Five Great Reads: A nightmare storm at sea; Marcia Langton on Tony Abbott; and ‘six-seven’ slang

Good morning – I’m back with some more interesting reading for your weekend. Sometimes more than others, the world feels particularly disorientating. Maybe these pieces from around the Guardian this week will help you make sense of things, maybe they won’t – but they are all worth your time over a coffee. 1. ‘If you want to die on the job, become a commercial fisher’ When the Scandies Rose left port in Alaska in December 2019 with an experienced crew and 7,000kg of bait, an icy storm was brewing. Rose George’s long read tells what happened to them – and why deep sea fishing is one of the most dangerous professions in the world. Why do so many people go without lifejackets? “It’s a cultural thing,” one former fisher tells George. “I remember when I first was fishing in the 1980s, I would go on boats and I would ask if they had an immersion suit [full-body survival suits designed for cold water], and one guy threw me off his boat for even asking the question. “Another example was somebody I asked where the life raft was, and he said we don’t talk about that on this boat. It’s like, if you talk about it, bad things will happen.” How long will it take to read: nine minutes 2. Marcia Langton on Tony Abbott’s ‘Trumpian half truths’ The former Liberal prime minister and current Cpac speaker and rightwing lobby group supporter Tony Abbott has a new book out, Australia: A History, complete with accompanying Sky News documentary. But Melbourne university professor Marcia Langton, a Yiman and Bidjara woman from Queensland, has questions: about the “half-truths” studding Abbott’s account of the debate on constitutional recognition of Indigenous Australians; about his “deliberate and devious” recasting of Welcome to Country as divisive; about his playing down of the hundreds of massacres of Aboriginal people. Langton’s take: “Lifestyle Choices would be a more accurate title for this purported defence of democracy, one that does not include Indigenous Australia in any meaningful way. It is intended to become the style manual for the March for Australia types, providing them with a thesaurus of terms and factoids to defend their Dad’s Army version of our nation.” How long will it take to read: about four minutes Another perspective: Australian National University historian Frank Bongiorno’s review of Abbott’s book for this masthead was more positive, saying that despite presenting “a benign view of the British empire”, it “takes political life seriously”. 3. A walk with Hamish Macdonald The ABC radio host has plenty to say about Australia’s political and social life. On a recent walk along the Parramatta River with writer Steve Dow, Macdonald reflected on the ever-smaller distance between local events and the rest of the world. *** “You’d have to be blind not to see everything going on in the world is starting to have impact here.” – Hamish Macdonald Keeping calm and kind: Macdonald used to run with his late father, Iain – an elite rower, cross-country skier and marathon runner – and continues to heed his advice on slow breathing to calm nerves. His lessons in empathy come from his mother, Carol, who continued to work as a hospital theatre nurse until well into her 70s. How long will it take to read: four minutes Further reading: “Indecency has become a new hallmark,” the US writer and historian Jelani Cobb tells Washington DC bureau chief David Smith in this interview on social splintering in Trump’s America. 4. The Beijing courier who went viral Hu Anyan’s nationally bestselling memoir, I Deliver Parcels in Beijing, is being published in English for the first time this month. His “unadorned, sincere” depiction of contemporary work culture – and the unacknowledged and often exploited labour force powering China’s economic boom – has sparked both praise and debate. Over a video call from his apartment in Chengdu, Hu tells Rebecca Liu about the harsh realities of China’s gig economy. A modern CV: Selling bicycles in Shanghai on a 996 shift pattern – from nine in the morning to nine at night, six days a week; working the night shift in a logistics factory in Guangdong, unpacking and packing parcels from seven in the evening until seven in the morning, with a half-hour break for dinner; running a women’s clothing store at a mall; running a deli; working as an apprentice at a bakery, at a comic book publisher, as a gas station attendant, a graphic designer, a security guard, an ice lolly wholesaler, at companies making 3D architectural renderings, rear-view car cameras and business cards. And more. How long will it take to read: about five minutes 5. Excuse me, what is this young-person slang? Here’s a short, sweet and confusing piece, explaining a phrase you may have heard being thrown around by the junior people in your life: “six-seven”. What does it mean? Not much, which (she writes, earnestly peering through the glass of the aged) appears to be the point. It featured in a rap song, then viral videos using the song, then eventually a South Park episode – and ringing out in middle school classrooms everywhere. S0 it’s a new thing? Well actually, not that new … as a writer in the Cut was recently informed by her “mortified” daughter, by the time your mum is writing about something teenagers do, it’s already played out. How long will it take to read: a minute Sign up If you would like to receive these Five Great Reads to your email inbox every weekend, sign up here. And check out out the full list of our local and international newsletters.