The Columns

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,…

Remember when Apple was cool?“Think Different,” they used to say—and they meant it. Black-and-white commercials, copywriting that gave even seasoned Wieden+Kennedy creatives chills, and that thrilling sense that the world…

Does this resonate with you? You purchased a product and paid in full significantly in advance of the consumption date. Payment for that product was a four figure sum. The…