Podcasts about Flemish

A live recording from The Big Romance about a 2008 Sub Pop-released classic album of the 2000s. Listen on Apple | Android | Patreon | Pocketcasts | CastBox | Stitcher | Spotify | RSS Feed | Podlink Step into a world of misty melodies and cavernous echoes with Seattle band Fleet Foxes' landmark debut – a defining record of the late-2000s indie folk revival. Led by Robin Pecknold, the album blends the lush, pastoral harmonies of the 1960s with a haunting baroque-pop sensibility and lyrical themes rooted in nature, tradition, and introspection. Like the Bruegel painting on its cover, every track reveals a dense, beautiful world that evokes a timeless – almost mythic Americana sound. This podcast episode is a live recording from our listening party in The Big Romance in April, with guest journalist and Fleet Foxes fan Aoife Barry. Our next Listening Party is Smashing Pumpkins later this month and it's sold out. Listen Closely: Fleet Foxes – Fleet Foxes (2008) A Nialler9 listening party, hosted by Niall Byrne with guest Aoife Barry. Before the album Niall: Hello everyone, how are you? Welcome to the Listen Closely album listening party. I'm Niall, and this is Aoife Barry. Aoife: Hello. Niall: We're here tonight because Aoife picked this album, as she has before. You picked Jeff Buckley last year. Aoife: Yeah, and we ended up doing three of them. Niall: We did, we went to Cork. We did two here and then we went to Cork to talk about Jeff Buckley. And you were at the My Bloody Valentine listening party last year as well, back in October. Aoife: It must have been October, yeah. Niall: Well, obviously we're here for a very different album tonight: Fleet Foxes by Fleet Foxes, from 2008. As you heard there, we played a bit of the Sun Giant EP by the band, which came out a few months before this album, because we want to give the album its full due. They're a little different, and we'll talk about that. But yeah, you picked the record. Aoife: I did. I obviously must like it. And it's such an incredible record. Is there anybody here who hasn't heard it? That's really exciting, if so. I'm excited for you to hear it. You got a sneak peek there of what the vibe is going to be. I picked it because I love this record, but I also had a funny story about how I first heard them. Back in 2008, when this record came out, I'd read about this band called Fleet Foxes in a music magazine. I don't even think I'd heard a song yet, this is back in the day. And I was on holidays in Berlin, and in the tiny little hostel we were staying in, they had a sign up on the wall: "Who's playing tonight? Fleet Foxes, Café Zapata." I said to my boyfriend, "I think that's a band I read about in the magazine, will we go see them?" And he was like, "Grand." So we went, and they were unbelievable. It was so good. Beach House were supporting them. So it was 2008 smacking you in the face. Niall: Come on. Aoife: And I took photos, which I found. I have photos. Artifacts. One is terrible, the other one's not so terrible, taken on one of those little Canon digital cameras. And I still have the ticket, I kept the ticket, I'm one of those hoarders who keeps all their gig tickets. But it was so good: the venue they played in had a dragon that breathed fire out every fifteen minutes. Niall: So they'd be playing and this dragon… Aoife: I'm not even exaggerating. Fire would just shoot out of this mechanical dragon. It was so Berlin. And Fleet Foxes were so stunning, and Beach House were so stunning. I love Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, I love all those harmony vibes, I wish I was born in the seventies, sadly I was not. So I fell in love with them immediately, and I've been a big fan ever since. Although I'll say I probably dipped a little bit around the Crack-Up era, their third album, but then I saw them when Shore came out, their most recent album, and fell right back in love with them. Niall: We're going to talk about all the albums that come afterwards, but we'll start with this one, because this is presumably your favourite, or one of them. Aoife: Shore is up there as well for me, but yeah. Niall: So what was it about Fleet Foxes at the time? For context: in 2008 there was quite a lot of this kind of music around. We previously did Bon Iver's For Emma, Forever Ago as a listening party, and the funny thing, which I only found out when we did this, is that they have the same origin story in a way. Both songwriters went to a cabin in the woods to pour their heart out and write the songs. Aoife: I think Justin Vernon just got there first in terms of the marketing. Niall: So they must have pulled back on talking about it too much, because it's basically the same thing. They never really talked about Robin Pecknold's writing process in those terms. Aoife: For Emma was such a massive moment, everybody was obsessed with this guy who broke up with a girl and went to a cabin and wrote a record about it. It was the ur indie-folk album. Niall: What was really appealing about Fleet Foxes is that they were so young, between about twenty-two and twenty-seven, and Robin Pecknold was twenty-one when he wrote the record. Which is frankly offensive, you shouldn't be allowed to be so talented at twenty-one. Aoife: I know. And they were clearly these people from Seattle, which we associate with grunge, and then it becomes this place where they're bringing out all the pastoral, outdoorsy, mountain-and-sea vibes of the Washington area. They're obviously really influenced by the seventies too, by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, by Laurel Canyon, but also by Appalachian folk. There's a real purity to what they're doing. The harmonies are unbelievable, there's even a bit of a gospel feeling. So these young guys made this album that was being called an iconic American record on release. The Guardian called it a landmark American album, something like that. And that's special, because you don't get that many records immediately being called landmark. Niall: It was a very exciting time for music around then. I actually brought some records. We mentioned Beach House and Teen Dream earlier, that's a bit later, 2010. I wanted to do a listening party for that at some point, that'd be good craic. Around that time you had Animal Collective and Panda Bear, Person Pitch was right there, that was the apex for that very experimental scene. A few years later we had Sufjan, our very first listening party. And Bon Iver, of course. There's also stuff like Neutral Milk Hotel very much of that vibe. Aoife: I've noticed people covering Neutral Milk Hotel more now. Niall: I think when we got to it, it was on its second go-round, and now it's getting a third, which is great. It's a great record. So, the band were from Seattle, they had a bit of the scruffy flannel-shirt look, but obviously didn't sound like that. The album was written in the woods, in the cabin, brought to the band, and recorded with Phil Ek. Aoife: Who did a lot of stuff with Built to Spill. Niall: Yeah, and he worked with The Shins, and Modest Mouse, a really long history. Aoife: Are The Shins from Seattle as well? Niall: I think they might be. Band of Horses is another one. So they recorded it themselves with Phil Ek, paid for it all themselves, and then the local major independent label Sub Pop came calling. Obviously known for a lot of grunge traditionally, but they'd clearly been releasing this kind of music around then too, The Shins had been on the label for a few years, Band of Horses. When it came to it, they signed to Sub Pop. Apparently there was a bidding war. Aoife: They'd become quite popular on MySpace. Anybody remember MySpace? Every time I do one of these I feel older and older, mentioning the top eight, the randomers you'd put in your top eight. Word could spread quite quickly once you got popular on MySpace. Niall: What I thought was really interesting, that I discovered when I was researching, is that recording the album was actually a total pain for them. They didn't have much money, so they ended up recording a lot of it in their houses, or in Robin Pecknold's family home. And he re-did all the vocals right before they mastered the record, because he'd been sick during the initial sessions and his voice wasn't in great shape. They recorded it all in one go, scrapped that, did another version, and kept moving the running order around. I'm always fascinated by albums where the creation was a total pain and they had no idea it would even work out. Robin Pecknold actually said, "I hope nobody cares about this album, because I just want to move on to the next one." And then it becomes this iconic record. Aoife: Isn't every artist sick of their album by the time it's done? You're like, "my paintings." Yeah. Niall: 2008 was an interesting time for it to land. The album draws on the Beach Boys and Brian Wilson, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Nick Drake, Simon & Garfunkel, Fairport Convention, Judee Sill, very much old-timey or sixties folk and pastoral stuff. And in 2008 there's a financial crash. The album was worked on before that, but it was released into that environment, and a lot of this music seemed to catch. When things go bad, we retreat, we dream, we listen to music that's maybe the opposite of what we're feeling. There was a gentleness, an unhurriedness to it that resonated. Aoife: Grizzly Bear is another band from that time. When Jay-Z and Beyoncé went to see Grizzly Bear in Brooklyn, that was kind of where all the indie music peaked. Niall: And the other part of it, which I was involved in, was the MP3 blogs, that's where you'd hear this music. Especially the American and Canadian stuff, no one was promoting it over here yet, so you'd be months ahead. You'd hear Fleet Foxes in these MP3 formats. That was a mad period, it showed how the internet could collapse geography, a song could spread really quickly on the blogs. And in an American context, this came out post-Bush, with the Obama era coming in, a more hopeful tone. You had the Lehman Brothers crash, these global pressures, and then these hopeful times too. It's interesting to wonder whether these albums are a reaction to it, or whether they appeal to us because we want nice, happy things. I feel like Fleet Foxes have so much emotional depth: there's yearning, sadness, hope, nostalgia. Aoife: I loved Yellow House by Grizzly Bear, their first record, a complex, complicated, almost jazzy thing that sounded beautiful but had a lot going on. We weren't going for simplistic music, but we wanted music that gave us depth and beauty. Is art a solution to the world collapsing? Niall: We could be answering that in 2026. We live in a cursed timeline, as I keep saying. That's all I'm going to say. But what else happened in 2008 in the wider circle of music? Portishead returned with Third. TV on the Radio released Dear Science. MGMT released Oracular Spectacular, 'Kids' and all that. Cut Copy released In Ghost Colours, Indie Sleaze night on Saturday, folks, come on. Kanye put out 808s & Heartbreak, that was November that year. Rihanna was at the peak of her powers. Aoife: Katy Perry appeared that year. And 'American Boy'. Niall: 'American Boy', still one of the best pop songs, fire. Iron & Wine was the other one I forgot to mention. So it was a really vibrant, varied year. As you heard, there's the Sun Giant EP too. Aoife: The thing about that is it came out before the album, but was recorded after. The album was done, in the bag. Niall: They decided to go into the studio and record Sun Giant, a collection of songs intended to sell on tour. It ended up being quite popular, and for a lot of people it was their first time discovering Fleet Foxes. Aoife: It wasn't like The Coronas' 'San Diego Song', their summer-holiday anthem, or anything like that. But it came out before the album, and then the album arrives. Niall: So what was the reaction at the time? Was it immediate? Aoife: Things happened really quickly. In January that year they got all the MySpace attention, and by June the album was coming out. Really, really quick. There was so much chatter about them, which is partly why I'd seen the name, and a music blog like yours would have seen it too, and known they were one of the big bands. In a way that's harder now. Niall: These days you see bands like Geese getting a lot of attention because they use companies that help them go viral. You didn't really have that then. Now you'd dress yourself up in some gimmick, polka dots, whatever, and go viral all over the internet for it. I couldn't imagine these lads doing that. Aoife: No. But maybe in a way they were cosplaying living in the forest, on the Puget Sound. Niall: Anyway, when the album came out, people loved them, and it really hit it off. Because they sound so seventies, your parents would love the records and you'd love the records. There's almost a lullaby quality to the folk stuff too. The music is applicable to anybody of any generation, and there's something lovely about nostalgic music that reminds you of a better time. To finish on that point: I think there's something very mysterious about Fleet Foxes, they feel out of time. They're these young, scruffy lads with the beards, but there's a mystery to them. They didn't come across as the hipster end of things, they weren't leaning into anything. They were presented as the kind of band that wouldn't have had phones, would have lived off-grid, which is funny because they were a MySpace band. They're the most un-MySpace band you can imagine. Surprise people, do something a bit different, don't be exactly what people want you to be, and they'll love you for it. And then your songs are unbelievable too, soaring and stunning. Can we talk for a second about the cover? It's an original painting from 1559 by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Netherlandish Proverbs. It depicts a densely populated Flemish village scene illustrating 126 folk proverbs. There's a lot there. Some on this side are cut off, but for example, this woman here, she's putting the blue cloak on her husband, meaning she deceives him. This guy is casting roses before swine, wasting effort on the unworthy. And right at the top there's a man running through a field with his arse on fire, chasing pigs, "he who eats fire craps sparks," do not be surprised at the outcome if you attempt a dangerous venture. There are 126 of those. Aoife: The interesting thing is that the band managed to get permission to use it. Really unusual to be allowed use it as commercial artwork. Niall: And apparently the museum that holds the artwork were delighted. A lot of stars aligned for them. It's an iconic cover because it's so different from what anybody else was doing, clearly of a particular period, and it has that Where's Wally quality. I have a quote about it. Robin said: "We were trying to figure out what we wanted to do, and my brother had been working some stuff out, when I saw this Bruegel painting in a book my girlfriend had. I liked that it had a really intriguing meaning, there's a story to each little scene, which felt fitting for the record. It was dense but unified, not a collage. It has a Where's Waldo quality, something you could look at for a long time on a vinyl sleeve and keep finding new little things. It was very easy to get the museum in Berlin that has it to say yes, they were super excited the band wanted to use it, and put it in their newsletter. When you open it up, on the inside there's a Paisley pattern traced from the back of a book that Skyler's mum got me. We wanted two very different feelings." So, what to look out for when we press play very shortly? Aoife: When I was going back to this, I had it in my head that every song was one of these big songs, because there are so many big moments. But actually there are two tracks that are pretty much acoustic, so it's interesting to notice how they go from the big sound to the small. And for me they're a real emotion-and-feeling band, so notice how you feel listening to it. I always feel this swell of emotion with Fleet Foxes, I was walking down the road listening to Shore and I was like, my God. So lean back and feel into the emotions they're bringing you. And listen to the lyrics if you can make them out, because they're so out of time, all about pack horses and this amazing imagery. Robin Pecknold said he didn't write about a lot of personal stuff because he didn't have enough life experience yet, so instead he wrote these beautifully poetic narratives about pastoral and rural life. So I'd say the lyrics and the feelings are the two things. Niall: Track two, 'White Winter Hymnal', is probably the biggest one, watch out for that. And a few other people thanked and cited as influences, for some extra context: Brian Wilson, Joanna Newsom, Bob Dylan, Noah Lennox and all the lads from Animal Collective, Levon Helm and Robbie Robertson of The Band, Blitzen Trapper, who they toured with at the time and who were bigger than them then. For some reason Joni Mitchell and Neil Young are listed together, which is fair enough. Marvin Gaye, Damien Jurado, Paul Simon and John Lennon listed together. Townes Van Zandt, a legend. Vashti Bunyan, and Van Morrison. There's a nice quote from Robin Pecknold I'll read afterwards. Let's just open it up and listen. I'll play it at full volume, it's about thirty-nine minutes, two sides. Close your eyes, whatever you want to do, vibe away in your own way. [The album plays: Fleet Foxes – Fleet Foxes, 39 minutes.] After the album Niall: It's quite an economical album, isn't it? It doesn't stick around long, thirty-nine minutes. Aoife: I like an economical album. It's also one of the first fairly short records we've done here. Niall: That's part of why I was thinking about Sun Giant in that context too. I'm going to read a bit from the liner notes, because for an album that's very much about feelings, with only a few direct songs, some of what's written here is interesting: "My first memory has always been of me and my mom on a cold grey day down at some beach in Washington, along the Puget Sound somewhere near Seattle. I would be around two or three years old, and we were with a friend of mine from the neighbourhood and his mom, walking among the driftwood looking for crabs. Even now I can remember the smell and temperature of the air, the feeling of the sand and the swaying tall grass. I can even remember looking over at my friend and how his face looked when he smiled back at me. Another memory I'll sometimes recall as my first is dressing up in the dead of summer as Jack London, with tennis rackets on my feet and wearing my dad's hiking pack, after seeing Disney's terrible version of White Fang. Or the memory of stealing my neighbour's Big Wheel and riding it halfway down the block before getting caught and having to turn around defeated. Or wearing a fireman's outfit while washing my parents' car, or eating an orange popsicle from the ice cream truck. These have always been some of my most distinct and persistent memories of childhood. So it came as a disappointment when, one day as a teenager, I opened up a photo album and found pictures of each and every one of these memories. I didn't have a single memory that didn't belong to, or somehow grow from, those pictures my parents had. I guess I've seen all these photographs at some point, forgotten they were just photographs, and over time made them into my most tangible memories. That's scary to me in a way. This leads me to something weird about the power music has: its transportability. Any time I hear a song or record that meant a lot to me at a certain moment, I'm instantly taken back to that place in full detail. Whenever I hear 'Feel Flows' by the Beach Boys, I'm taken straight to the back of my parents' car on the way to my grandparents' place, with Surf's Up in my Walkman and the Cascade Mountains going by in the window. Any song off Radiohead's Kid A brings back the airport near Seattle, from when we were on the way to Colorado for a wedding and Kid A was the only record I brought or wanted to bring. 'Crayon Angels' by Judee Sill is the whole winter of last year. And Brian Wilson's solo version of 'Surf's Up' takes me back to driving my parents' car around town alone at sixteen, windows down at night. I can't ascribe exact memories to songs by The Microphones, Joni Mitchell, Built to Spill, Dungen, Harry Nilsson and so many others, and it's a form of recall I can actually trust, there's no visual element to complicate things, no chance of a planted memory that wasn't actually supposed to be there. Maybe I should be concerned that I'm alone in almost all of these memories, but I guess I was just a private kid, and music was a private experience for me. Music activates a certain mental freedom in a way nothing else can, and that is so empowering. You can call it escapism if you like, but I see it as connecting to a deeper human feeling than the one found in the day-to-day world." Aoife: That's lovely. It's a nice addendum. And he was only twenty-one. Niall: For some reason it's signed "Warren Gamaliel Bancroft Winnipeg Harding," Warren G. Harding being the 29th president of the United States. I don't know why, he thought it was funny. Dated April 6th, 2008, Chicago, Illinois. So, any particular highlights, anything that stood out? Aoife: I was reminded how much I love 'Blue Ridge Mountains', the second-to-last song. I just love those four- and five-part harmonies so much. There's something that really gets me about beautiful harmonies stacked on each other that sound so natural. My dad was really into Neil Young and all of that era, my mum's really into Simon & Garfunkel, so I feel like I came out of the womb going, this is the music I love. Niall: There was another one I meant to mention. Aoife: I'm really bad at remembering song names, which isn't great for an arts journalist. They go in one ear and out the other. Niall: 'He Doesn't Know Why'. Aoife: That was it. I always forget the name of that one, and it's an absolute banger. It's quite a direct song, the last one on the first side. Niall: He mentions his brother Sean in 'Blue Ridge Mountains', which is interesting. And Oliver James is his younger brother, that's the last song. Aoife: His sister is Aja, after the Steely Dan album. The parents were really into them. Niall: It holds up so well. The harmonies and vocals sound incredible, there are those beautiful little flourishes, a flute on one of the tracks, the guitar is stunning, lovely little bass lines. I love the way Robin Pecknold and the band hear music. There's a really good Song Exploder episode with him talking about a song from Crack-Up, and the way he thinks about translating his thoughts and emotions into music is so illuminating. He has a beautiful melodic flow that's really similar to the flow of water and nature. There are so many nature references, it's almost parody there are so many. Aoife: You could do a Portlandia sketch about it. "Power of nature, man." "Come down from the mountain, you've been gone too long." Niall: In terms of the line-up: alongside Robin Pecknold on vocals there was Skyler Skjelset on lead guitar, his best friend from Nathan Hale High School, later joined by Casey Wescott, Christian Wargo on bass, and Nicholas Peterson on drums, who left after this album. Aoife: And who came in as the drummer? Niall: A man who's been a main character in one of these listening parties himself: Josh Tillman, Father John Misty, played drums with them. Aoife: For how long? Niall: Only a year or two, pretty short. As I said, main character, he was making his own record. Any Father John Misty fans? He writes really good songs and he's handsome, so we all love him, but he's also a bit of a pain, and he didn't get on very well with Robin Pecknold, which isn't surprising. When I was looking back at the Pitchfork interview they did in 2008, a few months after the album came out, it was a big joint interview with Robin and Josh Tillman, and Tillman is answering the questions at the start. That's confidence. Do you want to hear a quote from what Robin Pecknold said? I've written it in my little notebook, so old-school, that's the only way I remember these things. In a 2020 Reddit AMA, Pecknold said that on that tour, the Helplessness Blues tour, Tillman was supposed to bring out his own record, but his label said he could only release it after the tour. So he was on tour thinking, "I want to bring out my own record, I'm tired of Fleet Foxes." Pecknold said he "had to endure being around a lot of substance abuse, sabotaged shows, general ill treatment and shit-talking, all while paying him for songs he didn't have anything to do with. It sucked." And then Tillman left the band. Whereas in that Pitchfork interview he'd said, "I love playing in this band, these are all my friends, I'm having the best time, I'm sorry if that's a corny quote, but that's the best thing about this experience right now." Aoife: So he was lying through his teeth. I think he's the kind of person who really has to be a solo artist, too iconic a personality. You wouldn't want to wrangle him out of bed to get to the next show. Niall: Too big a price. You mentioned Pitchfork, the album was number one on their end-of-year list in 2008, and they listed Sun Giant alongside it, breaking the traditional conventions of end-of-year lists. What they said was: listing Fleet Foxes' debut album and EP together may be awkward, but it just feels right, they're two sides of a coin that equally express the band's mastery, "a catch-all Americana that takes a wide slice of our popular music spectrum and pulls it through a reverse prism to create a gorgeous and focused sound of the band's own. The threads of Brian Wilson's coastal pop, Appalachian folk, modern indie rock, Grateful Dead jams and other influences are masterfully synthesised in the band's harmonies." Robin Pecknold's sense of dynamics, they said, flows like a river, wild and free but logical, filling what needs to be filled and moving on. I swear I didn't rip that off Pitchfork, I came up with something similar on my own. Aoife: Very good. Niall: It was Uncut's album of the year too. But more than anything, and this is a strange accolade, the album was ranked number 36 on Rolling Stone's list of the greatest stoner albums. Aoife: I don't think Robin Pecknold was a stoner. It doesn't really fit. He's a reader. Niall: So what came after? Helplessness Blues, which is really difficult to say, in 2011, then Crack-Up in 2017, then Shore in 2020. Big long gaps, some personnel changes. And Robin Pecknold, as we've established, is a very literary guy, he went to Columbia to do an undergrad in English literature, because he'd left high school early and gone to a community college, and he really wanted that college experience. So that was part of the break. He's also had difficult times, he's spoken about mental health issues and suicidal ideation, many tough experiences that contributed to the gaps too. They haven't released anything since 2020, and he does a lot of cover events. There are two live records. He's actually playing a gig tonight, I think, where he covers Judee Sill. Any Judee Sill fans? Aoife: Oh my gosh, she's amazing. Nobody ever knows Judee Sill. If you listen to anything, listen to Heart Food, it's iconic. He loves her, mentions her on this record. She's the one who does 'The Kiss', people might have seen her perform it on the Old Grey Whistle Test, it's on YouTube. She had a really tragic life. Niall: One of those I've been meaning to listen to properly for years. She only has two records, so it's easy to get into. There's a documentary about her as well, which I haven't seen. Aoife: She's one of those ill-fated seventies musicians, really religious imagery, did a lot of drugs, really interesting. Niall: Did you get to see them again after your first foray in Berlin? Aoife: I saw them when they toured, though it's really bad when you can't remember what you were doing in the 2010s. Niall: Did anybody see them at that Dublin gig, the outdoor one in 2022? Wasn't it amazing. They've played here a fair bit: Vicar Street in 2008, Electric Picnic 2009, The Marquee in Cork 2011, the Iveagh Gardens in 2017. I don't know if I've missed any, maybe you can tell me. So if you were to pick, is there any further listening or reading you'd suggest to somebody, not necessarily Fleet Foxes? Aoife: Some of it is obvious. As I said, I'd definitely check out Judee Sill, because if you really like Fleet Foxes you'd really vibe with her. And he mentions Harry Nilsson, also unbelievable, more well known than Judee Sill, did the cover of 'Everybody's Talkin''. I'd also mention a guy people would have known at one point but isn't very well known now: Richard Swift. He sadly passed away a couple of years ago. He was friends with Robin Pecknold, a hugely talented musician who struggled with addiction. He has an amazing double album from around 2005 or 2006 that's brilliant, and a record called The Hex, which is referenced on 'Sunblind' on Shore, that's the song where Robin name-checks a lot of musicians he loves, like Elliott Smith, David Berman and Richard Swift. It's such a beautiful record for finding new people to listen to, and it's lovely to hear a musician pay tribute to musicians he loves. The imagery is him talking about this beautiful day where he'll go for a swim and listen to all these beautiful bands, an ecstatic kind of song. So check out all of those records, but Richard Swift deserves more fans, and The Hex is really, really good. Niall: Good shout. What we'll do now is play a tune, and then maybe give Sun Giant another go if you want to stick around. Our next listening party is on the 27th of May, and it's an indie-rock album very close to my heart: Broken Social Scene's You Forgot It in People. I've been wanting to do this one on record for a long time. They're playing here later in the year, but I want to give this record its flowers, it's incredible. My niece has just turned seventeen and I bought her a copy, because it's an anthemic record for a seventeen-year-old. I can't believe that band are still going, which is kind of mad, but it's hard to underline what Broken Social Scene meant to a certain segment of indie. Aoife: And there's four hundred of them on stage. They're from Canada, and we were all like, my God, these people are the best. Niall: For me it's the MP3 times again, we'll talk about this next month. I heard about them through the music blogs, and then I got to see them in the Button Factory, which was the Temple Bar Music Centre at the time. It was one of the first things I ever wrote about, back in 2005. A transcendental experience. Aoife: They're so good live. Niall: I once DJ'd in Galway after one of their gigs, and one of the members of the band, I'll leave him nameless, came over and turned off the decks while I was DJing. Aoife: On purpose? Niall: He was that drunk. I can't remember what I was playing, but I was like, great, DJing after Broken Social Scene and then a band member ruins it. I don't think he liked it. No, I think he was just really drunk and thought it was funny. Thumbs down to him. In a way it's surprising a man like that has managed to persist in a band with so many members. Anyway, I digress. We'll talk about it next month, May 27th. Aoife: I cannot wait. I've been listening to it a lot lately again, it's fantastic. Niall: Thank you for being here. Let's play a bit of this and see what happens. Thanks for being here, appreciate it.

