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From the archive: How one man spent 34 years in prison after setting fire to a pair of curtains

We are raiding the Guardian Long Read archives to bring you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors. This week, from 2020: David Blagdon’s long-term detention has been described as ‘barbaric’. Whatever his disastrous personal choices, the system failed him repeatedly. By Mark Olden. Read by Mo Ayoub. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/longreadpod

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  ‘The ghosts are everywhere’: can the British Museum survive its omni-crisi…

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  Turkey said it would become a ‘zero waste’ nation. Instead, it became a du…

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  From the archive: The end of Atlanticism: has Trump killed the ideology th…

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  Signature moves: are we losing the ability to write by hand?

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  ‘Here lives the monster’s brain’: the man who exposed Switzerland’s dirty …

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  From the archive: ‘In my 30 years as a GP, the profession has been horribl…

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  Massacre in the jungle: how an Indigenous man was made the public face of …

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  Israel and the delusions of Germany’s ‘memory culture’

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  From the archive: One drug dealer, two corrupt cops and a risky FBI sting

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  Innit innit boys and Super Eagles: how Nigerian Londoners found their iden…

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  The mysterious novelist who foresaw Putin’s Russia – and then came to symb…

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  From the archive: Was it inevitable? A short history of Russia’s war on Uk…

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  The loudest megaphone: how Trump mastered our new attention age

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  How a young Dutch woman’s life began when she was allowed to die

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  From the archive: The knackerman: the toughest job in British farming

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  ‘Bring me my tariffs’: how Trump’s China plan was 40 years in the making