Feminism exposed the ubiquity of child abuse, rape, sexual harassment and domestic violence – and helped fight that culture
I was there. I kept the receipts. I remember how normalized the sexual exploitation of teenage girls and even tweens by adult men was, how it showed up in movies, in the tales of rock stars and “baby groupies”, in counterculture and mainstream culture, how normalized rape, exploitation, grooming, objectification, commodification was.
The last Woody Allen movie I ever saw was Manhattan, in which he cast himself as more or less himself, a dweeb in his mid-40s, dating a high school student played by Mariel Hemingway. She was my age, 17, and I was only too familiar with creeps, and the movie creeped me out, even though it was only long afterward that I read that she said he was at the time pressuring her to get sexually involved with him in real life.
Rebecca Solnit is a Guardian US columnist. She is the author of Orwell’s Roses and co-editor with Thelma Young Lutunatabua of the climate anthology
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© Photograph: AP
© Photograph: AP
© Photograph: AP
I was afraid to be near people for two-and-a-half years, but then I got a chance to meet the band I loved – and the experience changed everything
I have always had a degree of health anxiety, but when Covid hit, it really spiked. At home with the family, I made sure we washed all our food and even then I didn’t feel safe eating it. I would bring in the post and then be worried about touching the front door. I’d shower for ages, trying to wash the virus away.
I’m a journalist, so before the anxiety set in I was a pretty outgoing and adaptable person. But from the start of lockdown until September 2022, I didn’t go anywhere indoors other than home or the hospital. I didn’t even walk down a street for a year and a half, for fear of passing too close to someone.
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© Illustration: Martin O'Neill/The Guardian
© Illustration: Martin O'Neill/The Guardian
© Illustration: Martin O'Neill/The Guardian
In this week’s newsletter: Live performances offering authentic human connection are drawing crowds to the stage, as AI-driven drivel worms its way into other creative industries
Last year, more than 37 million people settled their behinds into the red-velvet upholstery, plastic chairs or wooden “I’ll only tolerate this because it’s the Globe” benches of a theatre. West End attendance has reportedly grown by 11% and regional audiences have increased by 4% since 2019 – pretty impressive amid a cost of living crisis and after a pandemic that had us all locked in our houses.
The increase in attendance can be chalked up to all sorts of reasons: the post-Covid return of tourists to the UK, schemes offering more reasonably priced tickets, and big films such as Wicked leaving people wondering what that Defying Gravity note sounds like live. But I’d throw another contender into the mix: the rise of AI.
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© Photograph: SimoneN/Shutterstock
© Photograph: SimoneN/Shutterstock
© Photograph: SimoneN/Shutterstock
As coming-of-age drama nears its end, part of its appeal is nostalgia for the noughties shows viewers grew up with
It was billed as a show for teenagers, but you would be hard pressed to find a millennial woman who has not watched – and become mildly obsessed with – The Summer I Turned Pretty.
The coming-of-age drama, based on Jenny Han’s novel trilogy of the same name, has quietly grown into a global phenomenon for Prime Video. The first two episodes of its third and final season drew 25 million viewers, triple the audience of its debut.
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© Photograph: Erika Doss/Prime Video
© Photograph: Erika Doss/Prime Video
© Photograph: Erika Doss/Prime Video
My novel explores the consequences of extreme longevity. Meanwhile, Putin and Xi are pondering immortality in real life
I was in bed scrolling on my phone when I read the headline: Hot mic catches Xi and Putin discussing organ transplants and immortality. It took me a long time to get to sleep after that. Not yet, I thought. I pride myself on my prescience, but I wasn’t ready for the future I had imagined to arrive so soon.
Since 2017, I’ve been thinking about the implications of longevity research, sketching out possible futures – the shifts in society, the complications and subcultures. This year I published the result of my thought experiment, Who Wants to Live Forever, a speculative literary novel. It follows Yuki and Sam, a couple at a crossroads at the same time that a new drug, called Yareta – which extends the human lifespan by 200 years and preserves youth – becomes available. Sam takes it, Yuki doesn’t, and the novel follows the fallout as the world changes around them. The story ends in 2039. Naively, considering the billions being poured into longevity research by the likes of Peter Thiel, Jeff Bezos and Bryan Johnson (subject of this year’s Netflix documentary Don’t Die), I thought that was how long it might take for my fiction to become reality.
Hanna Thomas Uose is a writer and strategist. She is the author of Who Wants to Live Forever
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© Photograph: Alexander Kazakov/AP
© Photograph: Alexander Kazakov/AP
© Photograph: Alexander Kazakov/AP
From Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers to rollers, tunnellers and dwellers, test your knowledge with the Saturday quiz
1 Which German state sent its own team to the 1952 Olympics?
2 Eiichiro Oda’s One Piece is what story-telling genre’s all-time bestseller?
3 Which halogen is widely used as an antiseptic?
4 Which band was formed by Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers?
5 What type of beetles are categorised as rollers, tunnellers or dwellers?
6 Who sits on the Woolsack?
7 Nicknamed the “big hoose”, what is Scotland’s largest prison?
8 Who appeared in both film versions of West Side Story?
What links:
9 Australia; Canada; Eastern Caribbean; Jamaica; New Zealand; US?
10 Northern; southern; Masai; reticulated?
11 Dorothy Ashby; Alice Coltrane; Brandee Younger; Amanda Whiting?
12 Korea, 1945; Vietnam, 1954; Aldi supermarket, 1960?
13 John Hannah; Ken Stott; Richard Rankin?
14 Castello; Cannaregio; Dorsoduro; San Marco; San Polo; Santa Croce?
15 Awesome (Nile civilisation); Vicious (Norse raiders); Terrible (1485-1603); Gorgeous (1714-1830)?
© Photograph: United Artists/Allstar
© Photograph: United Artists/Allstar
© Photograph: United Artists/Allstar
In statement Friday, Erika Kirk says ‘evildoers responsible for my husband’s assassination have no idea what they have done’
Erika Kirk, the widow of rightwing activist and provocateur Charlie Kirk, said in a statement Friday evening that her late husband’s message and mission will be “stronger, bolder, louder and greater than ever” and that her “cries will echo around the world like a battle cry”.
