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The Brunch round-up for September 19: The week and how it made us feel
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This week, we’re getting champagne, judging people’s dark secrets, going on Hyrox dates and decoding Wikipedia lore
Wiki in the knees. Didn’t think Wikipedia would ragebait us, but on their Insta, they’re dropping pictures from their articles, making us guess the subject in as few hints as possible. Skull, epitaph, skeleton-themed clock? Of course, Memento Mori. Wiki, if you’re coming for the nerds, you’d best level up.
Starting to vine. Summer in France is now so hot, the grapes on the vines produce more sugar, which means the alcohol content will be higher in the wine they yield. So, winemakers are now allowed to produce champagne with 15% alcohol, 2% higher than the usual. Bottle it up. A rare chance for future humans to say that 2026 was a good year.
Wrapping up. Grab a plate babe, an iconic mukbang just dropped. Leah Shutkever devoured a burrito in 30.75 seconds, setting a Guinness World Record. Cool, cool. What we want to know is how do you prep for this? Which hacks help you eat faster? What’s the competition like? Is there starving involved? Don’t sleep on this documentary, @Netflix.
Judging together. The next time your brain keeps you awake at 3am, replaying your every embarrassing moment, visit @JudgySeries Reels. Amber Singletary gets people to ’fess up to the worst decisions they made. One woman admitted she’d asked for a donation back when the recipient died. Even Law Roach has come on record to say he lied about having diarrhea to skip work. Bliss! We’re all unhinged!
Picking a shade. We’ve sent rovers to Mars. We make driverless cars. How is it that we’re only now getting a nail-polish pen? US brand Sweenly has a felt-tip marker pen that needs a little bit of shaking to deliver coloured inks directly onto your nail. No mess. No fuss. Why didn’t we think of this ourselves?
Checking him out. SeaWorld Orlando’s Halloween attraction, Just One More Chapter, is dedicated to the dark romantasies of BookTok. Think ACOTAR’s bad boy Tamlin and Lights Out’s masked hero, Josh Hammond, come to life. The men aren’t perfect. Most of them have spray-painted abs, and just stand and stare. Hey, still be a better experience than the last Hinge date.
Swiping left. HYROX has partnered with SURF Dating, which matches fitness enthusiasts, to organise blind dates at the competitions. Hurrah. Gym bros and gals can finally connect with people who meet their HyStandards, and go on wall ball dates with. Leave us couch potatoes alone.
So buzzed. Scientists just mapped a male fruit fly’s brain — all 166,000 neurons and millions of synaptic connections — and made it public. The internet responded the way you think it did. Someone turned the fly brain into a day trader (it made $1). Others made it parallel park, play Doom, and run through Super Mario 64. Never change, world!
From HT Brunch, September 19, 2026
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