The antidote: your favourite weekend reads beyond coronavirus

In this series we’re listing the previous day’s top articles by reading time. You can read a little more about how and why we’re doing it here. Today’s list covers the weekend, from Friday 27 to Sunday 29 March.

Friday 27 March

Canada mourns Takaya – the lone sea wolf whose spirit captured the world

When Doug Paton burst from his trailer on a warm spring afternoon, he expected to confront yet another stray dog agitating the livestock on his sister’s farm. Instead, standing barefoot in the grass, he found himself face to face with a wolf. “I’ll never forget that face as long as I live. I just close my eyes and see it.”’ The story of a wolf who became legendary for his resilience and tenderness, and his recent tragic death.

John Robbie: ‘The apartheid leaders wanted to kill me with a crossbow’

John Robbie made his name playing rugby for Ireland, the Lions and in South Africa. He toured during apartheid, a decision he considers a stain that will never leave him. In this fascinating interview he tells of how he stayed in the country to play rugby, “living in this privileged bubble”, but began to speak out. Eventually he came to have a popular breakfast radio show in Johannesburg, where he gained a reputation for holding politicians to account and championing the new South Africa. “I have always hoped that my work will go in some small way to atoning for that decision I made coming out here as a player.”

Experience: my eight-year-old son drove us down the dual carriageway

Weekend magazine’s Experience column has delighted, gripped and engaged readers for many years. Here, Lauren Smith tells of how her son saved both their lives after she had a seizure driving down a dual carriageway. “I gripped the steering wheel tightly, then let go. That’s when we began swerving to the right. Other cars were beeping. We crashed into the central reservation and scraped along it as the car continued to pick up speed.”

The Strokes: ‘There was conflict and fear and we got through it’

Interviewing Julian Casablancas a few years ago, Alexis Petridis notes, could be “the kind of event that journalists discussed among themselves in hushed, horrified tones”. Happily things go rather better here, with the band discussing their failure to match their initial success, being more famous outside of America, internal conflict and their new album, “the best thing they have done in years”.

20 of the best travel films

When you’re unable to travel, a bit of lateral thinking and a streaming service can be a godsend. Anna Smith brings together 20 films in which the location is the real star, from Rome to the Amazon to the Australian outback.

Saturday 28 March

Road trips, yoga and LSD with the dentist: what the Beatles did next

What happens when you stop being the most famous band in the world? Craig Brown captures Paul’s efforts to live in disguise in France (“It made me remember why we all wanted to be famous”), the night George and John had their drinks spiked by their dentist and a Christmas dinner at Apple featuring the largest turkey in the UK, Hells Angels, 40 children, John and Yoko dressed as Father and Mother Christmas … and a punch-up.

Did my son inherit autism from my misunderstood mother?

Patience Agbabi’s son Solomon was diagnosed with autism when he was five years old. When first asked the question “Is anyone else in your family autistic?” she dismissed it. Here she speaks movingly of how she came to see her mother in a different light in the wake of the diagnosis. “My mother’s stroke might have been prevented had we considered the possibility that her mind was wired differently. She wanted relationships but couldn’t maintain them. She wanted peace: she has it now. How many more women are out there struggling, undiagnosed?”

Blind date: ‘I wish we’d talked more about hot priests’

Blind date is always popular with readers, and deeply read, but there’s something particularly appealing about this column in a world of self isolation. “Would I introduce her to my friends? Yes. I would also like to introduce her to the ghosts in my house for an exorcism.”

How Panamanian villagers were left at the mercy of a murderous sect

It’s often assumed that readers shy away from trickier stories, but one constant of these lists is how people consistently engage with serious, challenging journalism. “By the time the officers reached the village, the violent ritual at the Nueva Luz de Dios – New Light of God – sect was well into its fourth day. Local villagers, members of the Ngäbe-Buglé indigenous group, are adamant that – were it not for a long history of state abandonment – lives could have been saved.”

My favourite game: Cardiff v Coventry at Cardiff Arms Park, 1972

Paul Rees remembers Barry John, “a mixture of Machiavelli and Napoleon”, and how he turned certain defeat into an unlikely victory. “It became clear, as three defenders converged on him, that he was not going to make it but still he went on. At the point just before the three pounced on him, he passed blindly out of the back of his right hand. Chugging up in support, the No 8 did not have to break his stride, only catch the ball with the defence occupied elsewhere.”

Sunday 28 March

Brought to book: Woody Allen’s memoir is the most damning indictment yet

“Barely three weeks since Hachette cancelled Woody Allen’s memoir, the book has been published elsewhere, and confirms that Stephen King, among many others, was right to worry about its suppression. The only person who stood to benefit from the silencing of Woody Allen was Woody Allen.”

‘He didn’t even pretend to let us win’… Growing up with the world’s biggest stars, by their children

A host of celebrity children, from John Lennon’s son to Samuel L Jackson’s daughter, recall growing up in the shadow of a parent. These stories take an alien experience that can be difficult to empathise with and render it human and relatable while at the same time casting fresh light on people we think we know well. “By the time The Big Lebowski came out, I was in high school, and, just like a typical teenager, I had zero interest in my father’s work. What I remember most is that my dad was wearing those hideous Sun Jellies from the movie. They were actually my dad’s own shoes. My sister and I were so embarrassed, we threw them into the ocean. Today, they’d probably be worth a lot of money.”

Remaking One Nation: The Future of Conservatism – review

Like all the best non-fiction reviews, this piece from Andrew Rawnsley captures the essence of a book with concision and builds an argument beyond it. Here he notes that the memoir of Theresa May’s former svengali, Nick Timothy, “reads like an account from a very distant time. This was the era before the 2019 election when Johnson won the Tory majority that May couldn’t. Before we’d left the EU. Before the coronavirus crisis, the scale of which makes all other politics look exceedingly small and gives a petty flavour to tales of past personality clashes.”

A few wise words for my nearly-adult boys

Emma Beddington’s thoughts on a universal fear for parents struck a real chord with our readers. “It’s a slow then all-at-once thing, this parenting business. The days felt interminable for years (there was a single afternoon in 2004 when they both had chickenpox that definitely took five years off my life; and time seemed to take on a hallucinatory, elastic quality as my elder son examined every knob and twiddly bit of every train in the London Transport Museum every week for a year), now suddenly there’s no time left.”

Exploding the myths behind K-pop

Bright and irresistible, K-pop provides the beat to South Korea’s youth culture. But behind the perfect smiles and dance routines are tales of sexism and abuse, says Crystal Tai, in this fascinating look behind the scenes of the country’s best-known cultural export. “At the height of their fame, these men and women seem to have buckled under the strain, unable to live up to the demands placed on them to be polished, picture-perfect ambassadors of this effervescent pop music.”