Monday 17 August, 2026

Holy Smoke! Nice juxtaposition on a Donegal beach. Quote of the Day ”A man’s dying is more the survivors’ affair than his own.” Thomas Mann Musical alternative to the morning’s radio news Paul Simon | Graceland Link Triggered by a marvellous BBC Prom the other night Long Read of the Day Temperature Zero for Culture: Why Everything Is Starting to Look the Same This a fabulous, insightful essay by Lauren Leek, a great data scientist, on a question that has puzzled me for ages: why do so many females with online followings seem to look alike? Ditto for ads for upmarket apartments. Ditto for city high streets. It puzzled Lauren too, but unlike me she found a way of explaining it. I’ve spent most of the last decade unable to answer the simplest question anyone asks: where’s home? I’ve lived in multiple countries, with a passport situation that makes border guards frown. Now I’m moving again, to The Hague, and it was house-hunting that finally made me see it. Every flat I scrolled, in a…