Hello, good morning, hope we’re all holding up alright, and if not, hopefully this can be a temporary distraction. It’s Five Great Reads, your weekday summertime wrap of hope, joy and great journalism, selected by me – Guardian Australia’s feelings, frocks and fish sauce editor, Alyx Gorman.
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Today we have reads on self help, cycling and slum influencers, plus the weirdest academic conference you’ve never heard of. Let’s hop to it.
1. The biker taking on dangerous drivers
Armed with a GoPro and fuelled by a tragic backstory, Mike van Erp, AKA CyclingMikey, has reported over 1000 dangerous drivers – including Guy Ritchie.
So he’s like Batman on a bike? He really prefers not to be referred to as a vigilante, actually. He’s just very into road safety rules, and doesn’t have to go out of his way to find people who break them.
Notable quote: “Most people who cycle realise that bad driving is largely tolerated by society,” van Erp says. “It’s not considered a really serious thing. Yet it’s claiming 1,800 people’s lives a year in the UK alone.”
If he thinks London’s bad he should visit Sydney … Indeed.
How long will this take me to read? About five minutes.
2. The snapchat ‘slum influencer’ with eyes on politics
Nasser Sari’s cheerful snaps of life in one of France’s poorest neighbourhoods has earned him a massive social media following. Now he plans to flex that influence by standing for national assembly.
Notable quote: “I want to shatter the cliches,” Sari says. “I’m young, of colour, someone who dares. I want to annoy people a bit. To show France who we are.”
Could he win? “Pyrenées-Orientales has about 350,000 registered voters,” Phil Hoad reports. “If only a portion of NasDas’s followers vote for him, he could be Snapchatting from parliament this time next year.”
How long will it take me to read? Just under five minutes.
3. Self-help gets interactive
No longer niche, everyone from Michelle Obama to James Clear has a guided journal these days. So are they any good? Jenny Valentish road-tests a sample, with mixed results.
What is a guided journal? That depends – it can be anything from hardback diaries with cutesy prompts (“What did you dream of last night?” “Draw something that makes you happy”) to workbooks that border on therapy handouts.
What are they for? Everything from decluttering to drinking less: goal-setting, productivity and even dismantling privilege (there’s a guided journal edition of Layla Saad’s Me and White Supremacy).
I don’t feel like journaling. Then read Elle Hunt seeking expert advice on how to achieve your goals instead. No doodling required.
Still too hard. Fine, make some dal. It’s quick, healthy and freezes well.
4. ‘The Land of Milk and Money’
Why did a group of academics hold an online symposium dedicated to the cult 2017 animated film Boss Baby? For the lols, obvs. But maybe also kind of not?
I’ve never seen Boss Baby, why should I read this? Because it’s funny and surprisingly thoughtful – even if you haven’t seen the film. Which I also have not.
Yes, but you once used Bourdieu’s concept of habitus as a framework for analysing Gossip Girl in an undergraduate essay. Opht, straight for the jugular. I got an HD for that essay though.
5. Cuba’s Covid-vaccine marvel
How a country that still struggles to keep the lights on became one of the world’s most-vaccinated nations.
Cuba is one of the world’s most vaccinated nations? Yep, more than 90% of the population (kids included) have been vaccinated with at least one dose and 83% are fully vaxxed. Oh – and they developed the vaccine themselves. Also: vaccination isn’t mandatory.
Notable quote: “Ever since the 1959 revolution, Cubans have embarked on these grand crusades which are quixotic yet often successful,” says Gregory Biniowsky, a Havana-based lawyer. Case in point: Fidel Castro’s vast investment in biotech after the fall of the Soviet Union. “Any rational adviser would have said this was not the time to invest resources in something that might bear fruit in 25 years. And yet here we are now … where these fruits of the biotech investment are saving lives.”
How long will it take to read? About five minutes.
