Friday Reading S14E02

Friday Reading is a weekly series of recommended reads from the Guardian’s Martin Belam, covering journalism, media and technology, and other interesting nerdy things he found on the internet this week. It is now in its fourteenth season. Sign up here.

I’ve not been able to bring myself to face watching it, having covered her killing as it unfolded, but Craig McLean writes for the Face that The Voice of Hind Rajab is the most important film you’ll see this year.

Zoe Keziah Mendelson writes “It is urgent and imperative that we all permanently exit Instagram”

“It is unthinkable to me that we have normalized fire-hosing ourselves in the eyeballs with this alternately inane and horrific, surface-level, spiritually fractured fuckery … The result is: so fucking much time doing shit that drains vital force from our brains and souls, diverts it from The Revolution, and co-opts it for profit by The Bad Guys™”

Get a blog peoples, like it is 2005 all over again.

Each August, thousands of twins and multiples descend upon the city of Twinsburg to celebrate their siblings and the wider twin community. Isaac Muk goes to hang out there for Huck magazine.

Betsy Johnson tells i_D magazine “creativity isn’t a god-given gift – it’s a discipline” as she releases a book – Revision – illustrating six years worth of her creative process.

This week’s Guardian Thursday news quiz: torchbearers, traitors and troublemakers. Guest canine: Reggie.

Martijn van den Broek, Nederlands Fotomuseum’s head of collections, says “Photography is an irreplaceable record of who we are. Yet it is among the most fragile forms of cultural heritage, making its protection not just a responsibility but a necessity” in this Monocle article about the project to move the museum’s collection a new building.

I’ve only just found out that John J Johnston passed away last August. I don’t believe we ever met in person but his enthusiasm for Egyptology and the ancient world, as well as cult TV and movies, made him a lovely online friend to have. The last post he made on Facebook was him wishing his husband “many more of years of love and sparkling laughter together” which is heartbreaking. My belated condolences to family and friends.

John J Johnston staging the ‘unwrapping of a mummy’ at Old Operating Theatre Museum and Herb Garret

My beloved Sparks have announced more UK dates for the summer. Get on it.

Keith Stuart has interviewed Jade Scott, one of the most recent bunch of television’s The Traitors, about her interest and history in gaming, which began with Minecraft.

The brutal story of how Eve Henderson’s husband being murdered in a random attack in Paris led to her setting up a charity to support people whose loved ones are killed abroad.

My contributions to First Edition this week were:
· Monday briefing – What we know about the death of Alex Pretti
· Wednesday briefing – ​Can we turn around the growing school readiness crisis?
· Friday briefing – How Britain’s high streets became a barometer of national decline

Friday Reading is a weekly series of recommended reads from the Guardian’s Martin Belam, covering journalism, media and technology, and other interesting nerdy things he found on the internet this week. It is now in its fourteenth season. Sign up here.