Good morning. Yesterday was the second Friday the 13th this year. Thank goodness that’s all behind us. I feel confident in predicting that everything will be fine now – and if it’s not, well, at least we have plenty to read.
Please enjoy these fantastic stories from around the Guardian this week, and have a good weekend.
1. Are self-publishing scams the new lonely hearts frauds?Jon Cocks was targeted by an online publishing scam. Photograph: Sia Duff/The Guardian
This report by Kelly Burke broke my heart a bit. It begins with Jon Cocks, a retired South Australian high school teacher who poured thousands of hours into his debut historical novel. It was a labour of love, inspired by his wife’s family history. Within six months, he had lost close to $10,000.
How do these AI scams work? As Burke notes, literary scams predate the printing press. But in today’s massive operations, artificial intelligence “trawl[s] through tens of millions of titles, identifying low-selling authors and generating personalised solicitations at unprecedented speed”. It’s an entire scam book marketing industry that “lifts directly from the lonely hearts playbook” – and self-published authors are especially vulnerable.
How long will it take to read: seven minutes
Further reading: Speaking of AI … a man who’s trained thousands of people to use it has offered up his best bits of advice. The trick, he says, is to treat AI as a skill, not a shortcut. Read his other tips here.
2. A death scholar on the one thing everyone should know before they dieGravely concerned: Dr Hannah Gould. Photograph: Laura May Grogan
Dr Hannah Gould’s new book, How to die in the 21st Century, offers lessons on some profound topics: contemplating, dying, disposing, celebrating, grief and memorialisation. But there’s one, more simple thing she thinks everyone should do right now: work out your legal next of kin, and tell them what you want – just an email will do, or even a Post-It on the fridge.
‘Peak death’ in Australia by 2040: when, as writer Jenny Valentish eloquently puts it, “a silver tsunami of boomers are predicted to propel the annual death rate to double that of today”. Or as Gould more succinctly dubs it: “boomergeddon”.
I found this surprisingly confronting to think about – but also take Gould’s point: that we could all stand to get less jittery about dying in general. (Taxes: still terrifying.)
How long will it take to read: three minutes
3. ‘My dad’s obsession with his egg would destroy his marriage, family and fortune’Paul Kutchinsky holding the miniature jewelled library that fits inside his egg. Photograph: Roger Taylor/Telegraph Media Group Holdings Limited 2025
“At 2ft tall, it’s the size of a small child. Its surface shimmers with thousands of pink diamonds, casting shadows across the studio floor. Its heavy gold shell is open to reveal the first of its surprises: a glittering miniature library topped by a tiny diamond clock.”
Serena Kutchinsky’s dad made one of the most valuable artworks to come out of Britain in the 20th century. “But after the egg,” she writes, “life was never the same.” Her account of her father’s “glittering folly” is strange, poignant and utterly gripping.
“Who would spend £7m on an egg?” – chatshow host Terry Wogan,
BBC Television Centre, 2 May 1990
An egg by any other name: To the world, Paul Kutchinsky’s creation was known as “the Argyle Library Egg by Kutchinsky”. Serena’s mother referred to it as “your father’s ego”.
How long will it take to read: 11 minutes
4. Will the third gulf war be the most dangerous?US 1st Cavalry Division troops deploy across the Saudi desert in November 1990 during preparations before the Gulf War. Photograph: Greg English/AP
Moving on, to George Bush Senior and Donald Trump: two of the bad dads of global geopolitics, if you like. Diplomatic editor Patrick Wintour this week weighed the risks, lessons and legacy of US interference in the Middle East. Despite the Iran conflict’s similarities to the war against Iraq, he suggests, it may prove to be the most dangerous and consequential yet.
2003 is calling: “On the way to Baghdad,” notes Wintour, “the commander of the US forces, Gen David Petraeus, asked a famous question: ‘Tell me how this ends?’ It remains as pertinent now as it did then.”
How long will it take to read: five minutes
Further reading: The former UK prime minister Gordon Brown is calling for a more effective tribunal for crimes against children. The Minab school bombing – which killed a reported 168 people, mainly young girls – “has shaken to its very core the conscience of the world”, he wrote for the Guardian this week.
5. Learning Welsh (or: Duolingo could never)‘Taid, “grandad”, sounds close to “tide”’: Dan Fox’s taid, outside Tal-y-Braich Uchaf, Snowdonia. c. 1965. Photograph: Courtesy of Dewi Jones
As well as a tender family story, Dan Fox’s beautiful long read on learning Welsh is a history of the language – dismissed, especially by the English, as a punchline – and the fight to preserve it.
When his grandmother (nain, pronounced “nine”) was young, children caught speaking Welsh at school were forced to wear a wooden paddle around their necks – the last student to wear it in the week would be beaten. Still, decades later, as he recalls, his grandparents used English “only when necessary or polite”.
“[Their] life together was conducted in Welsh: at the dinner table, on the radio, in the fields, for gossip, for poetry.”
How long will it take to read: 15 minutes, give or take
Further reading: two of my favourite children’s books – my first, very slight, introduction to the battle lines drawn around the language – are set in Wales: Meryll of the Stones and The Owl Service. I highly recommend both.
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