Ready and waiting to soothe your woes, welcome to the Weekender!

Date
19 September 2014

It’s been a long old week kids, and like the Friday afternoon trip to the cornershop to buy a 20p pic ’n’ mix we’re here and ready to reward you for dragging yourselves through it with bucket loads of funny, cool and interesting stuff that we’ve uncovered this week. This way please!

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Josh Cheuse: The Beastie Boys

– Actor and director Gabriel Bisset-Smith gave a talk about Storytelling at last month’s Nicer Tuesdays and we thought it was too good to keep to ourselves.

– Quick, gather round! We made a Riot Grrrl-themed mixtape to celebrate the new issue of Printed Pages.

– Dazed & Confused editor Isabella Burley showed us her super sexy bookshelf, complete with Larry Clarke, Richard Prince and John Baldessari to weigh it down.

– In this week’s Opinion piece we debated whether or not there’s a recipe to creating the perfect magazine cover. What do you reckon?

– On the podcast we discussed Bronia Stewart’s photographs of a Mexican gang, Barber Osgerby’s awesome installation at the V&A and Burning Man festival’s rather authoritarian rules

Rob Alderson

I really like Jeff Greenspan’s ability to take a simple idea, stage a lo-fi intervention and stand back and see what happens. The Statue Experiment saw him place a tip jar next to an actual statue in New York, fooling passers-by into thinking it was the best human statue they’d ever seen.

Maisie Skidmore

This week I heard the story of the legendary cyclist Beryl Burton for the first time, and promptly fell into an internet hole watching 50 year-old footage of the time trials she smashed year upon year. Beryl was a working housewife who was first introduced to cycling when she married her husband Charlie, and after joining the local cycling club found she had quite a taste for it. Within two years she’d snagged her first national medal, of which she would go on to win 11 more, including the title of Best British All-Rounder which she won a mind-blowing 25 years in a row from 1959 until 1983. She was also crowned World Champion on the track in the 3000 metre pursuit a grand total of five times, winning no fewer than 90 domestic championships, as well as being the first woman ever to smash a men’s record (which she did two years in a row.) No biggie.

This is a five minute extract from Racing is Life, a documentary about her life, which sends goosebumps up my arms every time I watch it. It’s worth pressing play on for the first minute alone, where Beryl quietly recounts a conversation with a doctor who, upon finding out she enjoyed doing a bit of cycling (to his distaste) remarked “well if the hills get too hard you must get off and walk. I’m sure the boys will wait for you.” She might be my new favourite person.

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Vernon Merritt III: The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images

Amy Lewin

If you haven’t already discovered the infinite joys of the LIFE photo galleries then you may thank me kindly for bringing this source of delight into your weekend. Every day a new image is dusted off from their cavernous archive and gifted to our eyes. Today, for example, it’s a portrait of a pig who was once famous. A few days ago, the wannabes who auditioned to be members of the Addam’s Family graced computer screens around the globe. I LOVE archives, and this is one of my faves.

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About the Author

Maisie Skidmore

Maisie joined It’s Nice That fresh out of university in the summer of 2013 as an intern before joining full time as an Assistant Editor. Maisie left It’s Nice That in July 2015.

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