In the first of our special programmes from the Edinburgh Festivals, actress Stockard Channing - star of Grease, Six Degrees of Separation and Practical Magic - joins us alongside her friend, actor David Westhead, to discuss their production of Samuel Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape, in which a cynical and disillusioned older man reflects on his early life as an ambitious and idealistic writer.Jeff Whitty, Tony Award winning creator of the hit musical Avenue Q, which is currently running until 2027 in London's West End, tells us about Midsummer!, his new production inspired by Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's dream, set in the Gilded Age and performed in a contemporary verse translation. We have a live performance from siblings Maddie and Marcus Rice from their show with songs Goodbye Dandelion, an exploration of an unlikely friendship between an 87 year old and their much younger friend, which is the recipient of the inaugural Underbelly Futures Fund Award. And we hear how deaf actors and artists are taking centre stage at this year's Festival, with Stijn Van Opstal, the director of the acclaimed production [seagull], performed in Flemish sign language by Belgian company Olympique Dramatique - and with director Cora Bissett and deaf performer Jamie Rea, whose gig theatre production The Singer, centres on Joe, a deaf artist who 'sings' with his hands, and Andy, a washed-up musician seeking a comeback, and features music by KT Tunstall. Presenter: Kirsty Wark Producer: Mark Crossan

Make no mistake: the far right's push for remigration — the mass removal of non-European immigrants, and of certain minority citizens too — is both serious and strategic. Yes, the European mainstream is still resisting it, and anti-Nazis and pro-Europeans are mounting a determined pushback of their own. But the far right insists its strategy of dragging the conservative center steadily rightward is working: rightward on restricting NGOs, rightward on rolling back climate protections, and rightward, above all, on migration. Among recent wins it's crowing about is EU approval for a so-called Return Regulation, under which member states could end up paying countries in the Western Balkans and North Africa — not just to hold back migrants, but to accept migrants deported from the EU. The vote, on June 17, was accompanied by chants of "send them back" inside the European Parliament.Remigration, of course, would go a giant step further: the deportations, expulsions, and de-naturalizations envisioned would involve millions of people, and would likely share disturbing logistical and ideological echoes with Nazi Germany. But those terrifying precedents haven't dimmed the far right's enthusiasm one bit. That was palpable on July 15, inside hearing room 1E2 at the European Parliament in Brussels, where some of the continent's most extreme identitarian figures gathered at the invitation of lawmakers from the chamber's three main far-right groups. Among the speakers: Eva Vlaardingerbroek, a Dutch commentator British authorities deem a threat to public order and have barred from freely traveling to the UK; she called for an even more coordinated, transnational push for remigration. And there was Dries Van Langenhove, a Flemish identitarian facing a permanent UK ban; he deployed the word "metapolitics" in an allusion to Antonio Gramsci, to insist that the long battle for dominance over public thought is winnable — and that the groundwork for full remigration is already being laid.It's a rich irony that Gramsci, an Italian Marxist jailed by Mussolini, is taken so seriously on the far right. But after the horrors of Nazism, the movement knew it had to proceed patiently if it ever hoped to stage a comeback. Some in Europe — the French New Right chief among them — took Gramsci as their guide to changing the culture first, and operating through a radical vanguard. Those same tactics got absorbed by the American radical right, which helped carry Trump into the White House. The story of how Gramsci's thinking keeps flowing back and forth across the Atlantic is of particular interest to Philipp Adorf of the University of Bonn. Philipp has written on the radicalization of the U.S. Republican Party and is a leading analyst of the rise of Germany's AfD. We recorded this conversation last year, but it's just as relevant now with the AfD and the continent's leading identitarians trying to carry their campaign for remigration to Brussels — and into the heart of European policymaking.Support the show

In this week's episode, I answer worldbuilding questions about my setting of Andomhaim, and discuss the future of THE GHOSTS series. This coupon code will get you 25% off the ebooks in The Ghosts series at my Payhip store: JULYGHOSTS The coupon code is valid through August 10, 2026. So if you need a new ebook this summer, we've got you covered! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 313 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is July the 24th, 2026 and today we're answering world-building questions about Andomhaim, which is the setting of my Frostborn, Sevenfold Sword, Dragontiarna, Dragonskull, Shield War, and Blades of Ruin series. We also have one bonus world-building question about the Caina series. Before we get into all that, we will have Coupon of the Week and a progress update on my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. Let's start with Coupon of the Week. This week's coupon code will get you 25% off the ebooks in The Ghosts series at my Payhip store. That code is JULYGHOSTS. As always, the coupon code and the link to my Payhip store will be available in the show notes for this episode. This coupon code will be valid through August the 10th, 2026, so if you need a new ebook for this summer, we have got you covered. Now let's have an update on my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. I'm pleased to report I am done with the rough draft of Cloak of Frost. It was just slightly over 100,000 words. Now I am writing a bonus short story called Metal Soldiers, and [newsletter] subscribers will get a free ebook copy of Metal Soldiers when Cloak of Frost comes out, which if all goes well, should be sometime in August. So I think this is an excellent time, therefore, to subscribe to my new release newsletter. My secondary project is Blade of Visions, and I am 11,000 words into that. There's also a good deal of news about audiobooks. Dragon-Mage, as narrated by Leanne Woodward, is finished and is rolling out to the various stores right now. As of this recording, you can get it at my own Payhip store, Google Play, and Kobo (with more stores soon to follow). Recording on Stealth and Spells Online: Final Quest is very nearly done, and I hope to have more news on that soon. Brad Wills is currently working on Blade of Thieves and Hollis McCarthy is recording Cloak of Worlds. So we should have a wide variety of audiobooks coming for you soon. 00:02:00 Questions about Caina Before we get to our main topic, we have a bonus question about Caina. When I said my next project was going to be Cloak of Frost, I got a couple of questions like this: Just wondering when/if there will be another Caina novel to look forward to? The answer is not right now, but maybe later. I am glad and appreciative that people want more Caina books. That said, I don't want more than three unfinished series at any one time, and I've got three right now with Blades of Ruin, Cloak Mage, and Half-Elven Thief. So I'm not starting anything new until one of the three is done. If you reach the end of Ghost in the Siege, which is the latest current Caina book, you know that the series was at a pretty significant stopping point. If I want to keep going, I need to think long and hard about how to do it right. I do have a couple of ideas, but I need to think about them some more. It's almost like we'd have to shift to a slightly different genre of fantasy than the Caina books have been previously. The tricky part is Caina has changed a great deal since Child of the Ghosts. The tricky part in that is that sequels in a long-running series need to be more of the same, but also something different. There have been 35 Caina novels. So I've done that quite a bit. But Caina has had some experiences that have very much changed her life. To use a rough comparison, it's like she became a justice on the US Supreme Court or the governor of one of the five largest US states in the sense that once you've had change in your life that significant, your life will never be the same afterwards. And without spoilers, Caina had a shift that big at the end of Ghost in the Siege. So more Caina is definitely a possibility, but I need to think about it some more and it definitely won't be before 2027 until I finish one of my three currently unfinished series. 00:03:35 Main Topic of the Week: Andomhaim Worldbuilding Questions Now onto our main topic, which is I had some world-building questions about Andomhaim from Frostborn come in lately. So I thought I would answer them here. Question #1: Why hasn't the Heptarchy invaded Andomhaim again? The answer is money, basically. Remember that the ultimate purpose of the Heptarchy is to provide an endless supply of sacrificial victims for the Seven Temples' altars so the seven urdmordar who rule the Heptarchy can endlessly feed. These seven urdmordar don't have much interest in the day-to-day governance, so their spiderling priestesses essentially run the Heptarchy as an exceptionally malignant theological bureaucracy. However, while the priestesses are evil, they're efficient and very good at their jobs. In practice, the Heptarchy tends to operate more like an imperial confederation or a very loose federal government than an actual empire. Kingdoms, tribes, and city states have a great deal of autonomy so long as one, taxes are paid in time and two, sacrificial victims are taken to the temples on time. To help encourage this, all the various local rulers in the Heptarchy tend to have priestess advisors who make sure that the rulers make the "correct" decisions. So when things go awry, the Seven Temples have a wide array of tools to deal with difficulties, from assassinating and replacing truculent rulers with more tractable successors all the way up to exterminating entire populations and settling new colonists upon the depopulated lands. The difficulty of the Heptarchy is that the seven urdmordars are gluttons and gluttony is impossible to satiate. So when the Heptarchy learned of Andomhaim and the possibility of an entirely new land to conquer and feed upon, of course they had to conquer it. The priestesses built an enormous fleet and gathered a vast army and sent it three and a half thousand miles across the ocean to Andomhaim. Of course, if you've read the Dragontiarna series, you know that this didn't go well. The Heptarchy seized the Isle of Kordain and had early successes in Andomhaim, but Agravhask, the commander of the invasion force, was secretly a disciple of the Warden of Urd Morlemoch, and he seized control of the Heptarchy force and used it to further the Warden's goals. The Visionary foresaw this happening, but didn't care because it gave her an opportunity to try and capture her old enemy, Tarmyntir. So the Heptarchy didn't conquer Andomhaim, and then 10 years later they lost control of the Isle of Kordain, their only stronghold near Andomhaim. To put this situation in contemporary terms, this is a significant geopolitical setback or to put it in popular vernacular, it's "taking a massive L." The Seven Temples spent a colossal fortune on the invasion force and in return got back exactly nothing. Even evil sorcerous empires are bound to the laws of economics. In The Ghosts books, the Umbarian Order failed to figure this out. And it would take a while for the Heptarchy to pay for and assemble another invasion force of that size. And since the first invasion force had failed, there wasn't much appetite for pulling together a second one. So now the official policy of the Heptarchy towards Andomhaim is quiet CIA-style subversion. The Spider Cult was founded to secretly bring nobles and wealthy merchants to the worship of the Seven Temples. It might take a century or so, but the plan is to eventually place a spider cultist on the throne of Andomhaim and then send a sympathetic ruler an army to back him or her up. Of course, the Brotherhood of the Ravens is aware of this and has been fighting the Spider Cult in the shadows. So that is why the Heptarchy hasn't tried to invade Andomhaim again- it costs too much, the outcome is uncertain, and the priestesses have decided a careful subversion (which costs much less than an invasion) will work out better in the long run. Question #2: Is Blades of Ruin really inspired by the English Civil War of 1138 to 1153 AD? Yes. Why? Because alcohol and boats are a very bad combination. In the 12th century, the Kings of England were also the Dukes of Normandy and were more interested in Normandy than in England, so they spent a great deal of time on both sides of the English Channel. In November of 1120, King Henry I wanted to return to England, but allowed much of his retinue to travel on another ship. That included his heir and only legitimate son William, several of his bastard children, and numerous high ranking members of his court. Everyone on William's ship was quite drunk, including the crew, and decided it would be a good idea to try and overtake King Henry's ship on the English Channel at night in November. Remember how I said alcohol and boats were a bad combination? William decided that he wanted to overtake his father's ship, and since a significant portion of everyone on his ship was drunk, they ended up crashing into some rocks, the ship sank, and most of the passengers and crew drowned, including William. For Henry, this was an absolute disaster since he had put a lot of work into setting up William as his heir. Henry then settled on his daughter Matilda as his heir and forced his vassals to take oaths so they would support her as his successor. When Henry died in 1135, Matilda assumed the throne, but her cousin Stephen of Blois seized the crown instead. Many of the lords of England were leery at the idea of a female monarch and Stephen was amiable and well-liked. Matilda was also imperious and had a knack for offending people at the worst possible time. The resultant civil war became known as the Anarchy and it ebbed and flowed until 1153. Both Stephen and Matilda held the upper hand at various times, but could never manage to achieve a total victory. Many of the nobles went local warlord, raising their own forces and building their own castles to protect themselves from their neighbors, which led to widespread chaos and violence. Finally, by the end of the 1140s, most of the nobles were sick of the war and put increasing pressure on Stephen and Matilda to find some sort of negotiated solution. Matilda's vigorous son Henry began to insert himself and he convinced Stephen to name him as his heir. When Stephen died, Henry became the undisputed king in 1154 and the war was over. Henry II would prove to be a vigorous king, but his inability to share power with his sons would cause him a lot of trouble in the final years of his reign. So you can see how Zelos Pendragon and Rhamnousia Pendragon from Blades of Ruin are very loosely based on Stephen and Matilda, though with some differences. Stephen and Matilda were cousins while Zelos and Rhamnousia are half siblings. For that matter, Henry I died of natural causes and was not assassinated by a sinister cult of sorcerers who wanted to engineer a civil war for nefarious purposes. Question #3: Were the Free Companies in Blades of Ruin inspired by Glenn Cook's The Black Company? First of all, The Black Company is a fantasy classic and everyone should read it. I think it's even in Kindle Unlimited at the moment. But the Free Companies and Blades of Ruin weren't inspired by The Black Company. They were inspired by the Hundred Years' War between England and France from 1337 AD to 1453 AD. Medieval warfare relied heavily on knights and vessels, but it always employed mercenaries. One of the problems in the Anarchy were the large number of Flemish mercenaries infesting in the country, who frequently turned full brigand. But feudalism was based on holding land and as the Middle Ages progressed, money and the cash economy became more and more important while knighthood became increasingly performative and ceremonial. Professional soldiers were generally more useful and more reliable than arrogant and headstrong knights. These trends played a big part in the Hundred Years' War and every time the kings of England campaigned in France, they frequently hired mercenaries and they generally let the mercenaries rampage through the French countryside and plunder whatever they wanted since that was cheaper than actually feeding them. The Free Companies really got going after the Battle of Poitiers in 1356. The French were decisively defeated, King John II of France went back to England as a prisoner, and the national government in France essentially collapsed. The English discharged many of their mercenaries, who formed into companies and began systematically looting the French countryside. When official hostilities broke out between the English and the French again, the English hired the companies back. As the fortunes of France and England waxed and waned during the war, some of the companies wandered into Italy and made good money playing the Italian city states against each other. One of the most famous of the companies was The White Company, commanded by Sir John Hawkwood. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle famously killed off Sherlock Holmes so he could turn his attention to writing historical fiction about the White Company. This was somewhat less than financially successful, so Doyle went back to writing Holmes after a few years, though he always regarded his historical novels as better than his Holmes stories. Rannister and the Grand Company in Blades of Ruin were loosely based off of Werner von Urslingen and the Great Company. Von Urslingen's personal model was "The enemy of God, the enemy of piety, and the enemy of mercy." He apparently had those actual words inscribed on his breastplate. The Great Company spent a lot of time fighting in Italy and extorting money from the city-states until the White Company defeated them at the Battle of Canturino in 1363. In real life, of course, the Free Companies did not have orcs in the ranks or sorcerous advisors. However, the real life Free Companies were just as brutal and rapacious as those in the Blades of Ruin series, sometimes often more so, since they were essentially organized bands of brigands. Eventually in the wake of the Hundred Years' War, stronger national governments arose in England and France, and the concept of the Free Companies gradually became obsolete. Kings found their own professional armies to be much more reliable than the Free Companies, though of course the idea of mercenaries never went away and remains to this day. Those standing armies would cause their own problems throughout history. Question #4: How did the warlocks of Vhalorast conquer Urd Maelwyn if the dark elves are so much more powerful than orcs? Two reasons. First, the Warlocks of Vhalorast were a lot more powerful than anyone suspected. The Sovereign and the high Maledicti priests were strong enough to keep the Vhalorasti warlocks in check and compel them to obedience since saying no to someone like Khurazalin from Sevenfold Sword was a spectacularly bad idea. But after the final defeat of the Sovereign, the Vhalorasti orcs were free to do as they liked. Second, the dark elves are chronically unable to work together without betraying each other constantly. The dark elven love of cruelty often manifests as a love of treachery, which frequently leads them to making very stupid decisions. In real life, you often see people who are addicted to various lusts, vices, and addictions making bad decisions, and the dark elves often took that up to 11. By contrast, while the warlocks of Vhalorast are very bad people, they are orderly and organized and they don't often betray each other. Indeed, "brother and sister warlocks" are supposed to extend respect to each other and the Council of Masters harshly punishes anyone who violates certain rules of conduct. So the warlocks of Vhalorast can cooperate a lot more effectively than the dark elves. To put it in Dungeons & Dragons terms, the dark elves are chaotic evil (sometimes urging on stupid evil), but the Vhalorasti warlocks are firmly lawful evil. When the Visage seized control of Urd Maelwyn, she thought to rebuild the Sovereign's Empire and forced a confrontation with Vhalorast. That ended with the Vhalorasti orcs and Warlocks destroying the Vistage's army, seizing Urd Maelwyn and taking the Visage herself back to Vhalorast in chains. Of course, the warlocks had help from the Disciples of Vhalzarok, but more on that will be revealed in later books of Blades of Ruin. Question #5: Why aren't there any dwarves in Owyllain? That is because none of them settled in Owyllain. The dwarves first came to the Frostborn world slightly before the urdmordar. About 15,000 years ago, the dark elves were frantically summoning new kindreds to throw in battle against the high elves. The dwarves came to Andomhaim somewhere near the Torn Hills close to Urd Morlemoch. The dwarfs who sided with the dark elves became the dvargir and probably began cheating the dark elves at every turn because they were better organized. The dvargir became to the dark elves the sort of military subcontractor who overcharges, over promises, and then drastically under-delivers while keeping to the letter of the contract. The dwarves founded nine different underground kingdoms and most of them are relatively close to Andomhaim. Only three of them still survive to the modern period. Question #6: Why aren't there any orcish Swordbearers or Soulbearers? For two reasons. First, Ardrhythain would be reluctant to make soulblades for orcs because orcs already have battle fury and the soulblades inspire a hatred of dark magic in their bearers. There's a chance an orc with a soulblade would go absolutely berserk when fighting an urvaalg or a dark wizard. Second, and this is the more important reason, the orcs didn't actually ask. Due to their threefold law, the high elves are very limited in how they can interact with other kindreds. Ardrhythain created the soulblades and found the Magistri among the humans of Andomhaim because the Keeper of Andomhaim of the time specifically asked. Ridmark was only able to command the high elves of Cathair Ereniel in The Shield War because he was the Shield Knight. The high elves can only help if asked and then only provide the specific help requested if it is in accord with the threefold law. The temptation within them to simply rule over weaker kindreds for their own good is very strong, but if they do that, they turn into dark elves. To get around that problem is one of the reasons Ardrhythain created the Swordbearers. Andomhaim definitely would've been destroyed centuries ago if not for the Order of the Soulblade. That's also the reason Ardrhythain created the Guardians, to help protect both nations and places of power that the high elves otherwise could not protect directly. Question #7: Is Andomhaim very different in Talembur's time than it was in Ridmark's? Andomhaim is at a slightly more advanced technological level as of the Blades of Ruin series, but it is a good deal richer and more prosperous than it was in Ridmark's time. Part of that is that Accolon Pendragon' successors ruled wisely and well, and Andomhaim avoided the sort of destructive civil war that is currently afflicting Owyllain. Andomhaim also hasn't had to face an external war on the scale of the Frostborn or the Heptarchy in that time. Granted, there have been wars with outside adversaries like the Mhorites, but nothing like the Heptarchy War. Additionally, adding the Isle of Kordain to the realm and the discovery of the sea compass let Andomhaim's mariners travel a lot farther and more reliably than they could before. Ships of Andomhaim have made their way to various island kingdoms south of the Isle of Kordain and begun a lively trade with them. This has brought new prosperity to Andomhaim. Granted, this might cause long-term problems. The coast of Andomhaim and the cities of Cintarra and Tarlion are getting a good deal richer and more powerful than the rest of the realm. A clever adversary like the Spider-Cult might find a way to use that to their advantage. And finally, Question #8: Did Calliande actually create the fountain in Blade of Thieves? No. It's just a legend that grew up around her. Neither Ridmark nor Calliande ever came near Stonegate during the War of the Seven Swords. That was why Ridmark didn't like bards very much, since they always embellished and made things up. So those are some recent Andomhaim questions I've received and I hope I answered those questions. So that's it for this week. Thank you for listening to The Pulp Writer Show. I hope you found the show useful. A reminder that you can listen to all the back episodes at https://thepulpwritershow.com. If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave your review on your podcasting platform of choice. Stay safe and stay healthy, and we'll see you all next week.  

