of $3bn (€2.64 billion) flooded into the sector.”
…AND A CLASSIC FROM THE ARCHIVES…
7. The girls who inspired Mean Girls
This 2024 article from the Washingtonian features an interview with one of the mean girls who actually inspired the 2004 hit movie Mean Girls.
(Washingtonian, approx. 18 mins reading time)
“At the Christmas party, Jackson read some of these quotes aloud. The most eye-popping pertained to the rules of her high-school clique: ‘You cannot wear jeans any day but Friday, and you cannot wear a ponytail or sneakers more than once a week. Monday is fancy day—like black pants or maybe you bust out with a skirt.’ For several paragraphs this goes on, teenage Jessica laying out her friend group’s dizzying standards for each other. ‘The rules apply to all of us,’ she clarified. When one friend wore jeans on a Monday, ‘she wasn’t allowed to sit with us at lunch.’”
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