The nave skywards, lofty fanning framing azure stained windows, at Beauvais cathedral; making pause.

Lent

Title page of an early (1719) Amsterdam edition of 'Adventures of Telemachus' by Francois Fenelon; once a bestseller, now a forgotten critique of selfish greed.

How hard would it be, I wonder, to never (knowingly) put money in a billionaire's pocket again ... is there an app for boycotting greed?

If you follow me on here but are also still on the HellSite, please don't - just unfollow me! ... I don't feed fascism.

“Hated school, dropped out at 11, can't read, can't write. But I can do this!” 💥💡

That's real feedback from one of the participants in a #prison #philosophy class funded by the Royal Institute of Philosophy.

Find out more about our work in prisons: royalinstitutephilosophy.org/news/how-phi...

That was a great gig, that was, last night at Het Concertgebouw; thanks!

La Frégate ... warm enough to sit outside ... enfin!

An elbow-knocked blurry photo of a packed jazz room in Amsterdam; an LP cover in need of a lost band.

Whoopsie-daisy jazz night (at Cafe Alto, Amsterdam):

Your experience is, obviously, not my experience. Good to hear. You've cheered me up.

Stormzy calls reading a ‘superpower’ as he backs accessible books campaign The musician is championing the annual Quick Reads initiative, which will release six short, digestible titles for ‘nonreaders and lapsed readers’ in April for £1 each

"Books have the power to carry you through life." Stormzy (2026)

www.theguardian.com/books/2026/f...

Iris van Herpen - Kunsthal Up to and including Sunday 1 March, Kunsthal Rotterdam’s HALL 2 will be entirely dedicated to the work of the world-famous Dutch fashion designer Iris van Herpen (1984). Van Herpen is one of the most ...

If in Rotterdam: an engrossing exhibition, profiling the strikingly fresh creativity of Iris van Herpen: www.kunsthal.nl/en/plan-your...

The near universal adoption of fiat currency, in a decade after the 1973 Nixon Shock.

bsky.app/profile/blak...

When I visit England, in the rural North, the conversation can turn quickly to 'stopping the boats', largely thanks to the BBC upping a 'migrant crisis'. This is utter bollocks. The huge English crises are, as ever, poverty & illiteracy.

bsky.app/profile/blak...

Nassim Nicholas Taleb - Wikipedia

For those new to Nassim Taleb, a wiki summary: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nassim_...

Amsterdam harbour as twilight approaches, looks calm, but is it?

Woke up thinking with Taleb; AI frenzy is a 'white swan', we see a bubble & know how such stories go (Nortel etc); the $ looked 'anti-fragile', but such in-fighting (in a G7 country) has no precedent - a 'black swan' takes flight?

Mozes Rosenberg Trio - Peko YouTube video by SINTI MUSIC

If you see Mozes Rosenberg play ... oh my; lean elegance, from flawless technique: m.youtube.com/watch?v=5Z4x...

Angelo Debarre - After you've gone (Selmer Guitar) YouTube video by Henri SELMER Paris

If you see Angelo Debarre play ... oh my; here's a taste: m.youtube.com/watch?v=2StN...

Two men on a matinee jazz stage, coaxing wondrous music from their guitars (a manouche acoustic and a slim chambered telecaster).

There's still joyous stuff out there; Mozes Rosenberg & Anton Goudsmit - so much soul, fun & stylish technique: @bimhuis.bsky.social

Black and white portrait of a young boy with neat hairstyle and a collared shirt, looking slightly to the side with a gentle expression.

25 January 1935 | Dutch Jewish boy, John Groenteman, was born in Amsterdam.

He was deported to #Auschwitz from #Westerbork in September 1942. He was murdered in a gas chamber after the arrival selection.
---

Children at Auschwitz:
🎧 Podcast: https://youtu.be/aYKx_zpLSqA

"Warnings ... point toward what is to come and are meant to involve us in the possibility of a radical break, a discontinuity with the present signaled by alarming signs that we are asked to confront." Santiago Zabala (2025) #warnings

Whoops! Should have included this link, to the author, here: @hkohpeiss.bsky.social

Book cover for the new English translation (2025 trans. Grace Nissan) of 'Bourgeois Complacency' (2023) by Henrike Kohpeiß (pub. Divided).

"Europe is the site where violence and bourgeois complacency meet." Henrike Kohpeiß (2023)

What do you feel is the biggest threat to our national security right now?

The UK Joint Intelligence Committee has released its report on the threat of biodiversity and ecological collapse on national security.

Its a chilling read: assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/696e0e...

Done. I let the fund manager know why I'd sold. They emailed straight back, keen to understand retail 'investor sentiment'; EU asset managers will now see the $ with fresh eyes, as unsafe.

Finely carved gothic religious figures, inside Laon cathedral; smote headless, during a previous violent, hegemonic, power shift.

A future for Venezuela, Gaza & Greenland is being drawn up in golf-club bars & then declared in hotel lobbies; the UN has been back-watered, while EU leaders stay polite:

Gregory Bateson comes to mind - a visible breakdown of 'recursive epistemology'.

In the Netherlands you could bin those; zero risk of banter.

A homemade bottle trap, to capture fruit flies, looking for rotting garbage; a white paper funnel swirl, clipped with a wooden peg; luring the greedy.

Yesterday, at my local grocery in Amsterdam:
Me: I won't shop here any longer, now that you are selling Israeli fruit.
Shop: I sell what people want, I also sell products from the US, and from Iran.
-- that bracketing is so apt: