Victory may have a thousand hand-maidens, but so does complicity.
This podcast tells how to avoid turning your gaze when others’ bad behaviour comes into view. But while a big part of complicity is often silence – “Nothing to see here, folks” – explicit badness can never seem to shut up and sit down. See FIFA President Gianni Infantino’s “meandering” one-hour take-down of Western countries for daring to criticize World Cup host-nation Qatar; and Donald Trump’s “rambling” one-hour speech announcing his run for President in 2024.
But the best examples of this growing art form are the filmed tributes to mendacity on a national scale, like this with David Beckham as part of his £150 million sponsorship deal touting Qatar.
Meanwhile…
1. “Who wants to live forever?” Freddie Mercury’s immortal words introduced the Next Big Investment Thing: growing old and staying alive to 100. The first in-person Longevity Investor’s Conference just wrapped up in Gstaad, limited to 150 rich, buff, largely white people.
2. The 100-year evolution of 9 kitchen appliances. An oddly Proustian look at how we used to cook, freeze and clean things long before we were born, while we were growing up, today – and tomorrow.
3. Two explosive films. The first is She Said, how The New York Times reporters Jodi Kantor and Meg Twohey hoist Harvey Weinstein and sparked the #MeToo movement. It’s opened in Toronto and has won great reviews.
The second is The Flying Sailor, which you can access at nfb.ca (sign in for free), the 7-minute animated film of how two ships collided in Halifax harbour in 1917, sparking the Halifax Explosion. Plus this interview with the filmmakers, Amanda Forbis & Wendy Tilby.
4. Tech may be in crisis. But its benefits are contagious. Let’s take AI which, as a scientist at the Max Planck Institute said, “ It will change medicine. It will change research. It will change bioengineering. It will change everything.” The State of AI Report spells out exactly who will benefit, along with telling commentary from Scott Galloway.
5. Yum. Two readers won nice kudos last week for making our tastes more global. Barry Chaim, founder of Edo Restaurants in Forest Hill, was commended by the Foreign Minister of Japan for advancing the appreciation of Japanese food in Toronto. And Sara Waxman was inducted into the Order of Ontario for “elevating Ontario’s food and hospitality industry in an unparalleled manner.”
6. It’s alive. It’s alive! For those who don’t think of the past as a foreign country, here’s good news: CD sales are on the rise. Bookstores are being remembered, if not re-opened (including the World’s Biggest Bookstore in Toronto); and even dining cars on trains are having a moment.
7. Take the Don River south, then hang a hard right at Villiers Island. Welcome to Toronto’s newest waterfront neighbourhood. It doesn’t exist, (nor does Villiers Island), and won’t until engineers can force the Don away from its hard right at the lake.
8. Hear Colm Feore on Colm Feore. A lively podcast by the Shakespearean actor on playing everyone from Lear to Wernher von Braun, to a Renaissance Pope, Henry Higgins, and… himself.
9. Is the cure for burnout a second job? We’re not talking gig-work here; we’re talking overemployed.
10. The absurd logistics of concert tours. If you think playing the concert is complex, consider all the stuff in between.
Also, Rock And Roll, the song that Robert Plant first recorded with Led Zeppelin more than 50 years ago, performed this month with Plant and Imelda May.
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It’s only going to get colder and snowier. Time to engineer your escape.
If you know about our trips, they don’t involve lying on a beach for a week, but doing adventurous things with fascinating people.
So from January 22 – 29, 2023, we’ll be aboard the 100-guest National Geographic Quest with 50 of our friends as it sails through the Panama Canal and up the west coast of Costa Rica.
This is with Lindblad Expeditions and we’ve been on two of their luxury adventure cruises before, to Antarctica and the Spanish-Portuguese coast. On board and on shore, we were in the hands of the most experienced experts and crew on earth. One evening during “Recap” with cocktails and appetizers in hand, we saw “The Monster of the Day” that our expedition divers filmed from the ocean floor. Oh, and it’s one thing to kayak on Georgian Bay; it’s another to kayak on the Antarctic Ocean. For one, it’s safer in the Antarctic because the Lindblad people are so on top of it.
All to say, we’ve come to expect the best in comfort, dining, adventure and safety from Lindblad, a view confirmed by Condé Nast Traveler, who last year declared them to be the #1 Small Ship Cruise Line in the world.
Our 8-day trip starts when we land in Panama City, Panama, and ends in San José, Costa Rica. The cost is from $6,479 USD per person, depending on what level of cabin you choose (this includes a special savings for our group of 5% off the standard rates). Airfare, of course, is extra.
So – a good deal on a great break in a hot place with nice people in the hands of the best in the business. As founder Sven Lindblad said: “Think of us as a conduit to exhilaration.”
You may already know RamsayTravels does group travel for people who don’t do group travel. People like you. So as we all sit and freeze this winter, think about what you could be doing, and where you’d like to be (and with whom) in January and join us.
So please spend some time with the links above. Then, if you like what you see but you have questions, please e-mail or call me at bob@ramsayinc.com, or 416-822-3452.
If you’re planning on joining please act soon. And if you want more information, here’s the webinar we hosted recently that will give you more details of the trip. To book your cabin, please call the Lindblad folks directly at1-888-773-9007 or email them at groups@expeditions.com.
One last thought: now that we can lift our heads on a different world, isn’t it time to plan what you may have promised yourself you’d do?
If not now, when?
If not you and your family, who?
