Evening all,

Carole here at the end of a busy week, bringing you our weekly Stewart Lee column, a deep dive on Epstein and eugenics, Ellen E Jones’ very witty take on Emerald Fennell’s new “horny” Wuthering Heights and much more.

The people behind the platform that hosts our newsletter, beehiiv, were in town this week and drew us into various events including one with a load of distraught journalists from the US broadcaster CBS. That’s the legendary US network bought by Trump’s ally, David Ellison, now headed by darling of the right-wing, Bari Weiss.

Their tales of an organisation haemorrhaging veteran correspondents and kowtowing to Trump’s agenda was genuinely chilling. More uplifting was Nerve co-founder Sarah's presentation at beehiiv’s independent media event at Google HQ on the Nerve’s success in our first five months.

Then last night, we hosted a members’ screening of the incredible Oscar- and BAFTA-nominated The Voice of Hind Rajab with the director and producers. It’s such a significant piece of work, both politically and artistically, telling the story of the last hours of five-year-old Palestinian child Hind through the actual recordings of her voice, trapped in a car with the bodies of six of her family members as a rescue team desperately struggles to get to her. Independent journalism is at the heart of what the Nerve is doing and I feel proud that we’re able to stand alongside and support independent artists and filmmakers doing the incredibly challenging work of making a film like this.

We are on our way to another Nerve screening tonight - of another great independent film also nominated for a BAFTA, Cover-Up, by director Laura Poitras (of Edward Snowden doc Citizen Four fame) which went on to be acquired by Netflix, who are sponsoring a fancy intimate screening for our founder members. Do watch it if you’re a Netflix subscriber. We’ll try and post clips of the Q&A with Laura next week.

In today’s edition we’re publishing a fascinating long read by Virginia Heffernan that I highly recommend. Virginia, a brilliant tech and cultural critic, writes about how she was invited into the rarified clique around Jeffrey Epstein by literary agent John Brockman. I bonded with Virginia on Twitter some years ago when she posted about her experiences with an organisation that had long fascinated me, Brockman’s intellectual forum Edge.org.

Brockman’s talent was to take academic nerds and make them into stars. His clients included Daniel Dennett, Steven Pinker and Marvin Minsky. And Epstein’s money greased Brockman’s wheels while giving Epstein access to Harvard’s stars. What Virginia masterfully unpicks is the ideology that threads through some of this elite circle: race science, eugenics, biological essentialism. Do give it a read.

For something a little lighter, we have this by Nerve contributor Michaela Mashuka on how a cutesy Super Bowl ad featuring lost dogs went viral for all the wrong reasons. And below is the rest of our bumper weekend edition.

Did you see last week’s reports of a rat infestation in Parliament? “In Westminster, you are either right next to a rat or, as is more likely, you are actually a rat and haven’t realised” writes our resident satirist Stewart Lee. “Peter Mandelson was said to have admired the rats, and spent many hours alone with them, learning their ways, in their deluxe bespoke burrow near the members’ bar in just his pants.” Read the full, very funny column here.

"Do the puddle-soaked hems of baggy jeans feel just as heavy while you wait for your Heathcliff at the 253 bus stop as on the wily, windy moors?" asks Nerve film critic Ellen E Jones this week as she explores whether Emerald Fennell's horny take on Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights will resonate with today's teens. Ellen loved Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet, and the Austen adaptation Clueless, so did she enjoy the latest reinvention of a beloved classic featuring Cathy as a 35-year-old teen, Heathcliff played by a white actor and a distinct whiff of Mills & Boon? Read her column here

Author of four recipe books including her bestselling 2015 debut Mamushka, London-based Ukrainian chef Olia Hercules co-launched the incredible #CookForUkraine initiative in 2022 to raise money for her war-torn country. She has also written a heartfelt family memoir, Strong Roots: A Ukrainian Family History Through War, Exile and Hope, just out in paperback, and today tells the Nerve about her recent cultural discoveries including an alternative to Netflix, a midnight forest music experience and her all-time favourite restaurant where "every bite is so full of soul".

"Brazilian music has had a stronghold in the British musical underground since the days of acid jazz," writes Nerve music critic Kate Hutchinson, "and has been nudging into the mainstream again lately..." So this week Kate went to check out São Paulo’s rising star troubadour, Sessa, as he brightened up a rainy London crowd with his "nimble fretwork and image indebted to tropicália’s 70s heyday and forefathers such as Gilberto Gil". Read why she thinks Sessa is a must-listen in these harsh times here.

On Monday, 16-year-old Princess Dickson took her own life following incessant targeting on the anonymous anti-influencer forum Tattle Life. The commenters on the site, who pass judgement on “people that choose to monetise their personal life” are not monsters, but mainly professional women – teachers, nurses, social workers, etc. In a powerful piece, psychologist and campaigner Dr Jessica Taylor, who has worked to hold the site to public account, argues that we need to reckon with the fact that these are “ordinary adults, enabled by technology, choosing cruelty in their spare time” and that we cannot “pretend this is shocking, rare, or unpredictable.” Read the piece here.

Noor Murad who grew up in the Gulf worked in Ottolenghi’s London test kitchen and is the author of an enchanting new book, Lugma - Abundant Dishes and Stories from My Middle East, now shortlisted for a prestigious Andre Simon Award. She shares a recipe for a Bahraini stew or saloonat dajaj. “I thought perhaps I wouldn’t include a saloona recipe in this book, but my dad informed me in no uncertain terms that this would be sacrilege.” Get the recipe here.

Please forward this email to anyone you think might enjoy the Nerve. See you next week!

Carole, co-founder