Hi everyone,

It’s Imogen here with our weekend edition, writing from a very slooooow and packed train home to London from Manchester, where last night the Nerve hosted a conversation with the brilliant American author Dave Eggers. Dave was chatting with our own Lucia Osborne-Crowley to launch his hotly anticipated new novel Contrapposto, but the wide-ranging, uplifting conversation covered everything from book-banning in the US to Dave’s lawsuits against Anthropic for their unauthorised use of his books to train their systems. (He’s hilarious on how the machines weren’t given his tech dystopia novels The Circle and The Every in case the books hurt their feelings!)

One of Dave’s greatest passions, and a subject he kept returning to, is children and helping nurture their imaginations. As well as being a writer, Dave runs McSweeney’s, the publishing house and literary journal he founded in San Francisco in 1998, and has set up many non-profits over the years, with a particular focus on running creative workshops with children. In the face of big tech, AI and the addictive pull of screens, he’s committed to getting kids to use pens and paper (or, at most, typewriters) to draw, write and create zines and books. “Only humans can create art,” he told the audience when he was invited by Sam Altman of OpenAI to speak on stage at their campus. Take that, Sam!

In today’s edition, we are also delighted to be featuring another great champion of the rights of children and campaigner against Big Tech – the film-maker and peer Beeban Kidron, who is answering the Nerve Q&A. Beeban’s directing credits include Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason and an adaptation of Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit but, after making a documentary in 2012, while her own kids were still teenagers, about how smartphones were changing childhood, she moved her focus to online safety for children and set up a non-profit called 5Rights Foundation. Now she’s got a new book out called Users: How Big Tech Took Control and How to Fight Back. 

Beeban is fascinating on the subject of the social media ban in the UK, which proposes restricting access for under-16s to Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, X and so on. “If these apps were an air fryer, they would have been recalled by now,” she says in the interview. “They are dangerous, they are hurting kids, they are depressing kids, and they’re killing kids.” But she doesn’t feel an outright ban is the answer. She’s also got plenty to say about the tech bros, including Mark Zuckerberg and Larry Ellison (and Ellison’s cosy relationship with Tony Blair); as well as what Andy Burnham ought to do to clean up Westminster’s relationship with tech. Beeban also echoes Dave on the importance of real-world childhood experiences. When asked what she would do if she were given a million pounds tomorrow? She said she’d buy tickets to the theatre or a football game for a huge group of kids. “Let them have a mad, fabulous day, with ice cream and entertainment, in real life.”

And a reminder that we have recently launched the Nerve Bookshop. If you buy Beeban Kidron’s Users or any of the titles mentioned today using the affiliate link in the article, it benefits both independent bookshops and us – and, importantly, it avoids you supporting any of those undesirable tech bros. 

This week, Stewart trains his lens on the “grassroots organisation” that is Raise the Colours, which “coordinates the rigging of tatty England flags in areas where they will cause maximum intimidation to minorities”. Who are its members? Why is the rightwing press so intent on portraying them as “decent patriots who just love England and being English, like cheery Pearly Kings with cherry-picker vans full of St George’s flags and cable ties”? Read his column to find out…

She’s represented Meta shareholders against Zuckerberg and been instrumental in changing the law to protect children from Big Tech. Now the campaigner, film-maker and crossbench peer has written a call to arms: Users: How Big Tech Took Control and How to Fight Back. Lucia Osborne-Crowley sat down with Beeban for the Nerve Q&A, and we love her list of advice on how we can claw back agency over tech: “Fix a time for your friends, don't be endlessly available. Leave your phone in the hallway, have some time off… [and] you don't need to follow everyone, just pick three people to follow and, when you're bored, get rid of those three and follow three others. Or: one app in, one app out.” Read the interview here.

The 75th anniversary celebrations for the Festival of Britain have focused on London’s South Bank and largely ignored its more widespread – even radical – visions elsewhere, including planting a woodland in Sheffield, creating public benches in Lincolnshire and even building a permanent model housing estate in Poplar, in London’s East End. “Perhaps it is in the interests of contemporary politicians to downplay just how widespread and ambitious the Festival of Britain truly was?” writes Phin. Read their column here.

Entering Ai’s new exhibition at Factory International in Manchester – the largest site-specific show to date by the Beijing-born artist – “you feel like you’ve stepped out of this world and become a mere speck in another,” says Nerve contributing writer and critic Kadish Morris. Ai is one of the world’s best-known living artists and the vast new show features sculptures, ceramics and more to explore British imperialism, war, violence and injustice. Does it sometimes feel like scale for scale’s sake? Read Kadish’s review to find out.

The Bangladeshi-born British writer Tahmima Anam’s new novel Uprising, inspired by the real story of sex workers trapped on a floating brothel, is so dark that she says “it made me physically ill”. She shares her cultural tips, including the song which exposes her “inner cranky auntie”; a whodunit told from the point of view of sheep; and a manga animation in which 80% of the male population is decimated by a mystery illness. Read Tahmima’s choices here.

Northern Irish barbecue champion Jim Moore, who has seen his debut book How to BBQ Everything become a summer bestseller, says that cooking on an open fire to him means “plenty of banter, hearty laughter and wonderful memories”. Here Jim shares a summer recipe which takes him right back to the sun-soaked sands of Australia’s Gold Coast. Get the recipe here.

Thanks for reading - please click on the ad for non data-devouring email Proton Mail below to earn us a few pennies. We’ll see you again on Sunday…

Imogen

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