In 1302, an army of Flemish townsmen achieved the impossible. At the Battle of the Golden Spurs, infantry armed with pikes and determination crushed the mounted knights of Kingdom of France in one of the greatest military upsets of the Middle Ages.Matt Lewis is joined by Danièle Cybulski to uncover the truth behind this classic David v Goliath story. Why did France invade Flanders? How did ordinary craftsmen defeat Europe's most feared cavalry? And did this famous victory change the course of medieval warfare?MOREDeadly Rivalry: Armagnac v BurgundyListen on AppleListen on SpotifyThe Women Who Ruled Medieval BurgundyListen on AppleListen on Spotify Gone Medieval is presented by Matt Lewis. Audio editor is Tim Arstall, the producer is Joseph Knight. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.All music used is courtesy of Epidemic Sounds.Gone Medieval is a History Hit podcast.Watch Matt and Eleanor's new documentary The Rise of the Plantagenets only on History Hit TV with a subscription. Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week PLUS early access, ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Why did the potato blight begin in Belgium before it reached Ireland — and why has the Flemish famine of 1845, which killed tens of thousands and stunted a generation, been almost entirely forgotten while the Irish catastrophe became the defining tragedy of a nation? What destroyed the linen industry of Flanders before the blight even arrived, and how did that earlier catastrophe turn a regional food crisis into something far worse? And what does DNA sequencing of museum specimens from 1845 reveal about where the most consequential agricultural disaster in European history actually began?Join John and Patrick as they tell the story of Belgium and the last great peacetime famine in Western Europe — the linen crisis, the Arm Vlaanderen, and the tragedy that Belgium forgot...----------In Sponsorship with Cornell University: Dyson Cornell SC Johnson College of Business-----------Join the History of Fresh Produce Club for ad-free listening, bonus episodes, book discounts and access to an exclusive chatroom community.Support us!Share this episode with your friendsGive a 5-star ratingWrite a review-----------Subscribe to our biweekly newsletter here for extra stories related to recent episodes, book recommendations, a sneak peek of upcoming episodes and more.-----------Instagram, TikTok, Threads:@historyoffreshproduceEmail: historyoffreshproduce@gmail.com

There are many correlations and connections in this episode, so hang on tight as we toboggan down the slippery slopes of history bumping into all manner of bizarre and simultaneously heinous characters. Keeping in mind that we're dealing with men and women of their age, nevertheless, the tale is one of intrigue, ego, treasure hunting, not to mention, madness. Belgium by 1882 was barely half a century old, becoming independent in 1830, ruled by King Leopold the Second, who sported a spade shaped beard and a giant colonial chip on his shoulder. Because he led a respectable European country, he was a king, but how he'd become a king was a sleight of hand. His father was a German prince, related to the British Royal family, Leopold the First. This trembling nation had been pasted together — an uneasy amalgam as Adam Hothschild writes — of French and Flemish, a version of Dutch spoken in northern Belgium. King Leopold the Second was fluent in French, German, like his father and later, English. He never bothered to learn Flemish, spoken by more than half his people. A snob, some said, bitterly, as bitter as the division created by language and class. French was the language of the bourgeois, the educated, Flemish was working class. Even the professionals of northern Belgium spoke French instead of Flemish, the perceived language of the farm labourer and factory worker. As a teen, Leopold the Second was a gangly youth, his head too big for his body, his clothes hanging off his spindly shoulders — a callow boy who's mother tended to write him threatening letters about his lack of interest in studies rather than speak to him directly. He was useless in most subjects except for Geography. Leopold the Second was a Geography freak, and from the age of ten, his education was based in military lore. By fifteen he was a lieutenant of the Belgian army, 16 he was a captain, 18, a major, 19, a colonel, and a year later, at 20, a major general. This pencil thin spindle of a boy had to apply for an audience with his father - who spoke to his son through messengers. As this alienated boy aged, he surrounded himself with men who explained how government worked, and plied him with maps.When the elder Leopold died, Leopold exclaimed : “Petit pays, pettis gens”. — small country, ordinary people. Belgium, just for the record, is about the same geographic size as Lesotho and squeezed between France and Germany, the grand nations of Europe in the late 19th Century. Leopold was peeved by his puniness, something had to be done to rouge up the petit pays. Recognizing growing domestic pressure and the strategic need to split British and French alliances, Bismarck plunged Germany into the colonial race. In 1884, he hosted the Berlin Conference, with a hazy goal at formalizing something about the European partition of the African continent. The main aim of Berlin Conference was to deal with the growing pressure of European claims over West Africa, but it was much more than that. It began formally on Saturday 15th November 1884, as winter snow which had arrived early cloaked Berlin. The plenipotentiaries had their brief - but what was Bismarck planning? Was this a free trade conference to safeguard German business in the Congo and Niger? Or was Bismarck about to wield a hefty cake slicer, to carve up the whole African continent?

There are many correlations and connections in this episode, so hang on tight as we toboggan down the slippery slopes of history bumping into all manner of bizarre and simultaneously heinous characters. Keeping in mind that we're dealing with men and women of their age, nevertheless, the tale is one of intrigue, ego, treasure hunting, not to mention, madness. Belgium by 1882 was barely half a century old, becoming independent in 1830, ruled by King Leopold the Second, who sported a spade shaped beard and a giant colonial chip on his shoulder. Because he led a respectable European country, he was a king, but how he'd become a king was a sleight of hand. His father was a German prince, related to the British Royal family, Leopold the First. This trembling nation had been pasted together — an uneasy amalgam as Adam Hothschild writes — of French and Flemish, a version of Dutch spoken in northern Belgium. King Leopold the Second was fluent in French, German, like his father and later, English. He never bothered to learn Flemish, spoken by more than half his people. A snob, some said, bitterly, as bitter as the division created by language and class. French was the language of the bourgeois, the educated, Flemish was working class. Even the professionals of northern Belgium spoke French instead of Flemish, the perceived language of the farm labourer and factory worker. As a teen, Leopold the Second was a gangly youth, his head too big for his body, his clothes hanging off his spindly shoulders — a callow boy who's mother tended to write him threatening letters about his lack of interest in studies rather than speak to him directly. He was useless in most subjects except for Geography. Leopold the Second was a Geography freak, and from the age of ten, his education was based in military lore. By fifteen he was a lieutenant of the Belgian army, 16 he was a captain, 18, a major, 19, a colonel, and a year later, at 20, a major general. This pencil thin spindle of a boy had to apply for an audience with his father - who spoke to his son through messengers. As this alienated boy aged, he surrounded himself with men who explained how government worked, and plied him with maps.When the elder Leopold died, Leopold exclaimed : “Petit pays, pettis gens”. — small country, ordinary people. Belgium, just for the record, is about the same geographic size as Lesotho and squeezed between France and Germany, the grand nations of Europe in the late 19th Century. Leopold was peeved by his puniness, something had to be done to rouge up the petit pays. Recognizing growing domestic pressure and the strategic need to split British and French alliances, Bismarck plunged Germany into the colonial race. In 1884, he hosted the Berlin Conference, with a hazy goal at formalizing something about the European partition of the African continent. The main aim of Berlin Conference was to deal with the growing pressure of European claims over West Africa, but it was much more than that. It began formally on Saturday 15th November 1884, as winter snow which had arrived early cloaked Berlin. The plenipotentiaries had their brief - but what was Bismarck planning? Was this a free trade conference to safeguard German business in the Congo and Niger? Or was Bismarck about to wield a hefty cake slicer, to carve up the whole African continent?

Robrecht's feature film credits include the films: The Ardennes, Revenge, The Bouncer, Bad Boys for Life, Rebel, Wil, Bad Boys: Ride or Die, Meanwhile on Earth, Steve, and The Resurrection of the Christ. Robrecht's television work includes the projects: Snowfall and The Kollective.

Maryann Walters is back to take us beyond Brussels and into the heart of Belgium, a country often overlooked by travelers but packed with history, culture, and character.We explore Flanders and its legendary cobblestone cycling routes, including the famous Tour of Flanders, before heading to Ronse, a border town where French and Flemish cultures meet. Along the way, Maryann explains the differences between Flemish and Dutch, how Belgium's history shapes modern identity, and why friendships here tend to run deep.We also cover the practical side of life in Belgium, from housing and transportation to food, beer, and the country's famously social lunch culture. Finally, we visit the Ardennes and Dinant, where castles, cliffs, and the River Meuse reveal one of Belgium's most beautiful regions.Subscribe, share with a fellow traveler, and leave a review if Belgium just moved up your bucket list.Map of Belgium Support the showPlease download, like, subscribe, share a review, and follow us on your favorite podcasts app and connect with us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wherenextpodcast/View all listening options: https://wherenextpodcast.buzzsprout.com/HostsCarol Springer: https://www.instagram.com/carol.work.lifeKristen: https://www.instagram.com/team_wake/ If you can, please support the show or you can buy us a coffee. 

The history of immigration in England is far older than many people realise. Immigration in Tudor England, medieval England and even Roman Britain helped shape the nation we know today. People often talk about immigration as though it is a modern issue, but England's history tells a very different story. In this video, we explore over a thousand years of migration to England, from the Romans, Anglo-Saxons, Vikings and Normans to medieval Jewish communities, Flemish weavers, Italian bankers, Tudor refugees, African residents and Muslim diplomats. You'll discover how immigrants helped shape England's economy, culture and society, and how concerns about jobs, wages and foreign competition were being debated centuries ago. We'll examine events such as the York massacre of 1190, the anti-immigrant riots of Evil May Day in 1517, the arrival of Huguenot refugees, the story of John Blanke, Henry VIII's Black royal trumpeter, and England's diplomatic links with Morocco and the Ottoman Empire. History doesn't tell us what immigration policy should be today, but it can challenge assumptions about the past. Was England ever truly isolated? What does the historical evidence actually reveal? Let me know your thoughts in the comments.   #History #EnglishHistory #TudorHistory #MedievalHistory #BritishHistory #BlackTudors #ImmigrationHistory #HistoryDocumentary #HenryVIII #ElizabethI

What did it actually take to keep Tudor England clean? Before dawn, before the court woke up, before Henry VIII put on his famous doublet, someone was already up to her elbows in lye, urine, and other people's laundry. That someone was the Tudor laundress, and her story is one I have been wanting to tell for a long time. In this episode we follow three very different women doing the same essential work: the royal laundress at Hampton Court, who washed the king's most intimate linen and had to pretend she knew absolutely nothing about what those sheets revealed; the household laundress in a noble family, including the remarkable story of Bess Holland, who went from washer in the nursery to mistress of the Duke of Norfolk; and the independent washerwoman working on her own, building a business in a world that viewed her very existence with suspicion. Plus: the Tudor hygiene experiment that will completely change how you think about cleanliness, the Flemish refugee who arrived in London and built an empire out of a bucket of starch, and why the most fashionable accessory in Elizabethan England was basically a laundress's worst nightmare. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

rWotD Episode 3323: Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts Welcome to random Wiki of the Day, your journey through Wikipedia's vast and varied content, one random article at a time.The random article for Tuesday, 9 June 2026, is Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts.The Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts (Dutch: Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie van België voor Wetenschappen en Kunsten, pronounced [ˈkoːnɪŋkləkə ˈvlaːmsə ˌaːkaːˈdeːmi vɑm ˈbɛlɣijə voːr ˈʋeːtənˌsxɑpə(n) ɛn ˈkʏnstə(n)], abbr. KVAB) is an independent learned society of science and arts of the Flemish Community in Belgium. It is one of Belgium's numerous academies and traces its origin to 1772 when the Imperial and Royal Academy of Brussels was founded by empress Maria Theresia.The academy is headquartered in the Academy Palace (Paleis der Academiën), Hertogsstraat 1, 1000 Brussels.This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 01:23 UTC on Tuesday, 9 June 2026.For the full current version of the article, see Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts on Wikipedia.This podcast uses content from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.Visit our archives at wikioftheday.com and subscribe to stay updated on new episodes.Follow us on Bluesky at @wikioftheday.com.Also check out Curmudgeon's Corner, a current events podcast.Until next time, I'm standard Joey.

