Five Great Reads: ‘skimpies’, going undercover with the far right, and the tragic story of Robert Einstein
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Happy Saturday! Another long weekend, which means another shorter working week (for some). In keeping with the high vibes, here are some great reads to accompany a cup of morning brew. Sip and enjoy!
1. Around the world in 10 years
Thor Pedersen was 12 years into his career; he had met a lovely woman and all his friends were having kids – and then he decided to set himself a challenge. He wanted to be the first human to visit every country in the world without, wait for it … flying.
At 34, Pedersen quit his usual routine to spend nearly a decade on the move and wouldn’t return until he was 44. Here’s what he learned.
Connections: “I have found myself laughing with a complete stranger in spite of our lack of a common language. I have been invited into people’s homes based on gestures alone.”
How big is the world? “It is hard to grasp the distance between London and New York when you fly. But when you travel via seven ships and several buses, it helps you to understand.”
Thomas Harding’s story on the tragedy of Robert Einstein, cousin to the world-famous scientist Albert Einstein, is like something out of a second world war movie. The Jewish pair had grown up together in Munich under the same roof during the 1880s – “you could say they were brother-cousins,” Harding writes. But in the 1930s, Hitler had placed a “price on Einstein’s head”, according to London’s Daily Herald, after the scientist spoke out against the Nazi regime.
Escape plan: Albert fled to England and Robert moved his family to Italy, where both thought they had found safety.
Tragedy struck: Then, the day before liberation, Nazis smashed down the front door to the villa (outside Florence) hiding Robert’s immediate and extended family.
There is a world rarely seen outside the bars of the mining towns around Kalgoorlie-Boulder in Western Australia. In those bars, lingerie-wearing barmaids pour pints to lonely, exhausted men working in some of the most geographically isolated communities in the country. These women are better known as “skimpies”.
After visiting Kalgoorlie during lockdown and getting stuck there, photographer M Ellen Burns earned the women’s trust to capture what the job is really like.
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“[We] take great care of all the lonely sad men we come across in the pubs … because of skimpy women, I wonder how many men’s lives have literally been saved.” – Cleo
Fly-in fly-out: many “skimpies” are Fifo workers and on a good weekend can make up to $5,000 in tips.
As for Burns? She is now friends with many of the women – and never left town.
4. ‘When medieval times return, I’ll be ready’ – Bella Ramsey
Nearly 40 million people watched the first episode of the post-apocalyptic zombie show The Last of Us. The Guardian called it one of the “finest TV shows you will see this year” in 2023. For English actor Bella Ramsey, “life-changing is one way to describe it”, Tim Lewis writes.
The 21-year-old from Nottingham plays Ellie, “the sassy and quirky but also complicated and vicious American protagonist” – and while the young actor’s life has transformed since (season two is out now), they say “people are going to want to talk to me a bit more for a couple of months. Then it’ll just die down again.”
Staying grounded or in denial? The A-lister still catches the tube in what they describe as a “ripped T-shirt that needs a wash”. It’s probably Prada.
Harry Shukman’s long read about the year he spent undercover with the far right is an honest and riveting account and definitely worth your time. Working with the UK advocacy group Hope Not Hate (which campaigns against racism and fascism) Shukman infiltrated an extremist organisation, befriended its members and got to work investigating their political connections.
One recurring theme: Shukman met a lot of men in pubs around London, and “among the rank and file members of far-right organisations” one thing that really struck him was the loneliness he encountered.
A sense of community: “Isn’t it great to have someone to talk to?” he heard from people at a conference in Estonia.
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