The Columns

Have you ever watched a hotel receptionist scanning your passport and wondered: “Right, but where exactly does this stuff end up?” I have. Always. Then I usually get distracted by…

The big announcement from Homeland Security: the dreaded “shoes off” rule at U.S. airports is finally, mercifully, being put out to pasture. For the first time in nearly two decades,…

I wasn’t even thirty when I first read Death Note. I walked away with one clear conviction: we’re not built to carry the weight of omniscience. Let alone when it…

Ready for some joy? You land after a long-haul flight, muscles aching, brain fuzzy, all you want is to get rolling in your pre-booked, pre-checked in rental car. You picture…

Year of Our Lord 1999. Setting: a hotel run by Trappist monks. The website was an HTML liturgy: silence, hospitality and… keyword stuffing. Initiated into the sacred nonsense, I would…

A curious war is a foot, one fought not with bullets, but with lobbying dollars and legislative ink. It’s a conflict being waged against individuals who have made one of…

I must admire the optimism. These campaigns urging travelers to explore the ‘other 99%’ of a country, to get off the beaten path and discover some hidden gem. It’s a…

This morning I booked a hotel.Well—I didn’t book it. A bot did, while I was having breakfast. To be precise: the brand-new ChatGPT Agent, freshly launched in Europe. I told…

Suggested soundtrack for this rant: “Erika”: https://open.spotify.com/intl-it/track/6iUVUzg0c2O0KJjxdOvrdr?si=12b3596922464be4 It shares its name with a drink Americans stubbornly keep ordering after 11 a.m. Unfortunately, it doesn’t share the taste.It’s the Chef who,…