WAFFLE takes on Belgian and all its bounty.  3 girls, two cities, one mission. In the first half, we visit the the fine Art Museum of Ghent and hear an expert Art Historians discuss cutting edge Flemish and Dutch art,  they will discuss Bruegel, Frans Hals to they will passionately defend Still Life. All warming up to the one of greatest masterpieces in Western art: the Ghent Altarpiece.  The second part is In Bruges. It may not be two Irish Assassins trying to make peace with themselves, but two British Artists share pretty philosophical thoughts in churches and in front of stunning art pieces by the GOAT Michelangelo and the lesser known yet arguably more impressive Hans Memling.

Why do we picture Henry VIII when we think of England? Let's explore this misconception together! In my conversation with historian Nandini Das, we delve into her new book, *This Little World*, where she challenges the notion of English isolation. Did you know that England's identity has been shaped by centuries of migration? From the Syrian princesses to Flemish hat makers, the narrative is rich and complex. This period wasn't just about kings and queens; it was about ordinary people navigating a world of change. Chalke History Festival is on from the 22nd through to the 28th of June grab tickets from https://www.chalkefestival.comGrab a copy of This Little World Here https://uk.bookshop.org/a/14692/9781526669650Keep up to date with Nandini here https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/author/nandini-das/If you want to get in touch with History with Jackson email: jackson@historywithjackson.co.ukTo support History with Jackson to carry on creating content subscribe to History with Jackson+ on Apple Podcasts or support us on our Patreon - https://patreon.com/HistorywithJackson?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLinkTo catch up on everything to do with History with Jackson head to www.HistorywithJackson.co.ukFollow us on Facebook at @HistorywithJacksonFollow us on Instagram at @HistorywithJacksonFollow us on X/Twitter at @HistorywJacksonFollow us on TikTok at @HistorywithJackson Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sedate and unflashy international institutions are in a struggle for attention in this new age of spectacle. In a step change aimed at addressing the challenge, the European Commission, the EU's executive body, last year paid a group of content creators around €100,000 for making videos about free movement across national borders under the Schengen Agreement. This month it emerged that the European Council, which organizes EU leaders' meetings, will invite social media influencers to summits starting this summer. The initiatives are acknowledgement that the dynamics of political communications have changed with the rise of social media, which demands high levels of emotionality and relatability. In this episode, Peter Van Aelst, a professor at the University of Antwerp and a prominent media commentator, shares his findings on the increasingly demonstrative tone used by politicians over the past 15 years. Negative emotions like anger are prevalent—especially among radical right and hard-left parties. But the findings also show politicians using more positive messaging as a strategy to foster goodwill as well as capture attention. One example is Bart De Wever, the Belgian prime minister, who has become a sensation on Instagram by posting videos with his cat Maximus. That has helped soften his hardline Flemish nationalist image. At the level of the EU, questions remain about the authenticity and effectiveness of paid influencer content and about whether it could eventually veer into propaganda. There also are calls to regulate outside influencers to ensure they aren't being paid by hostile actors. Yet another concern is reliance for distribution of influencer content on opaque US platforms owned by multinationals like Meta and X that are aligned with the Trump administration's hostility to European digital standards and regulations.Support the show

May 7, 1253. Flemish friar William of Rubruck sets off on a two-year expedition with hopes of converting the Mongol Empire to Christianity. Support the show! Join Into History for ad-free listening and more. History Daily is a co-production of Airship and Noiser.Go to HistoryDaily.com for more history, daily.

Fewer than 23% of Flemish children between 8 and 17 can identify a blackbird. Less than 5% can name a peacock butterfly. The mole scores highest — not because of nature education, but because it's a beloved character in children's stories.Nature isn't just disappearing from our landscapes. It's disappearing from our minds.In this episode, I sit down with Prof. Hans Van Dyck, behavioral ecologist at UCLouvain and head of the Behavioural Ecology and Conservation group, to talk about what happens to a species — and a society — when children grow up without meaningful contact with the living world.We get into the winners and losers of human-altered landscapes, and where Homo sapiens really sits on that spectrum. We talk about niche construction and its hidden cost — how we built a world for ourselves, and what we quietly subtracted in the process. Hans walks me through Robert Pyle's devastating 1978 concept of the "extinction of experience," and why disconnection compounds across generations. We get into shifting baselines — why each generation inherits a smaller idea of what "normal" nature looks like, without knowing it. And we talk about the move from nature blindness to biophobia: the teacher who brought tissues for children to clean their hands after touching plants, the teenagers who fled a butterfly on a café terrace, the children in hazmat suits at a tree-planting (a story Adrian Wong from SUGi first told me in S6E7).Hans also makes a compelling case for school yards as one of the highest-leverage interventions available to us — for biodiversity, for reduced bullying, and as an equalizer for children whose families can't drive to the countryside on weekends. And he reminds us that you don't need to know the name of a single species to do this work. Curious children are already doing it for us.Hans's December 2025 op-ed in De Standaard — "Children can no longer tell a blackbird from a sparrow" — is a wonderful companion to this conversation. He's also the author of Het orakel van de bosnimf. Van vlinders en mensen (Lannoo), and his scientific work is available on Google Scholar and ResearchGate.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.theflyingfrisby.comThis weekend, on the advice of ChatGPT, I visited Constable country. That is Essex, the villages of Dedham and East Bergholt, by the River Stour, which John Constable so famously painted.Having just spent a fortnight in Namibia, I've become attuned to stunning landscapes. Even so, I was blown away by the beauty of the place.Here are some snaps to get you in the zone.I went with a French friend who wanted to see the “real England”, but not too far from Stansted Airport.As we drove into East Bergholt, I began, as I always do as soon as I see them, to despair at the ugliness of modern buildings. No wonder we have so many NIMBYs, when what gets built around beautiful villages is so bland and ugly. Objection is both rational and natural.But then we turned a corner and everything was suddenly stunning.It's not a part of the world I knew. I had lazily assumed all of Essex looked like Basildon. It doesn't. It was glorious. You could really see the Dutch and Flemish influence in the architecture and the colours they were painted - so different to the equally beautiful Cotswolds, where I was last weekend doing gigs.We were only sixty miles from London, but it still felt like an England of old, unblighted.My French companion could not understand what I had been moaning about when I complain about decline. This was the England she knew growing up, and she got excited by everything. Scones. Tea. Churches. Beautiful landscapes. Polite conversation. Phone boxes. Properly kept gardens. Even the beer. “It's not cold,” she said, before promptly downing it.My oft-cited complaint that the England she knew is disappearing seemed nonsense. There was no evidence of it here.As we walked into Manningtree, the buildings got ugly again. Warehouses and industrial buildings, in particular. Nineteenth century warehouses were often things of beauty. Why can 21st century warehouses not be? (The answer lies in our system of measurement, but that's for another day).Then we learnt about Matthew Hopkins, the Witchfinder General, who operated here, exploiting the social upheaval of the English Civil War to have hundreds of women executed as witches. Among his methods of getting to the “truth” he used sleep deprivation to extract confessions; he tied victims to chairs and dropped them into the estuary. If they floated, they were witches. If they sank, they weren't. I guess the victims lost either way. He strip-searched women looking for signs of the mark of the devil. If he couldn't find any he pricked them with knives until he found the signs he was looking for. Just horrible. Maybe the English past isn't quite so idyllic after all.Here's what makes it worse. For every witch he successfully hunted down, the government gave him fee. He got very rich. Show me the incentive and I will show you the outcome. A lot of innocent dead women. An early gruesome example of the law of unintended consequences. Remind me why I'm a libertarian again.Today, if we are heading into the civil war many think we are, who knows what kind of witch hunts we are going to see in the name of some nuts ideology?We caught a train from Mistley back to Manningtree. More grim modern housing. Lots of it too. More walking then a short river boat tour. We mentioned we were staying at a village up the road, East Bergholt, and one of the locals declared this was the last chance to enjoy it before more new-build goes up. “We need 1.5 million homes,” he said. “The question is, do we have 1.5 million people who are going to buy them?”Articulated right there is the property crisis coming to a town near you.I have long argued that beautiful property will keep its value. Ugly new build won't. Beautiful is pretty much synonymous with period. It was built using traditional measures, where proportion is intrinsic. No such proportion is inherent to metric. We are already seeing the unravelling of the new-build market in London. That unravelling is coming to everywhere there is ugly new build, whether blocks of flats or houses. We did find one modern close in East Bergholt that was actually beautiful by the way. So it's possible. But it's the exception, not the rule.This is one of the reasons I invest so much of my capital outside the UK. I don't like sterling, so I hold gold and bitcoin, and I don't like gilts. A weakening property market, which is happening right on cue, will create problems for both.If you live in a third world country such as the UK, I urge you to own gold or silver. The pound will be further devalued, as will the euro and dollar. The bullion dealer I use and recommend is The Pure Gold Company. They deliver to the UK, the US, Canada and Europe. More here.Idyllic corners of England do still exist. Many of them. UK shares already offer value. There is a lot to like in the UK, as my French companion kept pointing out. But there are also big problems ahead, with a leadership class that, shall we say, falls short.Opportunities abroad, howeverI sit regularly on a roundtable with Doug Casey and a number of other mining newsletter writers. A company presents. The experts grill them. The company logs off, and then we discuss it.I liked this week's so much I bought shares while the presentation was still happening. The company is …

The Pembroke Welsh Corgi is one of the most recognizable dog breeds in the world. It herded cattle on Welsh farms for nearly a thousand years. Then it caught a Royal eye and everything changed. In this episode, Coach Francis traces the Pembroke from the Flemish weavers of 12th-century Wales through Buckingham Palace, through the Instagram era, and into the veterinary clinic where one of the most serious neurological conditions in any breed is quietly running through the majority of the population. The Corgi's fame has a cost. Almost nobody talks about it.

Happy “Tax Day”! I wonder what the American Revolutionary Founders would think of ‘Tax Day’, on this momentous 250th Anniversary of our American Independence…? Links Videos / Clips [x] = Played The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer – American Archive of Public Broadcasting [x] 48:56--49:39 JIM LEHRER: What is the proper relationship, what should be the proper relationship between a chairman of the Fed and a president of the United States? ALAN GREENSPAN: Well, first of all, the Federal Reserve is an independent agency, and that means, basically, that there is no other agency of government which can overrule actions that we take. So long as that is in place and there is no evidence that the administration or the Congress or anybody else is requesting that we do things other than what we think is the appropriate thing, then what the relationships are don’t, frankly, matter. And I’ve had very good relationships with presidents. 1. [x] Understanding Fractional Reserve Banking: How It Fuels Economic Growth Fractional reserve banking is the banking system most countries use today. It requires banks to hold only a fraction of the money their customers deposit. That amount is the reserve requirement, and in most countries, it is set by the central bank. Banks can loan the rest of their deposits to other customers, which serves to expand the economy. It works like this. Banks accept deposits from individuals and businesses providing them with savings and checking accounts in return. Banks can loan out the bulk of those deposits to other customers to buy homes or cars, start businesses, or to fund other projects. If a customer deposits $100,000 into a bank and the reserve requirement is 5%, the bank can loan $95,000 out to other customers. Once the bank has loaned out $95,000, it in essence has created $195,000. Customers borrow that $95,000 and deposit some or all of it into other banks. If the reserve requirement is still 5%, then the other banks can loan $90,250 to new customers. And the process keeps repeating itself. Financial crisis occurs when the fractional banking system breaks down and the money supply does not expand. Many US banks had to shut down during the Great Depression, because so many people attempted to withdraw their money at the same time. Today, safeguards exist to prevent such an occurrence. 1. Dollar Decline, Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) & IMF as World Federal Bank – Jim Rickards – The Triffin Dilemma Headlines [x] = Mentioned / Discussed [x] Secretive Bilderberg group just met – but who knows what global elite said? | Washington DC | The Guardian [x] Prosecutors from Jeanine Pirro’s office tried to access Federal Reserve headquarters, but were turned away | CBS News [x] Grand jury declines criminal charges against 6 Democrats who urged military to reject illegal orders | CBS News [x] Google, Microsoft, Meta All Tracking You Even When You Opt Out, According to an Independent Audit | 404 Media WebinarTV Secretly Scraped Zoom Meetings of Anonymous Recovery Programs | 404 Media Farmer Arrested for Speaking Too Long at Datacenter Town Hall Vows to Fight | 404 Media The Rest [x] = Mentioned / Discussed Previous RWR Episodes [x] Road Warrior Radio with Chris Hinkley, April 14, 2026 | Hour 1 | Hour 2 Administrative Fourth Branch [x] The Birth of the Administrative State: Where It Came From and What It Means for Limited Government | The Heritage Foundation [x] The Rise and Rise of the Administrative State on JSTOR [x] America Is A Don't Ask Don't Tell Nation – Road Warrior Radio The Paper Ponzi Scheme [x] Thomas Jefferson to Edward Carrington, 27 May 1788 The bankruptcies in London have recommenced with new force. There is no saying where this fire will end. Perhaps in the general conflagration of all their paper. …nothing is necessary but a general panic, produced either by failures, invasion or any other cause, and the whole visionary fabric vanishes into air and shews that paper is poverty, that it is only the ghost of money, and not money itself. [x] Money, whence it came, where it went : Galbraith, John Kenneth, 1908-2006 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled. Where something so important is involved, a deeper mystery seems only decent. [x] Economists John Kenneth Galbraith and Alan Greenspan appeared before… News Photo – Getty Images [x] Crash Could Not Happen Again, Heller, Galbraith and Greenspan Tell Congress – The New York Times [x] FRB Speech, Bernanke – On Milton Friedman’s ninetieth birthday – November 8, 2002 Let me end my talk by abusing slightly my status as an official representative of the Federal Reserve. I would like to say to Milton and Anna: Regarding the Great Depression. You’re right, we did it. We’re very sorry. But thanks to you, we won’t do it again. [x] Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval (1816) – Teaching American History We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debts, as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our callings and our creeds, as the people of England are, our people, like them, must come to labor sixteen hours in the twenty-four, give the earnings of fifteen of these to the government for their debts and daily expenses; and the sixteenth being insufficient to afford us bread, we must live, as they now do, on oatmeal and potatoes; have no time to think, no means of calling the mismanagers to account; but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers. Our landholders, too, like theirs, retaining indeed the title and stewardship of estates called theirs, but held really in trust for the treasury, must wander, like theirs, in foreign countries, and be contented with penury, obscurity, exile, and the glory of the nation. This example reads to us the salutary lesson, that private fortunes are destroyed by public as well as by private extravagance. And this is the tendency of all human governments. A departure from principle in one instance becomes a precedent for a second; that second for a third; and so on, till the bulk of the society is reduced to be mere automatons of misery, and to have no sensibilities left but for sinning and suffering. Then begins, indeed, the bellum omnium in omnia, which some philosophers observing to be so general in this world, have mistaken it for the natural, instead of the abusive state of man. And the fore horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression. [x] Andrew Jackson, Farewell Address (Mar 4, 1837) | The American Presidency Project The severe lessons of experience will, I doubt not, be sufficient to prevent Congress from again chartering such a monopoly, even if the Constitution did not present an insuperable objection to it. But you must remember, my fellow-citizens, that eternal vigilance by the people is the price of liberty, and that you must pay the price if you wish to secure the blessing. It behooves you, therefore, to be watchful in your States as well as in the Federal Government. The power which the moneyed interest can exercise, when concentrated under a single head and with our present system of currency, was sufficiently demonstrated in the struggle made by the Bank of the United States. [x] Federal Reserve Act – Wikisource, the free online library Sec. 30.. The right to amend, alter, or repeal this Act is hereby expressly reserved. [x] hypothecate – definition and meaning [x] Websters 1828 – Webster’s Dictionary 1828 – Hypothecate HYPOTH’ECATE, verb transitive [Latin hypotheca, a pledge; Gr. to put under, to suppose.] 1. To pledge, and properly to pledge the keel of a ship, that is, the ship itself, as security for the repayment of money borrowed to carry on a voyage. In this case the lender hazards the loss of his money by the loss of the ship, but if the ship returns safe, he received his principal, with the premium or interest agreed on, though it may exceed the legal rate of interest. 2. To pledge, as goods. [x] 321gold: Gold and Economic Freedom by Alan Greenspan 1966 In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value. If there were, the government would have to make its holding illegal, as was done in the case of gold. If everyone decided, for example, to convert all his bank deposits to silver or copper or any other good, and thereafter declined to accept checks as payment for goods, bank deposits would lose their purchasing power and government-created bank credit would be worthless as a claim on goods. The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves. This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists’ tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists’ antagonism toward the gold standard. Triffin dilemma – Wikipedia The Shot Heard Round The World [x] Battles of Lexington and Concord – Wikipedia On This Day Events April 2026 Calendar of Public Holidays | Office Holidays Holidays and Observances in the United States in 2026 What day is it today? Important events every day ad-free | United States OTD Worldwide Public Holidays Wednesday April 15th 2026 | Office Holidays On This Day – What Happened on April 15 Today in History: April 15, the Titanic sinks in the North Atlantic | AP News What Happened on April 15 – On This Day What Happened on April 15 | HISTORY April 15 – Wikipedia What Happened On April 15 In History? 15 | April | 2020 | Executed Today Holidays Tax Day (US) Father Damien Day (Hawaii) Jackie Robinson Day (US) Titanic Remembrance Day (US) American Sign Language (ASL) Day (US) Historical Events 2013 – Boston Marathon Bombing: Two bombs made from pressure cookers exploded at the Boston Marathon finish line, killing two women and an 8-year-old boy and injuring more than 260. But: Who is Graham Fuller, and who is Uncle Ruslan…?123456789 1998 – Pol Pot, the architect of Cambodia's killing fields, dies of apparently natural causes while serving a life sentence imposed against him by his own Khmer Rouge. 1994 – The World Trade Organization is founded: The WTO coordinates and strives to liberalize international trade. It has been criticized for ignoring and escalating the negative social and environmental side-effects of globalization. 1990 – Sketch comedy TV series In Living Color premieres on FOX TV 1989 – A small group of students initiates pro-democracy protest on Tiananmen Square in Beijing: The death of reformer Hu Yaobang triggered the demonstrations, which grew in size and were brutally dispersed in the Tiananmen Square Massacre on June 4. 1986 – The United States launches retaliatory air strikes against Libya: Around 40 Libyans died in Operation El Dorado Canyon, including an infant girl. The attack was the United States’ response to the bombing of a Berlin discotheque on April 5, in which 3 people had died. 1974 – Members of the Symbionese Liberation Army held up a branch of the Hibernia Bank in San Francisco; a member of the group was SLA kidnap victim Patricia Hearst. (Hearst later said she had been forced to participate in the robbery.) 1960 – Guy Carawan sings We Shall Overcome to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in Raleigh, popularizing the song as a protest anthem 1955 – Ray Kroc opened the first franchised McDonald's restaurant in Des Plaines, Illinois. 1945 – The German concentration camp Bergen-Belsen is liberated: British and Canadian troops found about 53,000 prisoners inside the camp. Tens of thousands died before and after the liberation. 1935 – The Eastman Kodak Company launches Kodachrome: The photographic film was one of the most popular media used by professional and hobby photographers around the world. The product was discontinued in 2009 because of the advent of digital photography. 1924 – Rand McNally publishes its first road atlas. 1912 – British luxury liner RMS Titanic sunk in the North Atlantic off Newfoundland just over two and a half hours after hitting an iceberg on its maiden voyage. Over 1,500 people died; 710 survived. 1900 – Philippine–American War: Filipino guerrillas launch a surprise attack on U.S. 1892 – The General Electric Company is formed. 1877 – World’s first home telephone is installed in Somerville, Massachusetts at the house of Charles Williams Jr. 1874 – First Impressionist art exhibition opens in Paris, features Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro and Berthe Morisot 1865 – Abraham Lincoln died after being shot by John Wilkes Booth at Ford's Theater the previous evening; Andrew Johnson was sworn in as the 17th president hours later. 1861 – Federal army of 75,000 volunteers is mobilized by President Abraham Lincoln at the start of the American Civil War 1802 – William Wordsworth and his sister, Dorothy see a “long belt” of daffodils, inspiring the former to pen I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud. 1783 – Preliminary articles of peace ending the American Revolutionary War (or American War of Independence) are ratified. 1755 – Samuel Johnson’s A Dictionary of the English Language is published in London 1729 – Johann Sebastian Bach’s St Matthew Passion premieres at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig, Holy Roman Empire (now Germany) Births 1978 – Chris Stapleton, American country singer-songwriter and guitarist (48) 1922 – Harold Washington, American lawyer and politician, 51st Mayor of Chicago (died 1987) 1894 – Nikita Khrushchev, Soviet politician, 7th Premier of the Soviet Union (died 1971) 1858 – Émile Durkheim, French sociologist, psychologist, and philosopher [read Lark’s Collected Musings] (died 1917) 1843 – Henry James, American/English author (died 1916) 1841 – Joseph E. Seagram, Canadian businessman and politician, founded the Seagram Company Ltd (died 1919) 1832 – Wilhelm Busch, German poet, painter, illustrator (died 1908) 1452 – Leonardo da Vinci, Italian painter, sculptor, architect (died 1519) Deaths 2025 – Wink Martindale, American DJ, radio personality, and TV personality (born 1933) 2024 – Whitey Herzog, American professional baseball outfielder and manager (born 1931) 2018 – R. Lee Ermey, USMC drill instructor, American actor (born 1944) 1998 – Pol Pot, Cambodian general and politician, 29th Prime Minister of Cambodia (born 1925) 1990 – Greta Garbo, Swedish actress (born 1905) 1980 – Jean-Paul Sartre, French philosopher, writer, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1905) 1912 – Victims of the Titanic disaster: Archibald Butt, American general and journalist (born 1865) Benjamin Guggenheim, American businessman (born 1865) Charles Melville Hays, American businessman (born 1856) Edward Smith, English Captain (born 1850) Henry B. Harris, American producer and manager (born 1866) Henry Tingle Wilde, English chief officer (born 1872) Ida Straus, German-American businesswoman (born 1849) Isidor Straus, German-American businessman and politician (born 1845) Jack Phillips, English telegraphist (born 1887) Jacques Futrelle, American journalist and author (born 1875) James Paul Moody, English Sixth Officer (born 1887) John B. Thayer, American business and sportsman (born 1862) John Jacob Astor IV, American colonel, businessman, and author (born 1864) Thomas Andrews, Irish shipbuilder (born 1873) Wallace Hartley, English violinist and bandleader (born 1878) William McMaster Murdoch, Scottish First Officer (born 1873) William Thomas Stead, English journalist (born 1849) 1889 – Father Damien, Flemish missionary, priest, and saint (born 1840) 1865 – Abraham Lincoln, American lawyer, politician, 16th President of the United States (born 1809) Footnotes Jimenez, Guillermo. “The Tsarnaevs and the CIA: Who Is Graham Fuller?” Traces of Reality by Guillermo Jimenez, 2026, web.archive.org/web/20130503080950/tracesofreality.com/2013/04/29/the-tsarnaevs-and-the-cia-who-is-graham-fuller/. Accessed 15 Apr. 2026. It has been confirmed that the Tsarnaev family, at least to some degree, have been connected to the Central Intelligence Agency for almost 20 years. In 1995, Ruslan Tsarni (formerly known as Ruslan Tsarnaev, affectionately known as “Uncle Ruslan,” the American corporate media darling who bemoaned the alleged actions of his nephews Dzhokar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev ) married the daughter of the former Deputy Director of the CIA's National Council on Intelligence, Graham Fuller. While the marriage of Samantha Ankara Fuller and Ruslan Tsarnaev was short-lived, reportedly ending in divorce in 1999, it appears that Ruslan and Graham Fuller were more than just father-in-law and son.  They may also been business partners. These key details in the history of the Tsarnaev family and the CIA were first reported by Daniel Hopsicker of Mad Cow Morning News, and the marriage of Fuller's daughter and Ruslan has indeed been confirmed by Al-Monitor reporter, Laura Rozen. ↩ Hopsicker, Daniel. “Boston Bombers' Uncle Married Daughter of Top CIA Official.” MadCow Morning News, 26 Apr. 2013, www.madcowprod.com/2013/04/26/boston-bombers-uncle-married-daughter-of-top-cia-official/. Accessed 15 Apr. 2026. ↩ Hopsicker, Daniel. ““Uncle Ruslan” Aided Terrorists from CIA Official's Home.” MadCow Morning News, 29 Apr. 2013, www.madcowprod.com/2013/04/29/uncle-ruslan-aid-to-terrorists-from-cia-officials-home/. Accessed 15 Apr. 2026. ↩ Corbett, James. “Who Is Graham Fuller?” The Corbett Report, 2026, corbettreport.com/who-is-graham-fuller/. Accessed 15 Apr. 2026. ↩ “Graham Fuller – Wikispooks.” Wikispooks.com, 2026, wikispooks.com/wiki/Graham_Fuller. Accessed 15 Apr. 2026. ↩ Wikipedia Contributors. “Graham E. Fuller.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 30 Mar. 2026, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_E._Fuller. Accessed 15 Apr. 2026. ↩ Wikipedia Contributors. “Islamism.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 23 Feb. 2019, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamism. Accessed 15 Apr. 2026. ↩ Wikipedia Contributors. “Tablighi Jamaat.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 9 Apr. 2020, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tablighi_Jamaat. Accessed 15 Apr. 2026. ↩ Engdahl, F. William. “Graham E. Fuller Where Were You on the Night of July 15?” Archive.org, 9 Aug. 2016, www.williamengdahl.com/englishNEO9Aug2016.php. Accessed 15 Apr. 2026. ↩

