Happy Friyay Sebastian,

Happy World Emoji Day! A fine moment to admit the little chaps at the end of our history section are picked with far more care than anyone would ever guess, and to tip our hat to Emoji Coke, which turned the same idea into a shelf full of awards. 😀

In this edition: 300 gold Mozart statues with a theft allowance built in, Tesco turning lettuces into footballs, and a seven-storey office shaped like a picnic basket.

So it's time to pour something cold and enjoy today's Weekend Reads.

As always, big love,

Chris and the 42courses team x

P.S. We're celebrating 10 years of 42courses, so if you're thinking of getting a course or a membership, use the code 4224 at checkout for a lovely surprise.

300 Gold Mozarts, With A Theft Allowance Built In · Salzburg is marking 270 years since Mozart's birth with 300 golden statuettes by artist Ottmar Hörl. They made 400, on the sensible assumption that some would wander off. Two were nicked within hours.

What Happened To My Thinking When I Stopped Typing · Hot off our blog this week. I now spend more time talking out loud to an AI than I do to my own wife, which got me wondering whether typing has been a handbrake on my thinking for twenty years.

Tesco Turns The Lettuce Into A Football · World Cup fever has reached the salad aisle, with iceberg lettuces repackaged as footballs. Proof that a good idea costs rather less than a sponsorship.

A Seven-Storey Office Shaped Like A Picnic Basket · The old Longaberger headquarters in Ohio is an exact enlargement of the company's best-selling basket, handles and all. The handles are heated in winter so they don't ice up. Yours for $8.5m.

Aviva Caught £233m Of Bogus Claims Last Year · Fraudsters are now using AI to conjure up crash photos, repair invoices and medical notes. A quietly fascinating look at what happens to honesty when the effort required to lie drops to almost nothing.

Could You Hibernate Your Way To Mars? · Scientists are trying to borrow a 250 million year old trick from bears and squirrels. Sleep through the journey and you need less food, less space and less of nearly everything.

One Man's Quest For The Perfect Slice Of Bread · A German chap has filmed himself slicing a loaf every single day, chasing a slice of perfectly consistent width. A fortnight ago he got within 0.08mm, and nearly 150,000 people are now following along.

Leonardo Da Vinci's 7 Rules For Better Ideas · Leonardo wasn’t just a genius. He was a relentless observer, experimenter, and dot-connector. Here are seven lessons in creativity from the ultimate Renaissance mind.

1841 · The first issue of Punch, the satirical magazine that would poke fun at Britain for the next 150 years, appears in London on a starting investment of £25 📰

1899 · Nippon Electric Company opens for business in Tokyo, the first foreign-affiliated company in Japan, and the great-grandparent of today's NEC ☎️

1902 · A 25 year old engineer named Willis Carrier initials a set of drawings to stop humidity ruining the colour printing at a Brooklyn press, and quietly invents modern air conditioning ❄️

1938 · Douglas Corrigan becomes the first person to fly non-stop from New York to Dublin. He had been told he couldn't, went anyway, and blamed a faulty compass reading, a story he stuck to for the rest of his life ✈️

1955 · Disneyland opens on a former orange grove in California, with a gas leak, a traffic jam and no food. Walt christened it Black Sunday, and a million people came anyway within ten weeks 🏰

1959 · Mary Leakey spots a piece of bone in Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, drives back to camp shouting "I've got him!", and pushes the human family tree back 1.75 million years 🦴

1968 · Yellow Submarine has its world premiere at the London Pavilion, with all four Beatles in the seats and Piccadilly Circus at a total standstill 🎬

1975 · An American Apollo and a Soviet Soyuz dock in orbit for the first handshake in space. NASA had it timed to happen directly above Bognor Regis, but a slight delay meant it took place over Metz instead 🤝

1994 · Brazil beat Italy on penalties at the Rose Bowl, the first World Cup final ever settled by a shootout, and still the only one goalless after 120 minutes ⚽