The grumpy older man

Actually these are mysteries, more than one, and definitely more than anyone right in their mind could count. To name only two: Rumours surrounding the identity of the creator (or creators) of Bitcoin, who hide(s) behind the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, tales of fraud and collapsed cryptocurrency exchanges such as Quadriga, once Canada’s largest following the […]

When I was a kid, my parents used to take me once or twice a year to the theatre, to see a musical or a play. And it always was something special: we would dress up to the eyeballs and then mingle and sit among other well-dressed and -behaved individuals. During the performance there would […]

It was a good night not only for the British at the Golden Globes in Beverly Hills last night! Olivia Colman, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Taron Egerton and Sir Sam Mendez among the big winners. And for the fifth time (not in a row) the Golden Globes were hosted by Ricky Gervais, another Brit, albeit with a […]

The annual movie awards season kicks off with the Golden Globes tonight, and interestingly for the first time it’s Netflix movies which lead the way this year, rather than the traditional film studios. The Irishman by Martin Scorsese with Robert De Niro and Al Pacino, one of the contenders for awards tonight. With a budget […]

Coins‘ association with luck have a long tradition: from throwing coins into the Trevi fountain in Rome, to the Irish keeping loose pennies in their pockets for luck to some Americans believing that silver dollars bring luck because they are rarer and worth more than other coins. In Chinese culture, a lucky coin is held […]

I never thought I would use the words ‚vaccination‘ and ‚bribe‘ in the same sentence — let alone in the context of a country such as Switzerland. But here we go: each year Switzerland like most of Western Europe gets hit by a seasonal flu epidemic, with the Swiss federal health authority reporting, that last […]

Here an update as far as yesterday‘s blog entry is concerned: the employment tribunal in Norwich has ruled that ethical veganism is a philosophical belief and therefore protected by law. http://news.sky.com/story/ethical-veganism-is-a-philosophical-belief-tribunal-says-11900304

You probably haven’t heard of Jordi Casamitjana before, and neither have I, however, his name popped up in the news this morning, since a panel in Norwich will decide if the practice of abstaining from using animal products can be protected under the Equality Act 2010. For those not in the know, the British Equality […]

Happy New Year to all of you! Now let’s face it, by the time I post and you read this blog entry, your new year’s resolutions may already have gone out of the window.. as might mine by the way… Researchers say 60% of the population make new year’s resolutions, but only 8% are successful […]