The big vaccine gamble

EU countries agreed to pre-book several vaccines together. But the (now former) prime minister of Slovakia decided to act when the Western vaccines wouldn’t come fast enough. This cost him his post. Learn what happened on the latest episode of our podcast, produced with help from award-winning Slovak journalist Lukáš Onderčanin. Lukáš and I met on a press trip to …

Vaccine ‘space race’

The media reported today that French-speaking ‘influencers’ on social networks have been approached by a dubious PR agency to promote negative messages about the Comirnaty (Pfizer) vaccine (I saw it on Twitter and then it was reported here). In this episode, Eva and I talk to experts who have been collecting data about how false claims about vaccines link to …

Unwish lists and lockdown consumption

Spending more time at home forced many people to look closely at things in their lives. Buying, hoarding, stocking, keeping busy demanded materials. As much as our socialising, learning, and interacting moved online, our leisure and rituals became increasingly physical, and called for things to keep them this way. More cooking and baking called for more equipment. The absence of …

Writing about travel on lockdown

Numerous blogs, microblogs, magazines, and individual careers are all about travel. Now that travel is so heavily restricted, how does one write about it in a meaningful way? The first inspiration for this post came from an instagram account that promotes tourism to Malta. Since 21 March, Maltese authorities suspended commercial flights, making leisure travel next to impossible. So if …