Danny Segers has spent 18 years quietly building Bioracer into one of Europe's largest custom cycling apparel manufacturers, growing the Belgian company from €7 million to €35 million in revenue, with 85% of the business focused on custom team wear. With a background in finance and auditing, Danny brings a distinctly analytical lens to the cycling industry, one that favors sustainable reinvestment over aggressive expansion and steady progress over flashy ambition.In this conversation, we dig into how Bio Racer mastered the incredibly complex world of custom clothing, processing 15,000 unique designs annually across factories in Czech Republic, Romania, Macedonia, and Colombia. Danny also shares the moment that changed everything — when World Champion Tony Martin crossed the finish line in a competitor's skin suit — and how that painful wake-up call pushed Bio Racer to embrace wind tunnel testing and redefine themselves as the most tested brand in cycling.Read the latest 'The Business of Cycling' BlogSign up for 'The Business of Cycling' Newsletter

Jonny and Richard answer listeners' questions about being cruel to cars out of spite, strange gauges and the worst special edition options, plus a Belgian listener explains what the name of this spin-off sounds like in Flemish. For early, ad-free episodes and extra content go to patreon.com/smithandsniff To buy merch and tickets to live shows go to smithandsniff.com To get 10 percent off any order of Duramat garage flooring got to duramat.co.uk and use discount code SSG10 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Spring is upon us. March has seen a burst of big art events—the true start of a busy year. This week, Kate Brown and Ben Davis are joined by senior writer Eileen Kinsella to discuss some of the biggest art stories of the month. In this episode, will be discussing: — The 2026 Whitney Biennial, which opened at the beginning of the month. It always gives a snapshot of who's in and who's out, and what's on curators minds. (I've written two pieces on it, here and here) — The rise of a new art historical art star: the Flemish baroque painter Michaelina Wautier (1604–1689). — And a new investigation that claims to definitively, absolutely, positively once and for settle the question of who Banksy really is. Do we think they did it? Does it matter?

Send us Fan MailThe spring classics are here – and the road.cc Podcast is hitting the road. Or the narrow, treacherously cobbled and ridiculously steep Flemish lane, to be exact. Yes, this spring we've set ourselves the somewhat lofty aim of traversing every part of Belgium and northern France during the classics season, covering every town centre, rural lane, cobbled berg, bus-filled car park, and stretch of brutal pavé.We'll be soaking up the unique atmosphere, sounds, and culture of the best period of the entire cycling year, in one of the sport's true heartlands, where bike racing seeps into everyday life, and (hopefully) giving you some behind-the-scenes insight into the classics and their stars – starting with Opening Weekend, where holy places were visited, unholy amounts of beers were consumed, and where new saviours were born.