“I loved knowing one of his mottos was ‘never surrender’,” she said of her late husband. “We’ll never surrender.”
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© Photograph: Reuters
© Photograph: Reuters
© Photograph: Reuters
As Swiss glaciers melt at an ever-faster rate, new species move in and flourish, but entire ecosystems and an alpine culture can be lost
• Photographs by Nicholas JR White
From the slopes behind the village of Ernen, it is possible to see the gouge where the Fiesch glacier once tumbled towards the valley in the Bernese Alps. The curved finger of ice, rumpled like tissue, cuts between high buttresses of granite and gneiss. Now it has melted out of sight.
People here once feared the monstrous ice streams, describing them as devils, but now they dread their disappearance. Like other glaciers in the Alps and globally, the Fiesch is melting at ever-increasing rates. More than ice is lost when the giants disappear: cultures, societies and entire ecosystems are braided around the glaciers.
The Aletsch glacier viewed from Moosfluh, looking towards the Olmenhorn and Eggishorn peaks
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© Photograph: Nicholas J R White
© Photograph: Nicholas J R White
© Photograph: Nicholas J R White
© Illustration: Edith Pritchett/The Guardian
© Illustration: Edith Pritchett/The Guardian
© Illustration: Edith Pritchett/The Guardian
With his government mired in scandal, an operation to dethrone Starmer is now under way
There has been a joke going around Labour MPs over the past week about three envelopes in Soviet Russia. “Whenever you run into trouble, open them in order,” the instructions go. Envelope one says: “Blame your predecessor.” So he does – and it works. The party officials are satisfied. A year later, problems arise again. He opens envelope two. It says: “Restructure the organisation.”
He does a big reshuffle, changes some titles, and again buys himself some time. Finally, another crisis comes. He opens envelope three. It says: “Prepare three envelopes.”
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© Illustration: Guardian Design
© Illustration: Guardian Design
© Illustration: Guardian Design
The oedipal thriller with Robin Wright raises the household temperature to nail-biting, while Jade Thirlwall goes solo with groove. Here’s the pick of the week’s culture, taken from the Guardian’s best-rated reviews
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© Composite: Courtesy of Prime
© Composite: Courtesy of Prime
© Composite: Courtesy of Prime
I thought I had found someone, but my wife wants to know if he’s any good – and if he’s ever killed anyone
The quote we receive from the roofer seems surprisingly reasonable, although it’s possible that in anticipation of the quote I was simply letting my paranoia run wild. The truth is, I had no idea how much a new flat roof should, or could, cost.
But my wife wasn’t home when the roofer came round, climbed out on the roof, and said: “That’s really bad.” She didn’t hear his wholly convincing explanation of what was wrong, and what must be done to put it right. She was not impressed by my version of those explanations. And she probably hadn’t worked herself up into expecting a quote at double the price. In any case, she has reservations.
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© Illustration: Selman Hosgor/The Guardian
© Illustration: Selman Hosgor/The Guardian
© Illustration: Selman Hosgor/The Guardian
He was the young, gay, mixed-race leader labelled a ‘badass’ by Matt Damon who unexpectedly quit. He talks about the ‘likability’ of rightwing populists – and his fears for the future of politics
Leo Varadkar suggests we do the interview at his house in Dublin. It’s unusual for politicians to invite you into their home, but Ireland is famous for its hospitality. The house looks impressively humble – a tiny, unprepossessing terrace. A woman answers. “Hi,” I say. “Does the taoiseach live here? “No,” she says.
I start to panic. Our interview is due to start in two minutes.
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© Photograph: Linda Brownlee/The Guardian
© Photograph: Linda Brownlee/The Guardian
© Photograph: Linda Brownlee/The Guardian
Martha, 30, an analyst, meets Jack, 26, a primary school teacher
What were you hoping for?
A fun evening, a free meal, a story and the fun of appearing in the Guardian. But deep down, to meet someone that I really want to be with.
© Photograph: Alicia Canter, Christian Sinibaldi/TheGuardian/The Guardian
© Photograph: Alicia Canter, Christian Sinibaldi/TheGuardian/The Guardian
© Photograph: Alicia Canter, Christian Sinibaldi/TheGuardian/The Guardian
Mille Colling and Emma Aalto given go-ahead to compete in qualifier for national championships next month
A British ice dancer and her skating partner are to become Finland’s first same-sex team to take part in a competition after a rule change by the country’s skating federation.
Millie Colling, 20, who was born in Gateshead and moved to Finland at the age of six, and Emma Aalto, 19, will compete in a qualifier for the national championships next month after pressing for an amendment to the rules to allow them to enter as a team.
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© Photograph: Tom Little/Reuters
© Photograph: Tom Little/Reuters
© Photograph: Tom Little/Reuters
After disastrous week, some MPs predict challenge against PM likely if local and Welsh elections go badly next May
Keir Starmer has been warned that time is running out to repair his faltering leadership, with Labour MPs beginning to ask whether he could be challenged as prime minister.
After a disastrous week in which Angela Rayner resigned and Peter Mandelson was sacked as ambassador to Washington, a number of MPs said a challenge was likely if local and Welsh elections went badly next May. Some said the one thing now protecting Starmer was the lack of an agreed replacement.
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© Photograph: House of Commons/PA
© Photograph: House of Commons/PA
© Photograph: House of Commons/PA
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