Friday Reading S14E03

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 to receive Friday Reading via email.

Catherine Anne Davies, who records as the Anchoress, writes on the increasingly unsustainable costs for musicians of not just touring but also recording.

“Much ink has been spilt about the inherently exploitative and unfair terms of standard recording deals. Recently, Laura Marling has written very eloquently about her own regrets of signing to a major label deal in her recent piece about being ‘trapped in a contract’ at the age of sixteen that would have ‘consequences for the rest of her and her children’s lives’. ‘How would my life be different had I kept hold of those records?’, she muses.”

Jonatan Sodergren with a look for The Conversation at just how bizarre the January rebranding of parts of London’s tube to advertise a beer brand – including actually making some of the maps wrong – was.

The Epstein files have dominated headlines all week. Jim Waterson has this different angle, looking at the convicted child sex offender’s property ambitions in London.

This week’s Guardian Thursday news quiz: graveyards, Grammys and Muppet Show guests. Guest animal: Reggie (again).

“Pie and mash bloggers can also be a little bit doctrinaire” is one of the surprising discoveries in this paean to London’s endangered traditional cuisine from Tim Dowling. A dish which, I have to admit, I have never tried. I’m put off by the prospect of the “liquor”. And the eels.

Phil Burton-Cartledge with a rather blunt assessment of why he is ditching Corbyn/Sultana’s Your Party for the Greens.

We are so inured to widespread advertising and betting shops on the high street in the UK that it is engaging to read this Harper’s magazine take on the app-fuelled gambling problem in the US as if it was an entirely novel issue to be tackled.

Andy Bull shares his tips on ten things to look out for at the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics, which has its opening ceremony tonight.

At Monocle, Andrew Mueller’s essay arguing the winter version of the Olympics is better than the summer one seems more than a little bloodthirsty, as he lists these as potential attractions:

“Winter Olympians can crash luges and bobsleighs, wipe out off snowboards, clobber each other into hockey-rink barriers, careen off ski runs into forests and lose their balance mid-leap from the ski-jumping ramp to land with an audible fracturing of limbs. Even the relatively prim and genteel pastime of figure skating offers opportunities to descend from a height, at speed, onto a surface that’s as hard as cement but colder. Winter Olympians are – and the epithet is offered in respect verging on outright awe – total maniacs.”

A video examining what it looks like to watch classic Doctor Who using a CRT television as god intended, rather than in the upscaled AI-infested recent Blu-Rays that got everybody’s knickers in a twist.

Oh god there is a huge auction of Doctor Who props and I daren’t look otherwise I will need another mortgage.

Jack/Noodle with a long, delightful ramble through Sparks and the joys of autism.

Pleasing to discover I am not the only person with version control issues – a complete list of all the differences/mistakes between mono and stereo mixes released by a little-known four-piece band called the Beatles.

Old but gold essay – centred around OMD – on the grief of Record Store Day releases.

Singer Lucie Jones has an adorable line in this interview about the baby she is expecting while performing in Les Misérables – “I’m hoping she comes out waving a red flag and marching”.

I published my one-line spoiler-free review of everything I watched in the cinema in January 2026, featuring, among others: Peter Hujar’s Day, Rental Family, Mercy, No Other Choice, It Was Just an Accident, Nouvelle Vague, Labyrinth, The Brotherhood of Satan and some Wallace & Gromit.

I should note that this week Mehdi Mahmoudian, the co-writer of Oscar-nominated It Was Just an Accident (pictured above) was arrested by the Iranian regime.

Also I went to see Rabbit Trap this week and found it absolutely mind-blowing.

My contributions to First Edition this week were:

· Tuesday briefing: The ‘life-shattering’ stories of Epstein survivors

· Wednesday briefing: How ​outdated ​rules ​on reporting fuel ​misinformation in ​high-profile ​trials

· Thursday briefing: W​ill the Epstein ​files ​threaten ​Peter Mandelson’s ​legacy​?

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 to receive Friday Reading via email.