Over the last several years, I have been thinking about food waste and food loss a lot. It's been a topic that we've seen in many spaces in the US and around the world. And it's interesting to compare how the US handles food waste with other countries. To that end, we will learn more about how Belgium addresses food waste in a conversation with an anthropologist and journalist, Dr. Kelly Alexander from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her book, Truffles and Trash: Recirculating Food in a Social Welfare State, explores community driven solutions and policy around food waste. And Belgium's capital city of Brussells. Interview Transcript Let's start with your research in Brussels at a high end truffle restaurant... but you ended up in food banks and social restaurants and community kitchens. Tell us a little bit about the evolution. How did this project evolve to finding yourself in these new places? Yeah, it's a, a strange trajectory. I did not start out to be a food waste researcher. But how it started and how it's going, you know, that meme from 2018? This is like what I love to talk about when I talk to my food study students, because I started out, as a researcher, very interested in the development of haut cuisine. I had worked in a lot of restaurants. I had worked as a journalist for several food magazines. And the question that really animated me was how a truffle, this little spore on a fungus, has become one of the world's most expensive ingredients. And so I was doing ethnographic research in the kitchen of a Michelin starred truffle restaurant. And there is not that many of those, and one of them happens to be in Brussels, Belgium. And I'm in the kitchen there and I'm working on the line. And I usually have to specify to my students like it wasn't a stunt. Like you can't write to a Michelin star restaurant and say, 'Hey, can I come on in and work in your kitchen?' I had a lot of credentials as a journalist and as a chef first. What I did have going for me is that I was in a funded doctoral dissertation program, actually the anthropology program at Duke. So, I had funding to go and do that research in this kitchen. And there's probably no restaurant in the world, no matter how high end, that is not willing to accept some free labor. So, I'm working in that kitchen. I'm working with fantastic chefs. And what happens when you work at a super high-end restaurant is that is aesthetics are valued above all else. The food has to be really, really beautiful. And this restaurant charges extraordinarily. It's called La Truffe Noire. It's still in Brussels now. It's a truffle restaurant. The black truffle. Super high prices for very, very refined food. And in order to do that, a large part of my job was brushing priceless truffles, throwing away an unbelievable amount of very beautiful produce that would otherwise have been exceptionally valued in other contexts. And I come from a background - my grandmother was a Russian Jewish woman. She grew up in Brooklyn. She moved to Atlanta, Georgia after World War II. She taught me to cook, and she never threw anything away. And when I say that to people, I think they're like, oh yeah, I have a grandmother like that. But she really never threw anything away, like can of grease under the sink. The whole thing. Every little butt of a vegetable was saved for stock for later. And I was throwing away so much good food working in La Truffe Noire just making beautiful garnishes and vegetable carvings and things like that, that I started following the food waste around the city. I was wondering where all of this went. And I actually asked the chef in the restaurant, you know, we throw away so much food, would it be possible to give some of it to people who could really use it? And his response really interested me and changed the whole course of my research because he said, I am really willing to do that. However, I pay chefs to cook food and not to give it away. So, if somebody was willing to come here and pick it up, I'd happily give it to him. But I'm not going to pay people to go and do that. And I thought, well, I wonder what else is going on in this city in terms of this. Like where does all this food go? And I discovered I was doing this research at a fortuitous moment in the EU when the EU had just made this compulsory policy aimed at supermarkets. So, all large scale supermarkets across the EU were suddenly required to donate all edible but unsellable food. And the EU didn't give a lot of direction about how they could do that, and also didn't give the supermarkets any money. So, what happened as a result of that? Well, there were lots of local grassroots efforts communicating directly with supermarkets who were like, 'Hey, we're over here. We'll come pick up the food that you don't want to sell that's still good to eat. And we'll use it in our food banks and in our zero food waste popup restaurants.' And all the supermarkets had to do was get the food waste off their books. So, while I was there working in this truffle restaurant, all this other food waste activity was going on. And I discovered that's really what I wanted to be doing. I loved working as a chef, but I wanted to see what the possibilities were for recuperating food around the city. So, I changed. I changed everything I was doing pretty quickly. Oh, this is really fascinating. Thank you for sharing that. I know that the field of anthropology and other fields, you can start off on one project and discover that there's this whole new world that you didn't even realize until you started down the path. This is fascinating and I'm sure your advisor was thrilled to know that you wanted to change topic midstream. But it worked out. It worked out beautifully, it seems. It is true. I couldn't look away from the food waste to the point where I was taking pictures of the garbage can in the restaurant every day. And this big industrial garbage can filled with like priceless wild mushrooms. And a big part of my job is the restaurant made this dish. This is what changed my life. There's like a series of food journalists who talk about the dish that changed my life and what they're talking about is when you eat something super delicious and you have some kind of awakening, this is like the opposite of what happened to me. I am making this dish called Salad Stephanie. It's like a 40-euro salad that has a lobster tail in it and all these beautiful wild mushrooms, and it has eight spinach leaves. So, a big part of my job when I worked at La Truffe Noire was to hold up individual spinach leaves up to the light, and if they had any blemish or like a broken vein in them to throw it away. So, this is beautiful, this is like the best spinach that you could get. The best produce in all of Europe was coming to this restaurant and I was throwing it away. And I started taking photographs just to document all the food I was throwing away. And I couldn't look away. And actually my advisor, Dr. Anne Allison, in cultural anthropology at Duke, was really excited because I had been doing a project on aesthetics and now I was proposing a total change to do this much more political project about where food waste goes. So, she was like, yes, let us follow the food waste. This is so much more interesting. So that was kind of a nice nod that I was thinking in the right anthropological direction about food and value. Thank you. This is such an important uncovering that, you know, research isn't static. It's not linear. It takes deviations and it's in those deviations that you find the real truths. The real exciting things. Let's continue the conversation because I think there's so much more to uncover. In your book, Truffles and Trash, you describe a particular day of field work at a Brussels food pantry. It was a really powerful moment. And I will say, having worked at food pantries in different parts of the US, I recognize this story in a serious way. You mentioned that this moment turned into a tense moment around fish and pork. Can you describe this to our listeners and why did this experience stick with you? What did it teach you about the hidden social politics of food waste and redistribution? Yeah. I often frame, you know, I did this work back and forth to Brussels for about six years and certain moments just absolutely have stayed with me and haunted me in a lot of ways. And one of them was working at this food bank in a former hospital. So, there's a former hospital that had shut down. It was still like a hospital with rooms for sick people in a giant sick bay. And it had been turned into a kind of community residential center where people could rent rooms, they could use the kitchen to prepare their food. That had been the hospital's kitchen. And the bottom floor of it, which had been the whole emergency triage center, was turned into a thrice weekly food bank. So, I'm volunteering at this food bank and there's tons of food coming in from grocery stores. And this is Brussels in the summer. It's pretty hot outside. A lot of people go on vacation. There's a lot of expensive food coming in, including fish and pork, fresh fish and fresh pork. I am assigned to work on this station. The person who usually runs the station, who is my boss, is an older Vietnamese woman who's an immigrant herself to Brussels. And she is kind of giving me the ropes. And she has figured something out where she says, you know, we have to give equal things to equal people, right? And she's telling me this before anybody comes in the food bank. Yes, sure. We will give one to one to each person as the people are coming through the food bank. Brussels has a very high population of Moroccan immigrants, and this is due to historical factors. The Nation of Belgium invited Moroccan immigrants to help them build their subways in the '50s and '60s with the promise of citizenship, including they have an amazing educational system. It's a whole social welfare state, healthcare, everything. So, this is guaranteed to those Moroccan immigrants. What the Belgian government didn't do, and has been pretty clear on admitting, is create any social programming around those assimilation efforts. So, the generations of those people who came to build the subways are now a lot of them living on social assistance. That is who is coming through. A lot of Moroccan people who are Muslim, into this food bank. Muslim people typically have prohibitions against eating pork. So, we have fresh fish and fresh pork. There are women coming through, they're in hijabs, they're obviously presenting as Muslim and they are asking, could I have the fish please? And we were told to give the pork first and then the fish, because the fish is considered more valuable. And I am thinking, in my own head, oh, I'll just be an amazing social innovator here. Yes, of course. If you don't eat pork, please let me give you this fish. It is not occurring to me that other people coming through the line are considering this preferential treatment. So, I am giving fish to these Muslim women. One of them sees me in line and says, my friend is back there. Can you put aside a piece of fish for her? Yes, sure, no problem. I set it aside. A woman who is Flemish is coming through and she's speaking to me in Dutch and I'm handing her pork. Pork is super popular amongst Flemish diners. No problem. And she's pointing down and she had seen me put the fish away and said, can I have that fish? Well that fish is for someone else and she absolutely threw a fit. No, you can't do that. It's not fair. It's not just, you must give me a fish. Long story short, there's a whole tug of war between this package of fish. There's a security person at the food bank, which I had not considered why there would need to be a security person at the food bank who has to come in, break up this fight. It was, it was so humbling. I had not considered these factors. It's really on me. It's like you as a social scientist who's thinking it's not on me to innovate this food bank's pantry. I didn't follow directions. I thought I was doing a good thing. You know, the whole war over this fish. And when you see what it means to someone's culture to eat the foods that are appropriate to your culture, I would fight if someone was like, you can't have that matzo ball soup again. I'm going to take it away from you. There's no telling what I would do to get my hands on it. And I just felt in that moment, like I had done it all wrong. Like I had really misunderstood food waste distribution. But more than that, of course, I'm not the star of this story. If you are at the mercy of what is available and without choice... anthropologists spend a lot of time talking about the good life and what constitutes the good life and studying the good life. I would define the good life as being able to eat the food that you wish when you wish for it. If you don't have that and you are at the mercy of the state to decide what is appropriate for you, then you find yourself in these kinds of conflicts. And you see them, you said you could relate, you see them in food banks playing out all over the world. Yeah. First, Kelly, thank you for sharing that because I know that wasn't a fun story. I mean, I can only imagine the, the, the pain of you watching this scene unfold. I mean, that must have been difficult. Especially when the security guard is called in. Okay, that's tough. And realizing that there were differences in cultures that were clashing. All of that happening at the same time. And one of the things I pick up out of this story is that which is considered food that could be wasted, that could be redistributed, is not acceptable for all people. And like, how do we then make sense of that? Because you're in a culture where something is considered a good product...pork, but it's not considered a good product for other people. And so, you know, our food system, and I always say this about food banking in general, people complain about the foods that show up in food banks, in sort of a traditional sense. But it's just a reflection of the food system of that country, right? It just looks like what we have. And we may think that's not good, but it's, it's what you see in the grocery store often. And for all those reasons, I think there's such a richness to this story. So, thank you for sharing and also the humility it takes for telling that story too. I wanted to not be intrusive like any social scientist. I was there to share my time to do some participant observation research. Suddenly I had ignited this culture war amongst these two women, which is the least population I would want to affect. And you know, the security guard turned to me at the end of it, which is in the book and said, you get what you get. That is the policy. Yeah. If they want to trade when they get outside, you do not decide. You get what you get. That's how we do it. And I saw the wisdom of it in that moment. But at the same time, to your point, you see, sort of, like there have been much bigger tensions in Europe, especially around halal meat. You see it in France all the time, should McDonald's serve halal meat. And there's a certain very conservative contingent of Flemish people who are like, you can't tell us what we can eat. You can't tell us how we have to butcher our meat. And that's what I had seen firsthand happening in a food bank, which you think of as a place of lack where politics don't come, and politics are there. Yes, very much so. And the idea of equitable distribution; it can feel restrictive in some ways, but it serves a purpose. And like I said, I really appreciate you sharing that, and I think it's an important thing for all of us to understand the complexity of those environments. I want to move on and ask about sort of regulatory and legislative realities in Europe. So, Europe, as you mentioned, has this compulsory legislation requiring supermarkets to donate edible but unsellable food. While in the US food redistribution is often framed as charity. How does this policy difference shape what's possible? Yeah. This is the question. So, you know, one of the things I learned, even in that example. I always highlight like my worst, hardest, saddest day of participant observation in six years, which was that one. Which shows a kind of flaw in a food bank model. And sometimes I have students who say, oh, you hate food banks. I don't hate food banks. I think food banks have a lot of flaws. And what they do is continue to reproduce this structure of givers and receivers, right? Like there's, on one hand, one side of the equation are people who are giving food and on the other side who are people who were receiving food. And one thing this policy did this, like compulsory policy of forcing supermarkets... and you can't really force them, you can only levy huge fines with them. Which is... I am a big fan of policy with teeth, not just policy, but policy with teeth. You will have to pay a huge fine as a supermarket if you don't want to do this. And very few supermarkets have had to pay that fine as a result of this. There was massive compliance. But one thing I discovered was really better ways than food bank models, or that I think are better ways. In part because they're more equitable. And one of them is this concept of a social restaurant, which is very European, although you're seeing them spring up in the US more and more. So, a social restaurant, according to this model, is a government institution. It's funded by the government. And it has internship programs that people who are job seekers can apply to. They can learn skills on the job to work in restaurants, to work in the service industry. This is really important in a place like Belgium where there are two official languages, French and Dutch, but most immigrants come with only one, if any. And to be bilingual in a job market makes you far more competitive. So, you can learn this in these restaurants. You have language lessons. And then you also learn how to run a restaurant. The restaurant is entirely powered by this surplus distributed food from supermarkets, which gives you an idea of the scale. In my thinking, I was like, how can a couple of supermarkets possibly be giving an institution so much food that it could run a restaurant? The restaurant where I worked called Bel Mundo had four gigantic rooms of freezers, all of which had been donated, and they were turning away supermarkets. So that's how much food was coming in every day, just to say that. And so my greatest day of field work was called Steak Night. You wouldn't believe that you could find steak that was coming from a supermarket into a zero-food waste restaurant. And by the way, the restaurant sells meals at a lower cost. A lot of the meals were for pensioners. And also sliding scale. So, you know, one day I walked into the kitchen and there were 25 steaks, and they were fresh and they were going to expire in the next couple of days. And we needed to make them. The chefs were so excited. The chef trainees were so excited that diners were so excited about Steak Night. It was easily the happiest day of field work I'd ever had. People were dancing in the kitchen, we're playing music. It felt like we were doing something that was really luxurious and that's what that kind of policy can enable, right? There was a freezer full of unsold Christmas gooses from December that were then served for spring for Easter. That was like amazing. It's just another model. It's another way of doing things, right? That that policy made possible. Yes, and that's a great set of examples of how we can think about new ways of meeting these needs, using the surplus of our food system in creative and innovative spaces. And there's this possibility of training and development. I think there's something valuable there. You report that people in the US who talk with you about food waste, including your students, often ask, why don't we do this here? After everything you've seen, what's one realistic lesson or one small shift that communities in the US could adopt, right here, right now to rethink food waste? This the best question, and it is the number one question I get. Why don't we have this here? And we have seeds of some of it here already. I always point that out. One of the best programs I've ever seen is a program that is associated with the city's abattoir, which is a huge outdoor market that runs only on the weekends. And this grassroots group got together and said, you know, nobody's ever hanging out in this market during the week, we want to revitalize it. And one of the ways that they did it, just to get people to use the space more, was to take all the unsold produce. So instead of having vendors at the end of a market, and I think of my Carborro, NC farmer's market like this, at the end of the market, which is a pretty bougie farmer's market lots of chefs go there and get local produce. But at the end of the market instead of having farmers and produce vendors take home what they couldn't sell, they have an aftermarket. And the aftermarket turns that produce into edible meals. Everybody pays $5. There are people who come and cook the meal. If you cook the meal, you get to work for free, and it's a whole community workforce. It has had a tremendous effect. So, 60% of that market's food waste is now consumed. That's a big shift and it's happening at a local level. So, one thing, I think Michael Pollan's an amazing food journalist, but one of his great conclusions is that people need to grow their own food. And I'm critical of this. I don't think that's appropriate. I don't think that's a sustainable solution for a lot of people. But what I do think is sustainable in a market like that where there's food that doesn't sell, instead of throwing it away or taking it back or letting it rot, we could do something with it on the spot. And that's a little thing that makes a big difference. So, I am a fan of that. Food waste is one of the problems that is actually, in my view, best solved by local efforts because it's there, it's just sitting there. If you can move it around before it spoils you have won. If the ultimate goal is to just not throw away food. Now I do have students, I will say who are brilliant, who say stuff to me like isn't that neoliberalism? Look, yes. The answer's, the answer's yes. The answer's yes. If what your goal is, is to make sure that more edible food is not buried in landfills, which is bad for the environment and is not helping hungry people, it can be really effective. It can be really effective to say we don't actually have to overthrow the whole system while we're looking for better solutions. We can work within it. And that's probably my biggest takeaway is that even within a global industrial food system, there are lots of ways of moving food around from people who choose, who opt, who have the luxury of opting against it to people who would really like to have it. And it actually creates more equity instead of a culture of lack. I love your enthusiasm, and I love your vision of how we can work within the system to make it better for all people. Kelly, thank you so much for this engaging conversation. BIO Dr. Kelly Alexander is an assistant professor and George B. Tindall Fellow of American Studies in the University of North Carolina's College of Arts and Sciences, where she also co-directs the minor in Food Studies. She holds a bachelor's degree in journalism from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism and a doctorate in cultural anthropology from Duke University. She is a James Beard Award-winning writer and former editor at Saveur and Food & Wine magazines. Dr. Alexander's work has appeared in The New York Times, Newsweek, and O: The Oprah Magazine. She is also co-author of The New York Times best-selling barbecue cookbook Smokin' with Myron Mixon. Her research has been supported by the Mellon Foundation, the New York Botanical Gardens, Duke University, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 

A meditation preached at Lyncroft Centre in Toronto, on March 7, 2026. The devil tempts Jesus in the desert. Jesus is impeccable (unable to sin) in virtue of the hypostatic union, yet truly tempted from without in His human nature, in the sense of being really “assaulted” by the devil, not in the sense of interior consent or moral peril.Traditionally, this scene in the desert is a contrast with Adam. New Adam motif: The desert scene is read against Genesis, where Adam fell in a garden amid abundance, Christ triumphs in a wilderness amid hunger and weakness.Thumbnail: The Temptation of Christ by Simon Bening, Flemish, 1550 Getty Museum, Los AngelesMusic: Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra

Here we go then, guys, this is Life In The Peloton's Race Radio presented by SHOKZ.   Opening Weekend was a total monster start to the Spring Classics! It had everything: dramatic moments, dominant performances, and a healthy dose of that beautiful Belgian charm we've all missed over the winter. Man, it's good to be back…on my sofa watching.   Whilst I was at home catching the replay on the TV with a coffee (I'm looking forward to a cleansing Jupiler when I'm there in person for De Ronde), my old mates Harry Dowdney and Stuart Downie were right there on the ground getting in amongst the action for Race Radio. They crossed the English Channel, braved the Flemish weather, and got stuck in across the weekend at Omloop Nieuwsblad and Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne to bring you this amazing first episode of this new and exciting series, and I'm pumped to share it with you.    Here's what you can look forward to in this episode, from the men behind it themselves:   Harry: I love the smell of cobbles in the morning! Especially after a wakeup call from our old friend Juan Antonio Flecha, surely the best Spanish classics rider of all time, and an absolute gentleman to boot. But there's more – we met a couple more legends of the sport on our now-customary pitwalk, but I won't spoil that just yet. We also had a bit of fun putting together a dramatic re-enactment of an edition of Kuurne that you'll probably never see the likes of again.   Stu: What a way to start the year. I purposefully avoided watching anything live, knowing that my first fix was going to be live and direct into my eyeballs at Opening weekend, and it did not disappoint. I know some folks think MVDP turning up at the last minute is dull, but I totally disagree – there's nothing like seeing a living legend surf a wall, against one of the sport's most iconic backdrops. Unbelievable scenes. It also helps to have a boss who can point you in the direction of a really good beer, so this was truly a great start to a year of racing. We hope you love it as much as we did.   Life In The Peloton's Race Radio presented by SHOKZ is taking it up a level this year; the boys are going to be right there at the roadside throughout the year, soaking it all in and sharing it with you guys. The coolest races, for the real bike racing fans. I loved listening to this episode; it really did take me back to the Motherland. I could almost smell the frites and taste the grit in between my teeth.   Of course, none of this would be possible without support from our presenting partner SHOKZ. If you're after the best sports headphones - be it for cycling, running, or even swimming - get across to SHOKZ's website, and enjoy a cheeky discount for being a LITP listener.    Also, if you want to be in with a chance to WIN a pair of SHOKZ headphones, fill in the survey below and you could bag yourself one of three pairs up for grabs: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeQjNx-Xyc1jjj8cqVrWLrORQq-VDa6WZIniD_x4R__BYx3tg/viewform    Guys, I know I always say this, but I really hope you enjoy listening to this episode as much as I do. If you live and breathe all things Flandrien and loved hearing about it from Harry & Stu, drop the boys a line at raceradio@lifeinthepeloton.com and let them know! Harry & Stu's next outing will be in May to one of my favourite races – the hipster's Paris-Roubaix, Tro-Bro Léon. I can't wait.   Cheers, Mitch

Spencer Martin and Johan Bruyneel break down the opening weekend of Flemish cobbled Classics, starting with Mathieu van der Poel's dominant victory on Saturday at Omloop Nieuwsblad, and Mathew Brennan and Visma's statement win at Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne on Sunday, before discussing what to make of Paul Seixas riding the field off his wheel at Faun-Ardèche and tying Tadej Pogačar's climbing record in the process. Become a WEDŪ Member Today to Unlock VIP Access & Benefits: https://access.wedu.team Babbel: Here's a special (limited-time) deal for our listeners. Right now, get up to 60% off your Babbel subscription – at https://Babbel.com/THEMOVE OneSkin: Get 15% off OneSkin with the code THEMOVE at https://www.oneskin.co/THEMOVE  #oneskinpod  

Send us Fan MailSource Material: This AI journal Club episode is based on the original article, "The patient matters: a roundtable discussion on pathology in the era of digitization and AI," authored by Frederik Deman, Heleen Lauwers, Glenn Broeckx, Roberto Salgado, and Amelie Dendooven (Virchows Archiv, 2026).In this episode, we dive deep into a critical yet often overlooked aspect of medical technology: the patient's perspective on the rapid integration of Digital Pathology (DP) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) in oncological diagnostics. While AI and digital tools promise faster and more precise cancer diagnoses, patient viewpoints have historically been absent from the conversation. We unpack the insights from a dedicated roundtable discussion involving six Flemish cancer-patient advocates, revealing their hopes, practical expectations, and surprising opinions on AI in the lab.Key Takeaways & Topics Covered:• Breaking Down Physical Barriers: We explore how patients view digital pathology as a way to easily share high-resolution tissue images across institutions, allowing subspecialized pathologists to collaborate and provide rapid second opinions without the delays of shipping physical slides.• Trust, Accuracy, and Human Oversight: Patients exhibit a high level of trust in AI to speed up workflows and extract more precise data from biopsies. However, they emphasize that trust is contingent on algorithms being trained on diverse, high-quality data and pathologists retaining ultimate oversight.• The "Black Box" Debate: Do patients need to know exactly how AI makes its decisions? Surprisingly, no. Patients prioritize clinical validity and accuracy over full algorithmic transparency. If a tool is proven safe and reproducible, a lack of "explainability" is not seen as a barrier to its use, though they encourage scientists to keep studying how these models work.• Redefining Privacy Fears: The advocates were largely unconcerned with their pseudonymized data being transferred to cloud-based AI platforms. Their overriding privacy fear was not hacking, but rather the potential for health data to be accessed by insurance providers, which could lead to denied coverage or discrimination.• AI as a Patient Empowerment Tool: Looking ahead, patients strongly desire future AI applications that can translate jargon-heavy pathology reports into lay-friendly language. They also envision AI generating customized questions about prognostic implications or follow-up tests, allowing patients to have more active, focused consultations with their doctors.• The Cost of Innovation: We discuss the financial tension of AI in healthcare. While some patients are willing to pay a modest premium for faster AI-assisted diagnoses, there is a strong consensus that linking advanced tech to out-of-pocket payments could exacerbate healthcare inequality.• Clashing with the EU AI Act: We conclude with a fascinating contrast: the pragmatic stance of patients—who accept non-explainable AI as long as it works safely—appears to misalign with the strict transparency and interpretability requirements mandated by the upcoming EU AI Act.Support the showGet the "Digital Pathology 101" FREE E-book and join us!

