The Lead Digest: Lily Allen, the Celebrity Traitors and the paradox of ghosting
Our round-up by The Lead’s team of what we’ve been reading, listening to, scrolling and watching each week.
Here at The Lead, we like to consume just as much as we create, which is why we spend a little time each week rounding up our favourite stories, books, podcasts and films to offer our readers a sample of the work that informs our world.
Natalie’s read this week is
articulating the thing that has been endlessly troubling her about the best reality show on TV (The Celebrity Traitors): its problem with race. Just like in previous seasons, the herd-think of the round table is proving a microcosm of racial biases as they exist in society, with Black and brown players ousted first due to ‘gut feelings’. It’s making it hard to watch. Rooting for Cat Burns to sneak her way to the end!She has also been inhaling all of the Lily Allen analysis this week (with Pussy Palace on repeat). This essay from
is the best thing she’s read about it so far. “That’s when they want to take you down, these men whose egos want to marry a famous, popular, magnetic woman – but then make sure you can be whittled down to size, staying smaller than them forever.”
Padraig recommends the new BBC series Leonard and Hungry Paul, a warm, genuine and gentle comedy based on the novel by Ronan Hession and featuring some very stylish knitwear.
Ella enjoyed this nuanced take on ghosting – and how it is simultaneously the most infuriating but most commonplace feature of modern communication – in the Atlantic. It doubles up as a review for Dominic Pettman’s new book Ghosting, which contains this revelatory line: “when we came up with texting, we also came up with not texting.”
She also recommends
’s analysis of the recent Caerphilly by-election, where Reform was slated to win and Labour suffered a huge blow.Luke read this interview with Nicola Thorp, who has released a podcast looking at the disappearance of Blackpool teenager Charlene Downes. The interview neatly summarises how the far-right latched onto the case (and why that thinking was flawed).
The team is also recommending a new podcast, Address the Harm, which is out tomorrow. The podcast has been created by the grassroots Address the Harm campaign and looks at different instances of institutional failure in the UK, such as the tainted blood scandal, domestic abuse in the family courts, the grooming gangs and the Chinook crash.
Watched, read or listened to something you think we’d like to feature? Drop ella@thelead.uk a line and we will consider for inclusion.