The Silk Road was the ultimate route for messengers, merchants, and explorers alike. The roads were used in a few manners, with the main being for commercial trade. China and The Roman Empire It’s because of this network that Han China and the Roman Empire were aware of each other’s existence. Still, the distance and…
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Or How Not to be Angry Amsterdam, 26 December 2021– The police called at my student apartment one early evening, but I didn’t answer as I thought they’d come to evict me. I hadn’t paid my rent in months. But then I got to thinking: my mum hadn’t been too good and what if it was…
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Interestingly, the parable about the exponentially increasing grains of rice Stephen mentions is also there in Bengali Literature (major Eastern Indian language). It was written by one of our greatest writers, Sukumar Ray, in the form of a children’s story called “Daaner Hisheb” (literally- the calculations/records kept of charity). An extremely miserly king is tricked…
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Bankruptcy and jail by Anton Foek Amsterdam, October 21st 2021– The story of William Smith is simply fascinating: the orphaned son of an English country blacksmith, who became obsessed with creating the world’s first geological map and ultimately became the father of modern geology. Craters on Mars named after him as well as an annual lecture of the…
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Paris: Hotel La Louisiane Part I By Jacinthe Gigou Amsterdam, 30 September 2021 — The list of famous and perhaps not so famous moviestars, theatre personalities, national and international artists, painters, writers and the like, who have spent the nights there, is almost endlessly long. But next week, beginning October 2021, the Hotel La Louisiane, in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, will…
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Business as Usual At What Price Part I of II by Yanis Varoufakis edited by Anton Foek Amsterdam, September 26th 2021– Former U.S. president, Donald Trump, humiliated the European Union by annulling the Iran nuclear deal. And now the current president, Joe Biden, has done so too, by announcing the new AUKUS agreement with Australia…
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Centre of the world Part II by Anthony Ham Amsterdam, September 12th 2021—Ag Mohamed Ali initiated travellers into Timbuktu’s secrets. He took them to the private family libraries that still held manuscripts from Timbuktu’s golden age – biographies of the Prophet Muhammad on pages of gold leaf and scientific treatises from the great Islamic scholars of…
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From antique pocket watches to limited-edition luxury timepieces, watch the video to see how a small Swiss town became a centre for astounding craftsmanship and precision. I think with mechanical watchmaking, it’s more of an art,” says Michel Nydegger of luxury watchmaking company Greubel Forsey. “There is an interaction with your timepiece… it’s not just…
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Source: CNN With pseudonyms like the The Bastard, The Broker, The Astronaut and The Vampire, they’ve banded together deep inside the world of Soviet-era watch collecting. This cabal of watch aficionados spans the globe, albeit in cyberspace, bringing history to the wrists of thousands with timepieces dating back to the days of Stalin. Dashiell Oatman-Stanford…
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The Chapel in Vence AF Amsterdam, August 14, 2021–Don’t beat around the bush and we’re certainly not going to lie to each other, but when we visit the Chapel of the Rosary in Vence, near Nice on the Riviera in Southern France, it’s not necessarily out of love for sacred art. It is rather and…
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