Fluent Fiction - Dutch: A Chance Encounter: Finding Connection in Art's Embrace Find the full episode transcript, vocabulary words, and more:fluentfiction.com/nl/episode/2026-02-19-08-38-20-nl Story Transcript:Nl: Op een koude winterdag dwarrelden sneeuwvlokken zachtjes neer op de straten van de stad.En: On a cold winter day, snowflakes gently floated down onto the streets of the city.Nl: Het kunstmuseum, met zijn imposante historische architectuur, stond als een baken van rust in de bruisende omgeving.En: The kunstmuseum, with its imposing historical architecture, stood as a beacon of tranquility in the bustling environment.Nl: Binnen straalden de hoge plafonds en grote ramen een warme gloed van licht over de verfijnde schilderijen en beelden.En: Inside, the high ceilings and large windows cast a warm glow of light over the refined paintings and sculptures.Nl: Bram, een gepassioneerde maar worstelende kunstenaar, stond in een van de ruime gangen van het museum.En: Bram, a passionate but struggling artist, stood in one of the spacious corridors of the museum.Nl: Hij rilde een beetje, niet alleen van de winterkou, maar vooral van twijfel en onzekerheid.En: He shivered a little, not only from the winter cold but especially from doubt and uncertainty.Nl: Zijn schilderijen hadden interesse gewekt bij enkele kleine galeries, maar het was nooit genoeg om van te leven.En: His paintings had sparked interest at a few small galleries, but it was never enough to make a living.Nl: Vandaag hoopte hij inspiratie te vinden, een vonk die zijn artistieke visie zou vernieuwen.En: Today, he hoped to find inspiration, a spark to renew his artistic vision.Nl: Aan de andere kant van dezelfde zaal was Marieke, een enthousiaste kunstliefhebber en parttime museumassistent.En: On the other side of the same hall was Marieke, an enthusiastic art lover and part-time museum assistant.Nl: Ze was dol op de kunstwerken die hier hingen en genoot ervan zoveel tijd tussen hen door te brengen.En: She loved the artworks hanging here and enjoyed spending so much time among them.Nl: Toch voelde ze zich vaak eenzaam.En: Yet, she often felt lonely.Nl: Ze verlangde naar iemand met wie ze haar liefde voor kunst kon delen.En: She longed for someone with whom she could share her love of art.Nl: Bram en Marieke hadden elkaar nog nooit eerder opgemerkt, maar vandaag veranderde dat.En: Bram and Marieke had never noticed each other before, but today that changed.Nl: Terwijl ze beiden voor een prachtig schilderij van een oude Vlaamse meester stonden, verloren ze zich in de kleuren en verhalen die het werk vertelde.En: As they both stood before a magnificent painting by an old Flemish master, they lost themselves in the colors and stories the work told.Nl: Bram fronste nadenkend en Marieke merkte het op.En: Bram frowned thoughtfully, and Marieke noticed.Nl: "Wat denk je van dit schilderij?"En: "What do you think of this painting?"Nl: vroeg ze zachtjes, haar stem een echo in de stille hal.En: she asked softly, her voice echoing in the quiet hall.Nl: Bram glimlachte opgelucht, blij met een gesprekspartner die zijn passie deelde.En: Bram smiled with relief, happy to have a conversation partner who shared his passion.Nl: "Het is prachtig, nietwaar?En: "It's beautiful, isn't it?Nl: De nuances in licht en schaduw zijn verbazend," antwoordde hij, terwijl hij Marieke aankeek.En: The nuances in light and shadow are astounding," he replied, looking at Marieke.Nl: Hun gesprek stroomde natuurlijk en gemakkelijk, als een rivier die zijn weg naar zee vindt.En: Their conversation flowed naturally and easily, like a river finding its way to the sea.Nl: Onder de indruk van elkaars inzichten, verloren ze de tijd uit het oog.En: Impressed by each other's insights, they lost track of time.Nl: Ze deelden hun dromen, ambities en de moeilijkheden die ze tegenkwamen.En: They shared their dreams, ambitions, and the difficulties they encountered.Nl: Bram sprak openhartig over zijn twijfels en financiële problemen.En: Bram spoke candidly about his doubts and financial problems.Nl: Marieke, op haar beurt, deelde haar verlangen naar diepere connecties in de kunstwereld.En: Marieke, in turn, shared her desire for deeper connections in the art world.Nl: Na hun hartverwarmende ontmoeting had Bram een blik vol nieuwe ideeën en hoop.En: After their heartwarming encounter, Bram was filled with new ideas and hope.Nl: Hij besloot zijn laatste schilderij, dat hij bijna had opgegeven, alsnog af te maken.En: He decided to finish his latest painting, which he had almost given up on.Nl: Marieke had hem de moed gegeven om door te zetten, om zijn kunst te blijven omarmen en te delen.En: Marieke had given him the courage to persevere, to continue to embrace and share his art.Nl: Marieke voelde zich eindelijk begrepen.En: Marieke felt finally understood.Nl: In Bram vond ze meer dan een gesprekspartner; ze vond een metgezel in haar kunstliefde, iemand die haar perspectief waardeerde en begreep.En: In Bram, she found more than a conversation partner; she found a companion in her love of art, someone who appreciated and understood her perspective.Nl: Met de belofte om elkaar vaker in het museum te ontmoeten, verlieten ze het gebouw.En: With a promise to meet more often at the museum, they left the building.Nl: Voor het eerst in lange tijd voelde Bram vertrouwen in zijn eigen kunnen.En: For the first time in a long time, Bram felt confident in his abilities.Nl: Marieke stapte de frisse sneeuw in met een warm gevoel van vreugde.En: Marieke stepped into the fresh snow with a warm feeling of joy.Nl: Hun leven was veranderd, dankzij hun gedeelde passie voor kunst en de toevallige ontmoeting op een ijskoude winterdag.En: Their lives had changed, thanks to their shared passion for art and the chance meeting on a freezing winter day. Vocabulary Words:snowflakes: sneeuwvlokkenfloated: dwarreldenimposing: imposantearchitecture: architectuurbeacon: bakentranquility: rustbustling: bruisenderefined: verfijndeshivered: rildeuncertainty: onzekerheidsparks: vonkeninspiration: inspiratienuances: nuancesastounding: verbazendconversation partner: gesprekspartnerflowed: stroomdeambitions: ambitiesheartwarming: hartverwarmendecompanion: metgezelunderstood: begrepenappreciated: waardeerdeperspective: perspectiefpersevere: doorzettenembrace: omarmenrenew: vernieuwenenthusiastic: enthousiastelonely: eenzaamsparked: gewektflemish: Vlaamseencountered: tegenkwamen

Milanese culinary history reflects the city's position as a prosperous crossroads in northern Italy, where fertile Po Valley agriculture met centuries of foreign rule, trade, and innovation. Rooted in Lombardy's rich plains, lakes, and alpine foothills, the cuisine emphasizes hearty, comforting ingredients like rice (introduced via ancient trade routes and cultivated extensively since Roman times), butter over olive oil, beef and veal from abundant cattle farming, dairy products, and slow-cooked preparations suited to cooler climates. From Celtic and Roman foundations—where Gauls and Insubrians coexisted with settlers who brought lamb and irrigation techniques—Milanese food evolved through medieval communes, Renaissance courts under the Visconti and Sforza families, and foreign dominations that layered influences: Spanish Habsburg rule from 1535 introduced spices and techniques, Austrian control in the 18th-19th centuries sparked debates over dishes like cotoletta, and broader European exchanges refined aristocratic tastes.Iconic dishes emerged from this blend of peasant practicality and bourgeois elegance. The cotoletta alla milanese—a breaded and fried veal cutlet—has ancient origins, documented as early as 1134 in records from Sant'Ambrogio Basilica listing "lombolos cum panitio" (breaded loins) served to canons. A 19th-century patriotic dispute with Austrians claiming it derived from Wiener schnitzel was settled when Marshal Radetzky, in a letter, confirmed that no such dish existed in Austria, affirming its Milanese primacy. Risotto alla milanese, the golden saffron-infused rice, carries a beloved legend from 1574: during the construction of Milan's Duomo, a Flemish glassmaker's assistant nicknamed "Zafferano" (saffron) for using the spice to tint stained glass was pranked by colleagues who added it to wedding rice as a joke—the vibrant, flavorful result became a sensation. While the tale persists, the first printed recipes appear in the early 1800s, such as in Giovanni Felice Luraschi's 1829 cookbook, solidifying its status as a refined staple often enriched with bone marrow and served as a luxurious side.Ossobuco alla milanese ("bone with a hole"), braised cross-cut veal shanks prized for their marrow, dates to the late 19th century as a winter comfort food from humble kitchens, though marrow-based braises echo medieval traditions. Traditionally paired with risotto alla milanese for a complete piatto unico (one-dish meal), it embodies rustic depth with the bright contrast of gremolata. Other hallmarks include panettone, the dome-shaped Christmas sweet bread with origins in the 15th century (legend ties it to a 15th-century baker's improvisation), cassoeula (a pork and cabbage stew), minestrone alla milanese, and mondeghili (Milanese meatballs repurposing leftovers). Butter, rice over pasta, and long-simmered stews distinguish it from southern Italian olive oil and tomato-driven fare. At the same time, influences from the Austrian (breaded meats), Spanish (saffron via trade), and French (refined techniques) periods elevated it beyond peasant roots.Milan's cuisine balances simplicity and sophistication, shaped by its role as a commercial hub and fashion/finance capital—today's trattorias preserve these traditions amid global influences, making dishes like risotto and ossobuco timeless emblems of Milanese identity.Chef Walter writes the content for this episodeMore PodcastsChef Walters Cooking SchoolProduced by SimVal MediaSubscribe Free to the FK Newsletter

This week, the gals dig into the special kind of trauma that lurks behind the genes. Topics include an ill-advised yacht honeymoon, stock market karma, and a whole lot of plane crashes. Snag a bottle of Sagmeister Cabernet Franc from UnPINNED, do NOT engage with a 14th-century Flemish woman, and tune in for Family Curses. For a full list of show sponsors, visit https://wineandcrimepodcast.com/sponsors. To advertise on Wine & Crime, please email ad-sales@libsyn.com or go to advertising.libsyn.com/winecrime.

Today we are talking with Gaea Schoeters about her novel, Trofee. Gaea is one of the prominent voices of Flemish literature; she is a versatile creator who writes novels, screenplays, and operas. One of her first published works was Girls, Muslims and Motorcycles, in which she shared the story of her seven-month journey through Iran and Central Asia.Her novel Trofee (Trophy) has become a huge success across Europe. It won the Sabam Prize for Literature and received a special mention for the European Union Prize for Literature. The story is currently being translated into thirteen different languages, including Telugu.Trofee is a provocative novel that follows Hunter White, a wealthy American hunter who travels to Africa to complete his 'Big Five' collection by killing a rhino. The story takes a dark, unsettling turn when he is offered an even more 'exclusive' hunt, forcing him to decide if he is willing to cross the ultimate moral line. Through this high-tension plot, Schoeters explores the chilling intersection of white supremacy, global capitalism, and the commodification of human life. The book has gained international acclaim for its 'muscular' prose and its fearless critique of the 'Western gaze' and the lasting effects of colonialism.Gaea spoke on the occasion of the book's release in Telugu by Chaaya Books.* For your Valuable feedback on this Episode - Please click the link below.https://tinyurl.com/4zbdhrwrHarshaneeyam on Spotify App –https://harshaneeyam.captivate.fm/onspotHarshaneeyam on Apple App – https://harshaneeyam.captivate.fm/onapple*Contact us - harshaneeyam@gmail.com***Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by Interviewees in interviews conducted by Harshaneeyam Podcast are those of the Interviewees and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Harshaneeyam Podcast. Any content provided by Interviewees is of their opinion and is not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Podtrac - https://analytics.podtrac.com/privacy-policy-gdrp

In this episode the 15-year long war over the Burgundian succession will come to its end. You may have thought it was done last time, but no. The revolutionary spirit of the Flemish cities is not yet broken and their most audacious move is still to come. And this time they are not going up against an archduke and regent, but against a newly elected king of the Romans.Maximilian of Habsburg's experience in Burgundy swung between moments of utter delight and happiness and depths of death, destruction and despair. It shaped this young duke who arrived aged 18 full of dreams of chivalry and left, aged 31 an battle hardened general with a clear view of where he wanted to take the empire. Get ready for the ultimate roller coaster.The music for the show is Flute Sonata in E-flat major, H.545 by Carl Phillip Emmanuel Bach (or some claim it as BWV 1031 Johann Sebastian Bach) performed and arranged by Michel Rondeau under Common Creative Licence 3.0.As always:Homepage with maps, photos, transcripts and blog: www.historyofthegermans.comIf you wish to support the show go to: Support • History of the Germans PodcastFacebook: @HOTGPod Threads: @history_of_the_germans_podcastBluesky: @hotgpod.bsky.socialInstagram: history_of_the_germansTwitter: @germanshistoryTo make it easier for you to share the podcast, I have created separate playlists for some of the seasons that are set up as individual podcasts. they have the exact same episodes as in the History of the Germans, but they may be a helpful device for those who want to concentrate on only one season. So far I have:The OttoniansSalian Emperors and Investiture ControversyFredrick Barbarossa and Early HohenstaufenFrederick II Stupor MundiSaxony and Eastward ExpansionThe Hanseatic LeagueThe Teutonic KnightsThe Holy Roman Empire 1250-1356The Reformation before the Reformation

The words High and Late Middle Ages conjures up images of fog rising up over a field where knights in shining armor are trading blows with double handed swords, mighty bishops overseeing the construction of monumental cathedrals and peasants toiling on the land as serfs. The reason we see it that way goes back to the chivalric literature that celebrated the aristocratic lifestyle where tournaments and poetry mattered more than the humdrum world of business.But let's just take a look back at the High Middle Ages, the time of Richard the Lionheart, Saint Louis and Frederick Barbarossa. Who controlled access to the great endeavor of the time, the conquest of the Holy Land? Who re-opened up the connections to the wider world, from Novgorod to India and China? Who were the most ferocious fighters who neither expected norgranted any quarter? Who had all the money?These were the great cities of Italy, of Flanders, of Picardie and Provence and of the Holy Roman Empire. Verona under the Della Scala in the 14th century generated tax revenues twice as high as those of England, Venice capacity was sixty percent of what France could generate. And these cities fielded armies that, as we know, defeated the Holy Roman Emperors, even the most capable ones like Barbarossa and Frederick II time and time again. Their absolute dedication to fight to the end was evidenced by their extremely heavy and slow war carts, the Carroccios and by the bravery of the Flemish Militia at the Battle of the Golden Spurs. And the first European since Roman times to make to India and China wasn't a Knight errant, but a Venetian merchant, nor were the vast lands on the Eastern side of the continent linked up by military force. The crusades, the grand project of the age was as much a venetian mercantile adventure as a religious pilgrimage, culminating in the sack of Constantinople in 1204. What happened? Where did all these city states go? And why?That is what we are going to discuss today, when we look at the showdown between Maximilian of Habsburg, widower of the last duchess of Burgundy and father of Philip, the universally recognised heir of the Low Countries and the Flemish cities, and specifically its largest, the city of Ghent.The music for the show is Flute Sonata in E-flat major, H.545 by Carl Phillip Emmanuel Bach (or some claim it as BWV 1031 Johann Sebastian Bach) performed and arranged by Michel Rondeau under Common Creative Licence 3.0.As always:Homepage with maps, photos, transcripts and blog: www.historyofthegermans.comIf you wish to support the show go to: Support • History of the Germans PodcastFacebook: @HOTGPod Threads: @history_of_the_germans_podcastBluesky: @hotgpod.bsky.socialInstagram: history_of_the_germansTwitter: @germanshistoryTo make it easier for you to share the podcast, I have created separate playlists for some of the seasons that are set up as individual podcasts....

rWotD Episode 3147: The Story of a Flemish Farm Welcome to random Wiki of the Day, your journey through Wikipedia's vast and varied content, one random article at a time.The random article for Monday, 15 December 2025, is The Story of a Flemish Farm.The Story of a Flemish Farm is an orchestral suite by British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, based on the score for the 1943 film The Flemish Farm - a wartime drama set in occupied Europe, and written when Vaughan Williams was 70.The score comprises seven movements, which follow the flow of the story:The Flag Flutters In The Wind.Night By The Sea, Farewell To The Flag.Dawn In The Old Barn, The Parting Of The Lovers.In The Café.The Major Goes To Face His Fate.The Dead Man's Kit.The Wanderings Of The Flag.The music takes themes from a number of folk tunes, along with references to A Sea Symphony of 1909 and his 6th Symphony, which followed in 1947.Vaughan Williams conducted the suite himself at a Promenade concert in July 1945, though he remarked that to call anything a suite was 'to damn it to extinction'. Christopher Thomas, writing in a record review, commented: "The bold strength of the melodic writing is highly idiomatic and reflects VW at the height of his creative powers shortly before the works that were to form the symphonic "Indian Summer" of his later years."The film score was recorded by the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Muir Mathieson and the suite has also been recorded by the RTÉ Concert Orchestra under Andrew Penny, and by the BBC Philharmonic under Rumon Gamba.This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 00:02 UTC on Monday, 15 December 2025.For the full current version of the article, see The Story of a Flemish Farm on Wikipedia.This podcast uses content from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.Visit our archives at wikioftheday.com and subscribe to stay updated on new episodes.Follow us on Mastodon at @wikioftheday@masto.ai.Also check out Curmudgeon's Corner, a current events podcast.Until next time, I'm standard Matthew.

The Sforza Altarpiece (Pala Sforzesca) is among the single most important works of art commissioned by Ludovico il Moro. Through this painting, we can trace both the heavy religious history of Milan and the dynastic ambitions of the Sforza court. By investigating this painting, we can further understand the atmosphere leading to the decline of Sforza power. Additionally, this painting shows the dramatic influence of the convergence of styles in Milan, from Leonardo da Vinci to the Flemish masters. With this comes the complicated attribution of the work, which until very recently, had remained unknown. Work Discussed: Giovanni Angelo Mirofoli (Master of the Sforza Altarpiece), Madonna Enthroned with Child, the Doctors of the Church and the Family of Ludovico il Moro (Sforza Altarpiece), 1495 https://pinacotecabrera.org/collezioni/collezione-on-line/madonna-in-trono-con-il-bambino-i-dottori-della-chiesa-e-la-famiglia-di-ludovico-il-moro-pala-sforzesca/Support/Watch/Follow: https://linktr.ee/italian_renaissance_podcastGet additional content by becoming a Patron: patreon.com/TheItalianRenaissancePodcast Support the show

Happy Thursday! Jane and Fi muse over the duality of the cake slicer, imagine a youthful Jane clasping her briefcase and a Flemish train map, and consider the effectiveness of a silent siren. Plus, Princess Margaret's former lady-in-waiting Lady Glenconner discusses her latest book ‘Manners and Mischief'. We've announced our next book club pick! 'Just Kids' is by Patti Smith. You can listen to the playlist here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3qIjhtS9sprg864IXC96he?si=uOzz4UYZRc2nFOP8FV_1jg&pi=BGoacntaS_uki.If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: janeandfi@times.radioFollow us on Instagram! @janeandfiPodcast Producer: Eve SalusburyExecutive Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this day in Tudor history, 22 October 1521, Sir Edward Poynings, soldier, administrator, and diplomat,died at his manor of Westenhanger in Kent. He's not a household name, but if you've ever heard of “Poynings' Law,” you already know his legacy. I'm historian and author Claire Ridgway, and in today's episode we meet the Kentish gentleman who helped Henry VII restore royal control in Ireland, hunted pirates off the Flemish coast, and later steered diplomacy for Henry VIII. From rebellion and exile to power and reform, Poynings' life shows how Tudor government really worked, through loyal, tireless fixers. His “law” would shape Irish governance until the late 18th century. If you enjoy discovering the forgotten figures behind Tudor power, please like, subscribe, and ring the bell for more daily Tudor stories.

Think Dutch is only for Amsterdam? We open the map with David Durham to show how far Dutch actually travels—across the Netherlands, Flanders in Belgium, Aruba and Sint Maarten, and Suriname—and why a few phrases can turn strangers into allies. We start with the essentials you'll say every day: dag for hello and goodbye, formal and informal thank‑yous, and the subtle shift from u to jij that earns instant respect. Then we build your toolkit for trains, airports, hotels, and restaurants so you can ask clearly, pay gracefully, and leave on a warm note.We get practical fast. You'll learn how to ask Waar is… for the WC, het station, de bushalte, and het restaurant, how to order koffie met melk and thee like a local, and how to request de rekening alstublieft without fumbling. We cover apologies and honesty with Het spijt me and Ik spreek geen Nederlands, plus the simple I don't understand: Ik versta het niet. Numbers one to ten click into place, and you'll know when to use tot ziens versus a friendly doei. Along the way, David breaks down de vs het articles, sheds light on Flemish and Afrikaans connections, and shares cultural cues—like always greeting staff on entry and exit—that open doors.For language nerds and nervous first‑timers alike, we tuck in an eye‑opening detour on English history that explains why Dutch often feels familiar to our ears. This mix of clarity, culture, and ready‑to‑use phrases is designed for real travel: short lines, quick wins, and better moments with people you meet. If your next trip includes bikes, canals, or stroopwafels, this guide will help you move with confidence and kindness.Loved the lesson? Subscribe, share with a friend who's headed to the Low Countries, and leave a quick review so more travelers can find the show.Thanks for your ongoing support!http://paypal.me/TheROAMiesAlexa and RoryThe ROAMiesPlease subscribe, rate and share our podcast! Follow us at:http://www.TheROAMies.comThe ROAMies: Facebook and Instagram YouTube and X.

