It’s a difficult week to sum up, this week. The world has become a lot more frightening for many people, and many more are desperate to help. The third of our picks this week addresses some of the outright racism we’ve seen from some commentators discussing the war. The other two are entirely unrelated, for if you just can’t read any more tragedy.
We understand that everybody is overwhelmed with the information, recommendations and content that blasts out from social media every day. So we want to distil the best of the web by recommending just three links every week that you absolutely must see. No fluff, no fuss, just three exceptional reads. Here are this week’s recommendations:
1. Disappearing Language: A Reading List on Losing Your Native Tongue (Pardeep Toor / Longreads)
In the past four months, we’ve obsessed over speaking our respective languages to our son. It’s turned into a game: My wife will say something to him in Spanish, I’ll ask what she said, she tells me in English, and then I translate it into Punjabi and say it louder and faster back to our son as if his comprehension is a race we’re each trying to win. It’s partly in fun — but also stems from a sincere apprehension. We’re trying to pass down our languages while preserving them in our own lives.
Regardless of our efforts, English will inevitably become the common language that my wife and I share with our son. It’s the only way we can talk to him without isolating each other. In doing so I’m afraid I’ll continue to lose my native Punjabi and our son will forever lose something he could have had.
2. I’m common as muck and spent £150 in a Michelin star restaurant to see if it was worth it (Kirsty Bosley / Birmingham Mail)
How many flowers had the chef tasted to know that the little pink one goes best on asparagus? How many tried and failed attempts had gone into deciding just how much reindeer moss goes well with artichoke? What countries had he visited to learn what goes best with the finger lime? Or, in forests filled with mushrooms of every conceivable type, how had the chef decided to choose hen of the woods for me to enjoy today, right here in Birmingham?
3. “With all due respect”
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Image credit: Evgeniy Alyoshin