www.silverguide.site –

Good morning and welcome to Saturday. I’m Emma Elsworthy and here is a selection of stories that I thought you may enjoy.

1. ‘Recovery is proof there is a God. Addiction is proof there is a devil’

Two guys walk in to Alcoholics Anonymous and a rock band is born. Barry Quinlan and Sam Duffy are one half of Bleech 9:3 and are each other’s AA sponsors. All four guys left other bands for this one. “There was communal feeling that there was something different about this group,” drummer Luke O’Neill recalled. With a five-song EP likened to “lightning and thunder”, the Irish lads have booked 40 festivals.

It has been a truly wild ride to this point, however. Dive into this harrowing yet ultimately uplifting read that traverses relapse – “like the bullet had left the gun”, redemption – “like an exorcism, like finally reaching the shore”, and everything in between, including a conversation with Jesus himself.

Notable quote: “Seek some spiritual thing to take what’s in your heart and plant it around your head as if it was a garden. Grow love in your mind as opposed to the barren wasteland there.”

How long will it take to read: Five minutes.

Further reading: Fifty years ago, the Sex Pistols played their first Manchester gig – and upended pop culture. But who got left behind when punk exploded?

2. Melinda French Gates on Epstein – and giving away billions

Five years after she divorced one of the world’s richest men, Melinda French Gates sits down with the Guardian for an interview that threads a very “now” path through topics such as Jeffrey Epstein, misogyny, Elon Musk, the housing crisis and Robert F Kennedy Jr. Despite this, there may be more to ponder between the lines than in them.

Warren Buffett once said that Bill is “smart as hell, obviously”, but that French Gates is smarter. Journalist Sophie Bain continues: “I notice, throughout the interview, her politician’s skill at appearing to answer a question while giving little new away. But then again, why would she? She is the rare interviewee with nothing to sell.”

Notable quote: “Any woman who has ever been around somebody who is evil or had an experience and then if you’re around somebody else who is evil. Just no, no,” French Gates says, speaking about Epstein.

How long will it take to read: 10 minutes

Further reading: The furious guerrilla-art response to the Epstein files has anger burning off every bit off it, Arifa Akbar writes.

3. The malignant rise of OnlyFans managers

Markuss Hussle is telling students about the “embarrassingly simple” way he makes money, proving his bona fides with photos of private jets and a fur-clad girlfriend. He’s an OnlyFans manager, taking for himself half of what the women make on the often explicit video platform.

Some say OnlyFans has radically shifted power dynamics back to women – but a new breed of middlemen are looking for a cut of the $25bn generated so far on the platform since its genesis, Amelia Gentleman writes – and purporting that you can too. This is essential reading about a new kind of sex work in the internet era, and who pays the price.

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Notable quote: “Almost every girl that I’ve talked to in the industry has had an experience – whether it’s being stuck in a contract that they can’t leave or having management taking advantage of them, or scamming them, or forcing them to do something.”

How long will it take to read: 10 minutes

Further reading: Amber Haque’s preposterously bleak film, OnlyFans: Inside the Machine, shows how hordes of men have turned the ethical answer to sex work into a sleazy nightmare, Stuart Heritage writes.

4. Memories of the Soweto uprising in South Africa

On 16 June 1976 in Soweto, students marched out of school to protest the government’s edict that they must learn in the “oppressor’s language”, Afrikaans. There was singing among the group – many of whom were children – their mood defiant but buoyant. What followed would become a blood stain on South African history.

This fascinating story delves into the lives of those protesters in the 50 years since – including South Africa’s high commissioner to the UK, who says he still apologises to his three children born in exile for their upbringing. “It wasn’t of my making or their making. I think they understand.”

Notable quote: “One of the things that hurt me most in prison was remembering,” says Sibongile Mkhabela, one of the march organisers. “I had to train myself to forget what it feels like to love and be loved … but in the process the mind forgets a lot of other things that you shouldn’t forget.”

How long will it take to read: Five minutes

5. A solo journey into the midnight sun

“I am sat beside my car-sized campervan, with mesmerised reverence for the rose-tinged panorama,” writes Caroline Mills, who in an excellent use of free will decided to leave her husband and children behind for a solo road trip to the top of Norway. She saw wild reindeer, the midnight sun, Hamlet’s Castle and much more.

Be whisked away by her scandi-adventure, in which she has booked no accommodation but rather puts her faith in Allemansretten – “the right to stop off-grid overnight on uncultivated land, leaving without a trace”. The true adventure, however, is “understanding that the memory is mine alone,” she writes.

Notable quote: “But it is the east of the island where I park up and sit alone for days, watching an otter swimming among the lichen-speckled black rocks, alerted by a clatter of ducks and ducklings, shelducks, wigeon and oystercatchers.”

How long will it take to read: Five minutes

Further reading: Here are five Nigerian female travellers on their top tips and trickiest moments – from border madness to snakes. Or read about how the total isolation of a Hebridean island helped Graham Snowdon process the loss of his parents.

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