I’m continuing a last minute blog de force by continuing to document some odds and ends of 2020 that haven’t hit the dot com quite yet. This one harkens back to June, which might as well been a decade ago at this point. For the past two years I’ve taught in Arezzo, Italy during the […]
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Is it any surprise that this extraordinary year saw more world-class palindromes then any year in recent history? “2020” is almost a palindrome, after all. (This happens very rarely in years.) Palindromes, for those who don’t know, are words and…
As we conducted our way through the symphony of 2020, music was our compass and our map, always there to guide us to the next note as we played the instruments of our lives. The art of good music can be…
2020 saw, among other things, a massive increase in the popularity of politics. Some of this was to be expected, as November elections were held towards the end of the year. These elections would inevitably lead to political stories and…
One of my quarantine projects started last summer when my dad brought over a gigantic box of family photos. I had never really thought about what happened to photos that we printed that didn’t make it into the albums. As it turned out, my dad threw all of them into a box. Who knew? With […]
Oh, fashion. What a year you had! From the runways of Paris to the glossy magazines of New York and Milan, in 2020 we lived, ate, and breathed many things … and one of them was fashion. Fashion (the art of…
As Americans spent more and more time online in 2020, they created (and enjoyed) more and more memes online. Memes can be confusing for those who aren’t familiar with internet culture. But for those of us in the know, nothing…
2020 was a year of transition for the podcast industry. With more people working from home, they had less time to listen to podcasts during their commutes to and from work. Advertising revenue took a dip. On the other hand,…
When we look back on this year, what will be the parables of 2020? But first, we must define “parables.” Parables are an ancient way of making sense of our world and our surroundings through simple stories. From the Good…
The unexpected challenges of 2020 left no industry unscathed, and that includes the Movie Industry. From Hollywood to New York, all who make their living by making movies found themselves in unfamiliar waters, negotiating the needs of safety with the…
Technology is the art of moving forward. Grounded in science, yet inspired by creative thinking, new technologies improve our lives in ways both large and small. Everything from your dishwasher to your favorite invention is a result of people using…
How will history remembers the sports of 2020? There were special bubbles, delayed tournaments, tragic outcomes, and of course … more excitement than ever before! Sports, perhaps more than any other aspect of our culture, show us the true…
Here’s all you need to know about video games: The video game industry is worth more money than the movie industry. On any given night, there are more video games than television shows in major US households. These two statistics…
There has never been a more complex entity than the human mind, and 2020 was no different. We used our minds for many things during this extraordinary year, and one such thing we used our minds for was to get…
Social media, the defining phenomenon of our time, has given rise to a new breed of celebrities. Known as “influencers,” their names may be unfamiliar to you, but ask your kids: They will have heard of them. Often found on YouTube,…
How can you be worried about interest rises when you’re issuing fixed interest rate securities? Isn’t that sort of the point of fixing the interest rate?
My Mum sent me this postcard after she had walked across Spain. It is an illustration from a Russian Fairy story, “Feather Of Finist Falcon” by Ivan Bilibin.
I am reading Robert MacFarlane‘s, “The Old Ways, A Journey On Foot”. I love …
History will judge that the near 50-year relationship between the UK and Europe has been good for both. Best to forget the rancorous ending
Now that a deal has been done, the end of Britain’s life as a member of the European Union can be decently mourned. As funeral orations go, the one William Shakespeare put into the mouth of Mark Antony in Julius Caesar is, well, world-beating: “The evil that men do lives after them,/ The good is oft interred with their bones.” Before we throw the last handful of earth on the corpse of Britain’s membership of the European Union, we might briefly disinter the good things about the relationship.
A bad ending gets projected backwards. A messy divorce obliterates the years of reasonably happy marriage. Brexit has projected into the future a sour story of resentment and rancour. Almost 50 years of history are squeezed into a deterministic story of irreconcilable incompatibility. The evil lives on; the good rots in the earth.
Continue reading...How exactly does an FX transaction works in a floating currency rate environment? Read on to find out
When the real world is just too much, sometimes it feels good to dip into the fantasy world of celebrity gossip. Gossip is an ancient human impulse; it’s as old as a roaring campfire around which our caveman ancestors would gather…
2020 was, it must be said, an extraordinary year for food. Food has been a constant source of nutrition and inspiration in our human story, but this year was quite different, and food was also impacted by these differences. As…
If there’s one thing we saw a lot of in 2020, it was controversy. “Controversy” is defined as “arguments” or “fights,” but really it’s something much more serious: It’s a schism between what one person believes to be right and what…
As a wise man once said: “2020 … a year to remember.” As this year draws to a close, we must all agree it was one for the history books. We saw wonderful triumphs as well as unfortunate tragedies, and sometimes it…
Money is created in the UK by order of HM Treasury. Here’s how it works