A scrappy Flemish speech recognition company tries to put its hometown on the global tech map.SponsorsRoutable - http://ohmyfraud.promo/routableBluebook - https://getbluebook.com/(00:00) - A Pie to the Face (01:00) - Welcome to Oh My Fraud (06:00) - Welcome to Flanders, Belgium (07:30) - Meet the Founders: Jo Lernout and Pol Hauspie (09:30) - The Dream of Voice Recognition (15:12) - Going Public in a Crowded Market (17:42) - Creating the Flanders Language Valley (21:42) - Gaston Bastiaens and His Wine Cellar Wager (26:23) - Microsoft's $45 Million Investment (29:23) - The Philosophy of Pie Throwing (30:53) - Explosive Growth and Suspicious Numbers (32:53) - Dragon Systems and Dictaphone Acquisitions (35:23) - The Korean Revenue Mystery (38:23) - Wall Street Journal Starts Digging (42:17) - "I Lied About Everything" (43:47) - The Resignation and Bankruptcy (47:47) - The SEC Reveals the Fraud (49:47) - Criminal Convictions and Symbolic Justice (50:47) - Lessons Learned: Fake It Till You Make It (52:17) - What Happened to the Technology (53:47) - Closing Thoughts HOW TO EARN FREE CPEIn less than 10 minutes, you can earn NASBA-approved accounting CPE after listening to this episode. Download our mobile app, sign up, and look for the Oh My Fraud channel. Register for the course, complete a short quiz, and get your CPE certificate.https://www.earmark.app/Download the app:Apple: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/earmark-cpe/id1562599728Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.earmarkcpe.appCONNECT WITH CALEBLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/calebnewquist/Email us at ohmyfraud@earmarkcpe.comSources:How Hype Hurt Lernout & Hauspie [Bloomberg via Wayback Machine]How High-Tech Dream Shattered In Scandal at Lernout & Hauspie [WSJ]Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products: Financing From Start-up through IPO [INSEAD, Herwig Langohr,  Benoit Leleux,  Danny Lein, July 2000, accessed on Sept. 16, 2025]Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products: The Question [INSEAD, Arnoud De Meyer,  Bart Pycke, January 1998, accessed on Sept. 16, 2025]Quarterdeck Office Systems [Wikipedia]Patent Is Won By Quarterdeck [NYT]Internet Hype Gives New Life to Quarterdeck Stock [LAT]Gaston Bastiaens [Apple.Fandom]Today in Apple history: Apple exec bets his wine cellar on Newton [CultofMac]Will Microsoft's Stake in Lernout & Hauspie Drive Growth in Speech? [Speech Technology Magazine]In Brussels, Gates Takes a Pie in the Face [Reuters via Wayback Machine]Bill Gates Being Hit in the Face With a Pie (1998) [YouTube]Noël Godin [Wikipedia]He Plasters Paris' Elite With Cream Pies [LAT]Bernard-Henri Levy Pied again in Belgium [YouTube]FM Interviews: Noël Godin [First Monday]Lernout & Hauspie Shares Drop Amid Puzzling Revenue Results [WSJ]Lernout & Hauspie Surges In Korea, Raising Questions [WSJ]Lernout's Bastiaens Will Step Down From CEO Post at Software Concern [WSJ]Lernout to Refile Financial Reports; Co-Founders Resign as Chairmen [WSJ]Lernout Files for Bankruptcy Protection, Says Cash at South Korean Unit Is Missing [WSJ]The Talk of Flanders Has Most Speechless [AP]Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products, N.V., Litigation Release No. 17782, Accounting and Auditing Enforcement Release No. 1648, October 10, 2002 [Securities and Exchange Commission]Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products, N.V., Litigation Release No. 18014, March 4, 2003 [Securities and Exchange Commission]Lernout & Hauspie Founders Guilty in Fraud [WSJ]Goldman Sachs and the $580 Million Black Hole [NYT]

What to Do When Visiting Mechelen, BelgiumNestled between Brussels and Antwerp, Mechelen is one of Belgium's most charming yet often overlooked cities. With its rich history, vibrant culture, and welcoming atmosphere, it offers visitors an authentic Belgian experience without the crowds. Whether you're spending a day or a weekend, here's how to make the most of your visit to Mechelen.1. Start at the Grote MarktEvery great visit to Mechelen begins in the Grote Markt, the city's picturesque main square. Surrounded by beautifully restored guild houses, cafés, and the imposing St. Rumbold's Cathedral, this is the heart of local life. Grab a coffee at one of the terraces and soak in the view of the impressive Stadhuis (Town Hall), a blend of Gothic and Renaissance architecture.2. Climb St. Rumbold's TowerFor the best view in Mechelen, climb the St. Rumbold's Tower, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The 97-meter tower offers panoramic views stretching all the way to Brussels and Antwerp on a clear day. The climb includes several stops with exhibits about the tower's history and its world-famous carillon bells.3. Visit the Dossin Barracks and MuseumThe Kazerne Dossin Museum provides a powerful and moving experience. It tells the story of Belgium's Jewish community during World War II, focusing on the deportations that took place from this very site. The museum balances historical insight with personal stories, making it a deeply reflective visit.4. Discover the Beguinage QuarterWander through Mechelen's Beguinage Quarter, a maze of cobblestone lanes and quaint whitewashed houses. This peaceful neighborhood once housed a community of beguines—women who lived religious lives without taking vows. Today, it's a serene area perfect for a quiet stroll and a glimpse into medieval urban life.5. Explore the River Dijle PathFor a unique view of Mechelen, walk along the Dijlepad, a wooden boardwalk that floats above the River Dijle. This scenic walkway winds through the city, connecting green spaces and historic buildings, offering a tranquil way to experience Mechelen from a different perspective.6. Tour the Hof van Busleyden MuseumThe Hof van Busleyden Museum, housed in a Renaissance palace, showcases Mechelen's role during the Burgundian era. The exhibitions blend art, history, and innovation, providing insight into the city's golden age when it was a major center of European politics and culture.7. Visit the Het Anker Brewery and DistilleryNo trip to Mechelen would be complete without a stop at the Het Anker Brewery and Distillery, one of the oldest breweries in Belgium. Located in the heart of the city, Het Anker has been brewing beer for more than five centuries and is home to the famous Gouden Carolus range. Join a guided tour to learn about traditional brewing methods and sample a selection of their award-winning beers straight from the source. The onsite distillery adds another dimension, producing fine Gouden Carolus whiskies that have gained international acclaim. The adjoining brasserie is the perfect place to enjoy hearty Belgian dishes paired with their signature brews.8. Experience the Toy Museum (Speelgoedmuseum Mechelen)For a touch of nostalgia and fun, visit the Toy Museum of Mechelen, one of the largest of its kind in Europe. This museum showcases an extensive collection of toys from across generations—ranging from antique dolls and model trains to classic board games and modern LEGO creations. It's a wonderful experience for families and adults alike, offering both playful exhibits and thoughtful insights into how toys have evolved over time. Children can participate in interactive play areas, while adults will find themselves reminiscing about their own childhood favorites.9. Taste More Local DelightsBeyond Het Anker, Mechelen's culinary scene continues to impress. Try Maneblusser, the city's other signature beer, named after a local legend about the townspeople mistaking the moon's glow for a fire in the cathedral tower. Pair it with Flemish specialties at one of the city's many excellent restaurants, from traditional brasseries to modern bistros.10. Visit Technopolis with the FamilyIf you're traveling with children, Technopolis is another must-visit attraction. This interactive science museum encourages hands-on exploration, with exhibits that make learning fun for all ages. It's located just outside the city center and is a perfect choice for a family day out or a rainy afternoon.11. Relax at the Botanical GardenEnd your day with a quiet moment in Mechelen's Botanical Garden (Kruidtuin). Originally part of a monastery, it's now a beautifully maintained park with lush greenery, flowers, and shaded benches. It's the ideal spot to unwind before heading back to the bustling Grote Markt for dinner.12. Stay a Little LongerMechelen may be compact, but it rewards those who linger. With its blend of history, culture, and modern charm, it's the kind of city where every street holds a story. Whether you're climbing the cathedral tower, tasting Gouden Carolus at Het Anker, or rediscovering childhood memories at the Toy Museum, Mechelen invites you to slow down and truly experience Belgium at its best.*We mention a few other Belgium episodes to go check out! Here they are:Namur - Episode 129Brussels - Episode 136Bruges - Episode 145Antwerp - Episode 153Ghent - Episode 181

n the winter of 1934, a quiet farmhouse on the edge of the Flemish village of Halen became the epicentre of one of Belgium's most unsettling hauntings. What began as faint knocks and misplaced objects quickly escalated into a barrage of flying crockery, slamming doors, and heavy furniture moving on its own — all witnessed not just by the terrified family, but by neighbours and, crucially, uniformed police officers.The BOOKBY US A COFFEEJoin Sarah's new FACEBOOK GROUPSubscribe to our PATREONEMAIL us your storiesJoin us on INSTAGRAMJoin us on TWITTERJoin us on FACEBOOKVisit our WEBSITESources:https://www.rtbf.be/article/la-veritable-histoire-du-poltergeist-de-halen-100-ans-apres-111111https://www.lexpress.fr/actualite/societe/faits-divers/poltergeist-les-cas-les-plus-celebres-1929343https://www.centrepresseaveyron.fr/2019/10/31/phenomenes-inexpliques-le-petit-dossier-du-petit-journal,8532018.phphttps://www.futura-sciences.com/planete/questions-reponses/maison-poltergeist-manifestations-physiques-maisons-hantees-7872/Sarah and Tobie xx"Spacial Winds," Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licenced under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 Licencehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/;;;SURVEY Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What happens when you fall in love with a book that deserves a wider audience but has never been translated into English? How do you navigate international copyright law, multiple publishers, and estate permissions when you have no translation experience? Dani James shares her journey from discovering a powerful Flemish memoir in her childhood home […] The post The Art And Business Of Literary Translation With Dani James first appeared on The Creative Penn.

The MidPacker Pod is part of the Freetrail network of Podcasts.Join the Newsletter at: ⁠MidPack Musings SubStack⁠⁠Support the MidPacker Pod on ⁠Patreon⁠.⁠Check Out MPP Merch Make sure you leave us a rating and review wherever you get your pods.Looking for 1:1 Ultra Running Coaching? Check out Troy's Coaching PageSTOKED TO PARTNER WITH  JANJI HYPERLYTE LIQUID PERFORMANCEBEAR BUTT WIPES USE PROMO CODE MIDPACER FOR A SWEET DISCOUNT“I had a 10-year journey to Hardrock. And when I kissed the rock, it felt like all those years finally made sense.”In this episode, Troy sits down with Ann Ongena, a Belgian-born runner and mom of five who discovered running in her 40s and went on to become the final official finisher at the 2025 Hardrock 100—crossing the line with just seven minutes to spare.Ann's story is one of quiet persistence, deep community roots, and a love for the mountains that shaped her into an ultra-runner. From training with a Flemish-language Couch to 5K podcast in Malibu to building up to qualifiers like UTMB, Kodiak Ultra Marathons, and Ultra Tour Monte Rosa, she's embraced every mile of the journey.We cover:How Ann transitioned from a late-blooming runner to an ultramarathon finisherHer 10-year journey of trying to get into Hardrock—and what it meant to finishTraining while raising five kids and now juggling grandkids and a part-time hiking guide gigHer role in Malibu's Trail Runners Club and love for the local trail communityHow crewing, friendship, and the right playlist carried her through the San JuansAnn's story reminds us that age, pace, and finish time don't define us—showing up does.Relevant LinksAnn's IG: @annongenaHardrock 100 Endurance RunTrail Runners Club - MalibuUltra-Trail du Mont-Blanc (UTMB)Kodiak 100Ultra Tour Monte RosaPartner Links: Janji - Janji.comA big shoutout to our sponsor, Janji! Their running apparel is designed for everyday exploration, and 2% of sales support clean water initiatives worldwide. Plus, with a five-year guarantee, you know it's gear you can trust. Check them out at janji.com.Use the code MIDPACKER for 10% off your order.Hyerlyte Liquid Performance - https://www.hyperlyteliquidperformance.comMade by the ultra-endurance athlete, for the ultra-endurance athlete.H001 is a new hydration mix that has the carbs and sodium your body needs for high-output adventures in a single serving.Check them out at hyperlyteliquidperformance.comUse the code MIDPACKER for 10% off your individual order and 10% off your first subscription order.Bear Butt Wipes - Bearbuttwipes.comPortable individually wrapped wipes for when nature calls and a DNF is not an option. Bear Butt Wipes: Stay wild. Stay clean.Check them out at Bearbuttwipes.comUse the code MIDPACKER for 10% off your order.⁠Run Trail Life⁠ - https://runtraillife.com/Find Official MPP Merch on RTL!!Use code: midpackerpod to double the donation from your purchase. Visit RunTrailLife.com to check out our line of Hats and Organic cotton T's.⁠Freetrail⁠ - https://freetrail.com/Visit Freetrail.com to sign up today.Ann Ongena, Hardrock 100, Trail Running, Midpacker, Female Ultra Runner, San Juans, Trail Runners Club, UTMB, Kodiak, Ultra Tour Monte Rosa, Grandmother Runner, FKT, Perseverance, Grit, 100 Miles, Golden Hour Finish, Malibu Trails

During the 15th-century, citizens of Nuremberg, Germany, experienced spectacular Carnival parades highlighted by the appearance of floats known as "hells."  Featuring immense figures, including dragons, ogres, and man-eating  giants, these hells were also peopled with costumed performers and enhanced with mechanized effects and pyrotechnics. In this episode, adapted from a chapter of Mr. Ridenour's new book, A Season of Madness: Fools, Monsters and Marvels of the Old-World Carnival, we examine the Nuremberg parade, the Schembartlauf, as it evolves from costumed dance performances staged by the local Butcher's Guild in the mid-1 4th-century into a procession of fantastic and elaborately costumed figures, and finally -- in 1475 - into a showcase for the rolling hells. We begin, however, with an examination of a historical anecdotes sometimes presented as forerunners of  the Carnival parades, and of the Schembartlauf in particular, including two sometimes put forward to support a "pagan survival" theory.  The first involves a ceremonial wagon housing a figure of the putative fertility goddess, Nerthus, hauled about by Germanic peoples in the first century and mentioned in Tacitus' Germania.  The second, also involving a wagon with fertility figure, is described by Gregory of Tours as being hauled through farmers' fields in the 6th-century. Period illustration of costumed figure from a Schembartbuch. Period illustration of costumed figure from a Schembartbuch. A third case involves the mysterious "land-ship," a full-scale wheeled ship hauled from Germany into Belgium, and the Netherlands in 1135. Mentioned exclusively by the Flemish abbot, composer, and chronicler Rudolf of St. Trond in his Gesta Abbatum Trudonensium (Deeds of the Abbots of Trond), it's characterized by the abbot as a sort of pagan temple on wheels and locus of orgiastic behavior, the precise purpose and nature of this peculiar incident remains largely a mystery. We then hear a comic incident imagined in the early 13th-century story of the knight Parzival as told by Wolfram von Eschenbach. By way of analogy to the character's ludicrous behavior, Carnival is mentioned for the first time, or more specifically von Eschenbach use the German word for Carnival, specifically the Carnival of Germany's southwest called "Fastnacht." Our story of the Schembartlauf concludes the show with a description of its ironic downfall through local intrigues fired by the Protestant Reformation. Worth mentioning also, in our Schembart segment, is the heated scholarly debate around objects depicted in period illustrations, which look for all the world like oversized pyrotechnic artichokes. New Patreon rewards related to Mr. Ridenour's Carnival book are also announced in this episode, along with related Carnival-themed merch in our Etsy shop, including our "Party Like it's 1598" shirts featuring Schembart figures.

Before we get into some foolish April Fools pranks that didn't quite land, let's talk about the origin of April Fools Day.  The oldest historical reference for April Fools Day comes from a Flemish poem written in 1561 about a nobleman who sent his servant on "fool's errands" on April 1st.  In about the same era in France, the people were slow to adapt to the calendar change from the last week of March to January 1st to mark the new year.  It was a move from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar that was decreed by the Council of Trent.  Those who struggled to adjust were called "April fools," and many began playing tricks on them.  Another reference is with the Catholic Church.  In medieval France and England, a carnival of sorts, called "Feast of Fools" was held on January 1st, but was banned by the 15th century.  Though, it was still held for hundreds of years, despite the ban.  Then by the 19th century, April Fools' Day was a part of American culture.  Mark Twain was quoted as saying, "The first of April is the day we remember what we are the other 364 days of the year."  Want access to our first 45 episodes? Grab em here! We've made them available for free to anyone who signs up! Remember, these episodes were recorded when we had no idea what we were doing, so just keep that in mind. The audio isn't the quality we would want to put out now, but the cases are on point! Visit killerqueens.link/og to download and binge all the archived episodes today! Hang with us: Follow Us on Instagram Like Us on Facebook Join our Case Discussion Group on Facebook Get Killer Queens Merch Bonus Episodes Support Our AMAZING Sponsors: goPure: Get 25% off @goPure with code QUEENS at https://www.gopurebeauty.com/QUEENS #goPurepod Prose: For 50% off your first hair care subscription and free consultation, head to prose.com/queens.  Hungryroot: For a limited time, get 40% off your first box PLUS get a free item of your choice for life at hungryroot.com/QUEENS. OneSkin: Get 15% off OneSkin with the code QUEENS at https://www.oneskin.co/ #oneskinpod © 2025 Killer Queens Podcast. All Rights Reserved Audio Production by Wayfare Recording Music provided by Steven Tobi Logo designed by Sloane Williams of The Sophisticated Crayon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Before we get into some foolish April Fools pranks that didn't quite land, let's talk about the origin of April Fools Day.  The oldest historical reference for April Fools Day comes from a Flemish poem written in 1561 about a nobleman who sent his servant on “fool's errands” on April 1st.  In about the same era in France, the people were slow to adapt to the calendar change from the last week of March to January 1st to mark the new year.  It was a move from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar that was decreed by the Council of Trent.  Those who struggled to adjust were called “April fools,” and many began playing tricks on them.  Another reference is with the Catholic Church.  In medieval France and England, a carnival of sorts, called “Feast of Fools” was held on January 1st, but was banned by the 15th century.  Though, it was still held for hundreds of years, despite the ban.  Then by the 19th century, April Fools' Day was a part of American culture.  Mark Twain was quoted as saying, “The first of April is the day we remember what we are the other 364 days of the year.”  Want access to our first 45 episodes? Grab em here! We've made them available for free to anyone who signs up! Remember, these episodes were recorded when we had no idea what we were doing, so just keep that in mind. The audio isn't the quality we would want to put out now, but the cases are on point! Visit killerqueens.link/og to download and binge all the archived episodes today! Hang with us: Follow Us on Instagram Like Us on Facebook Join our Case Discussion Group on Facebook Get Killer Queens Merch Bonus Episodes Support Our AMAZING Sponsors: goPure: Get 25% off @goPure with code QUEENS at https://www.gopurebeauty.com/QUEENS #goPurepod Prose: For 50% off your first hair care subscription and free consultation, head to prose.com/queens.  Hungryroot: For a limited time, get 40% off your first box PLUS get a free item of your choice for life at hungryroot.com/QUEENS. OneSkin: Get 15% off OneSkin with the code QUEENS at https://www.oneskin.co/ #oneskinpod © 2025 Killer Queens Podcast. All Rights Reserved Audio Production by Wayfare Recording Music provided by Steven Tobi Logo designed by Sloane Williams of The Sophisticated Crayon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices