Category Archives: Finance

August 10, 2025 · 02:10

The emotional grab

That is at times a setting. I got this article two days ago in my sights, but I rejected it for the obvious reasons. But today I had some second thoughts, so I took a hold of it. There are a few settings that I need to explain. When a newspaper needs 7000 words to give you the issues that you could have gotten from 700 words, we usually see that there is something under it all. In this case we see all these ‘emotional’ settings, because there is basically nothing to be seen. This isn’t entirely true, but the gist of it comes to that. The Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/07/long-read-british-bribery-britain-arms-deals-saudi-arabia-ian-foxley) gives us ‘Very British bribery: the whistleblower who exposed the UK’s dodgy arms deals with Saudi Arabia’ and the headline gives us ‘dodgy arms deals’ and that takes some explanation. The United Kingdom is a nation, a monarchy no less. As such it can sell weapons to other nations. Saud Arabia is a monarchy too, as such is there something dodgy going on?

And in that story, we see one photo of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, which was taken in Riyadh, May 2009. It is the only time that his royal highness is mentioned. There is no mention of him anywhere in the article, I checked. So why is he there? Because of the mention of Saudi Arabia? 

Then we get the wife Emma, she is mentioned four times, and twice by name. What is her involvement? Or is she merely dressing (like a Window) making this story more ‘humane’ The more I read it, the less it makes sense. The first is that it took 7000 words to say nothing, the second that it is lacking a few items. The first is that Declassified (at https://www.declassifieduk.org/britains-secret-saudi-military-support-programme/) gave us a lot more information which was RELEASED in 2019. A simple setting is that the London School of Economics had 24 alumni working there. So at what point did the Guardian interview, or at least try to interview any of them? The 2019 story also gives us “Earlier this year, another US military official, Colonel Kevin Lambert, manager of the US’s own SANG modernisation programme, confirmed that the SANG was “executing combat operations in the Yemen conflict”.” The Guardian article doesn’t even mention Yemen once. In addition, the story is riddled with emotion. Things like “an accountant called Michael Paterson, was “a madman”” this might be true, but what purpose does it serve? If it is about dodgy deals, why is the wife involved? I get that she gets to be mentioned once (at the beginning) optionally twice (at departure), but the other two mentions? As I stated, the more data you see, the less is valued and it is not valued because there is more useless data, at times more data is to hide that you have none. So, then we get the ‘abundance’ of data. In this I refer to “Another time, a colleague casually joked about a Saudi general being willing to sign anything GPT suggested, on account of something called “bought in services”. Foxley didn’t recognise the term and when he began asking about it, he received only vague non-answers about “things we buy in”.” 47 words that could have been set through “GPT used ‘bought in services’ to hide acquisition of Saudi top military signing for services” I simplified it in 15 words, one third and then I would set the situation to evidence, which is massively lacking here. Then we get the word ‘bribery’ used 13 times, but how? Once is to mention the Bribery Act which was passed in 2010. It is important three times. The first is “Foxley could not have known bribery was rife in Saudi Arabia” (i’ll get to this later) and “Not only had the government ratted him out to GPT when he discovered the bribery conspiracy”, so who did rat him out? And is ratting him out the correct phrase here? The third time is “The MoD and the government “had been running the scam, the bribery, since 1978, ever since the project was set up”” So, exactly what scam were they running? A scam implies that criminal acts are being committed by the UK government. What is the scam exactly and who is involved? Then we get the one setting where it is important. It is given with ““Do you know about the Cayman Islands?” Paterson asked. Over the following 90 minutes, the accountant set out a series of discoveries that implicated GPT in years of bribery and corruption. What neither man knew was that the scheme they had stumbled upon had been overseen and authorised for decades, in both Britain and Saudi Arabia, by the highest levels of government.” Here we get the following settings. The Cayman Islands and what evidence is there of bribery and corruption? The setting is given in the article as well. “It doesn’t invalidate the invoices and the payments to Simec” as such, bribery is merely a smudging word and there is no evidence of bribery or corruption. 

As I see it, the United Kingdom needs to walk a fine line to make deals with some nations and these high ranking officials are entitled to a commission, or a consultancy fee and as Generals were mentioned they are most likely allowed consultancy fees. I am using ‘most likely’ because I do not know Saudi law in these matters. In case of Simmer, that is up to the Saudi government. This article is a simple act of slinging mud, see what sticks and I fear it is very little as this article is missing all kinds of connections and evidence. So when we see “Eight Saudis received a collective £10m between 2007 and 2012 alone” and weirdly enough, this article doesn’t name these people as we are also given “the British government had authorised the entire scheme – had won out.” As such 7000 words to fulfill the setting that was decided over a year ago. So, what exactly was the meaning of this? Seems a fair question as there are settings that are not given, too much emotion in the entire article and a massive amount of facts that just aren’t there. 

So what was exactly the call for this article? To smear the Saudi Government? To smear the British government? As such we also get both Cook and Mason were acquitted. Then a mention that one of them is separately convicted for taking kickbacks, while he was a civil servant at the MoD, before he became part of the GPT. A simple unrelated misconduct offence.

In the end I wonder what this article served. It was not the truth (too much emotion and too little evidence for that), was this another anti-Saudi smear campaign? I am not sure but as we see the lack of evidence and no reference to the declassifieduk site, which could have been used to spice up the article. I reckon that this counterbalanced the article and the article would make even less sense. But that is merely my view on the matter.

Have a great day, 360 minutes until breakfast.

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August 6, 2025 · 14:17

The implied stage

This is not fact, but it is implied and I will explain the logic behind this. Less than 24 hours ago  Time and Travel World (TTW) gave us ‘Tunisia Joins Spain, Mexico, Brazil, Costa Rica, Greece, Saudi Arabia, and UAE in the Booming Tourism Sector with Record Tourist Arrivals and Earnings in First Half of 2025: New Report’ (at https://www.travelandtourworld.com/news/article/tunisia-joins-spain-mexico-brazil-costa-rica-greece-saudi-arabia-and-uae-in-the-booming-tourism-sector-with-record-tourist-arrivals-and-earnings-in-first-half-of-2025-new-report/) Here we see among more given facts “Spain has been one of the top performers in the global tourism recovery of 2025. The country welcomed nearly 25.6 million international tourists in the first four months of 2025, marking a 7.1% increase compared to 2024. Spain’s tourism numbers have surpassed pre-pandemic levels, highlighting the nation’s enduring appeal. Notably, April 2025 set a record with 8.6 million visitors, marking a 10% rise from the previous year. This surge was driven by a strong recovery in both leisure and business travel.” This doesn’t seem like a lot. But take the slightly more complete setting of

This gives us 80,000,000 tourists most of them only able to pay for one vacation a year and they are not going to America. As such (and taking notice that this does not include Canada) I feel certain that the damage to American tourism will surpass the $29 billion we are currently given. How much more, that is hard to say. So whilst we are now given smash articles (as I call them) to voice applause for all the efforts that Epic Universe gives us in Orlando (and I do agree what I see on YouTube does look amazing) the American tourism industry will face at least until 2027 to return to some kind of normal and that is optimistically speaking. I reckon that it will take 3 years after President Trump leaves office for this to get back to some kind of normal. And I get that Florida is now casting the heave rods to get national tourism up. Yet without international tourists it will become a nasty time of hardship for the places that rely on international tourists. 

Los Angeles, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Florida, New York will all feel the pinch that these millions of tourists used to bring with fat wallets and they are now going anywhere else. That is money no longer in the bank of America and likely these people are unlikely to revisit America at present. A lot needs to change for that.

The most conservative calculations I get to implies that the losses for America start at $80 billion and might get to $115 billion by the end of the year. I also think that the Winter vacations are less likely to be affected. The snowboard and ski population tend to rely on what they know and slopes can be dependable. As such people who were bound for Aspen will return to aspen (the largest part), people tend to ski what they know and it makes for a loyal crowd. Places like Aspen have in addition a social side and these two make for a dependable setting. And it is not that place. Likely places like Deer Mountain Village (South Dakota) have a similar stage. But this implies that America needs to regain most of their losses from the winter vacation people. At this point there is no predicting on how the winter locations will be hurt by what is called the “visa integrity fee” and now we get the visa bond which will hurt winter tourism as that is a young persons game and they are massively unlikely to dish out ‘US to charge some foreign travelers up to $23,000 in visa bonds’ (source: ABC News), as such there is no way to tell how it will affect winter tourism, yet I feel certain that Whistler (Canada, B.C.) and Blue Mountain (Canada, Ont.) will be able to accommodate these people, and beyond that there is Europe with their snowy hills (aka mountains). 

So, at present I feel that the damage is likely to be the conservative number I gave earlier and it might be higher, but there is no data on this. This is a setting that has never happened before and as America is getting confronted on the silly notion that you can keep any hotel filled to over 90%, that cluster of delusional thinkers are getting a massive boost of reality at present. Three days ago we were given Las Vegas is empty, given to us by a ‘tourist’ wearing a Vegas Golden Knights polo. Now we see: ““Las Vegas is empty”: Viral video sparks alarming questions about US tourism decline” this is a bit late, isn’t it? I predicted some of these elements almost a week earlier. I never discussed Las Vegas airport, but that should have been done by the local people and now we see “Viral video sparks alarming questions”? How delusional do you need to get to the ostrich effect (bury your head in the sand) to avoid clear settings? This is setting the larger stage (source: money control) “The viral moment comes on the heels of an official report by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA), which noted a 6.5% drop in hotel occupancy and a fall in average room rates from $194 to $163. Even more alarming was a 41% year-over-year decline in traffic at Harry Reid Airport, according to the same report.” So, who had been sitting on these numbers? What doesn’t the American administrations want Americans want to know?

Simple question, yet are the answers as simple as it seems? When will Florida present the numbers and when will they sound the alarm? I simply crunched the numbers and I saw this a month ago (July 9th) in ‘Age of BS (Bill Sightseer)’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2025/07/09/age-of-bs-bill-sightseer/), as such where did you see this in American media? Only 14 hours ago, the American people were given ‘Orange County Tourist De­vel­opment Tax col­lec­tions surge 10.3% in June from a year ago’ and I need to give the larger setting. A Disney Tourist blogger gave us on May 25th “Epic Universe is almost empty. Dead. Devoid of guests. A ghost town.” Someone on YouTube gave a similar story but that is about it. Americans are allergic to bad news. I get that, none of us like this, but when the bills can no longer be paid as people al over Florida get the axe is news people need to know, but that might just be me. 

So the stage isn’t set, it is implied. A set stage has proper numbers and the media is giving half stories (as I personally see it) but the signs are clear. This doesn’t make it set stage, a mere implied stage and when the numbers come out in Q4 2025, a lot of people get a rude awakening and when they have invested in a bad and breakfast solution they might require a larger stage to survive the 3-8 quarters that follow. There is no way to be more precise than that.

Try to have a great day today.

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August 5, 2025 · 13:12

Where the coins are

Yup, there it is, I said it. The article (at https://ara.tv/4eecj) gives us ‘US, Saudi Arabia hold high-level defense meeting at the Pentagon’ and right of the bat, we are ‘fed’ a lie (as I see it). We are given “The Pentagon’s top policy chief called Saudi Arabia a “critical, longstanding defense partner” working to become more capable and self-reliant.” Why is it a lie? Well, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been waiting for inclusion into the F-35 program. So, even as Belgium is included into that program, they are still awaiting delivery. Belgium a European nation that was overrun by the German army in 18 days (it took so long as most German soldiers were on foot or on bicycle) that country is more prestigious than Saudi Arabia? #JustSaying

I reckon it is the reason that China is making massive headways into the Arabic nations. And there it is, the additional quote ““The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a critical, longstanding defense partner for the United States that seeks to grow more capable and self-reliant in its defense. We are working hard to partner with Saudi Arabia to enable it to do so,” Colby said in a post on X.” I wonder when the defense department relies on X instead of the world wide news to disperse that information. It is a hard thing to comprehend.

I reckon that America is so desperate for cash (now that they damaged their tourism industry) that they can only turn to China and Saudi Arabia for additional funds. As Saudi Arabia has a lot more oil, the UAE was overlooked. But the setting is here America needs coins and as such I would have thought that someone in the Pentagon (it is rumored that this is managed by people at 1690 Air Force Pentagon, Washington, DC 20330-1670)

That being said, someone should have whispered to them to include Saudi Arabia to the F-35 list, but who am I saying this? I am still happy to get a nice bonus from the Chengdu Aircraft Corporation (CAC) (at No. 88, Weiyi Road, Huang Tianba, Qingyang District, Chengdu City, Sichuan, China, postal code 610091) If you can’t beat them, join them I say. And I was always happy to get a nice (optionally fat) check. The new apartment will set me back $7M and there is the need to get some cash to the UAE (my optional Yas Island retirement location), as such bringing a customer the size of Saudi Arabia might get me my dream retirement.

As such you might wonder why this byline? That is easy as we are given “Colby welcomed Saudi efforts to build up its self-defense capabilities and “to make greater contributions toward achieving shared regional objectives,” Parnell added. The meeting came amid a series of recent US arms sales to the Kingdom. Earlier this year, the Trump administration approved a $3.5 billion weapons deal that included 1,000 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAM) and 50 AIM-120C-8 guidance sections.” I say that either Pentagon policy chief Elbridge Colby has a doofus (aka dodo) as a personal assistant, or he has been missing briefs for years. Saudi Arabia steered to self reliance in several fields (including defense) even before 2019, so the response you read before might be seen as nothing less than a joke. As for the ‘funds’ already spend, as I see it, Chan is just as willing to receive such payment for its abilities for Saudi Arabia to defend itself. I get that there is one stronger and one weaker. But I do not know who that is between these two. As such it might be anyones guess. I suggest you ask someone at Raytheon who has the better equipment and why.

So it is nice to see this article and there is no blame on AlArabiya, but until it refers to America seeing Saudi Arabia as a full fledged partner in global defense by selling them the F-35, these stories come across like that moment in Oliver Twist asking for some more. Charles Dickens wrote about that little orphan in 1838, so it might have been a while. Still the setting of America bothers me, not the meeting with Saudi Arabia, but the building of not-so-good moments in several areas in America going from tariffs to tourism. America is bleeding and through their own actions they are bleeding allies just as quickly as anything else. Not even the penguins on McDonald Island are happy to see President Trump.

So as we are given the final quote ““Both leaders recognized US-Saudi defense cooperation as a force multiplier for regional security, and reviewed opportunities to deepen cooperation,” said Parnell, the Pentagon spokesman.” Well, as a non-Pentagon source might I suggest including Saudi Arabia as another party for the F-35? That should deepen cooperation by a lot. #JustSaying

It is moments like these that I wholly embrace the old saying “Sarcasm is great, when it backfires it become irony” and that is important too, so just in case AlArabiya is hungry for more stories, the address of the Chengdu Aircraft Corporation can be found in the story. 

Have a great day this Tuesday, it’s still Monday in Vancouver, so they get this article in about 14 hours.

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August 3, 2025 · 17:59

The need of some

That is what I see, the need of some. You see, as far as I can tell, we see all kinds of pretenders (especially around Gaza and Palestine) but for the most, these losers are all about the limelight and none of them are about resolving anything. They go on binges around anti-Israel events, they go on binges around Palestine, but in the end, they merely like the limelight. Yes, it is getting to me. For the most I am on the “Eradicate Hamas” train. But there is a setting that needs illumination. You see I have already done this 3-4 times over the last two years. Arab News gave us yesterday (at https://www.arabnews.com/node/2610380/saudi-arabia) ‘KSrelief extends support to 5 nations in need’ actual events that the west is oblivious about. KSrelief has done plenty in the Arabic settings and now we see that Yemen, Jordan, Syria, Pakistan and Lebanon are getting help and I reckon that some of this has been going on for some time. 

We are getting that “In Yemen’s Aden governorates, the agency concluded a week-long general surgery project recently, during which 18 volunteers performed 26 operations.” It comes with the additional “KSrelief also launched the distribution of 6,000 cartons of dates in Yemen’s Al-Mahrah governorate, benefiting 42,000 displaced and vulnerable people — part of a broader plan to distribute 625,000 cartons across 12 governorates.” You can read the rest in the article. What I do want to give you is the end, which is “Since its launch in May 2015, KSrelief has implemented 3,612 projects worth more than $8.1 billion across 108 countries, in partnership with more than 325 organizations.” As I see it, KSrelief has achieved more in 10 years than the United Nations has in over 25 years. There is a chance that I am getting it wrong, but that is the political side of this that we are seen BS on many levels even though we get through AlJazeera (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/7/26/israel-says-its-distributing-aid-in-gaza-so-why-are-people-starving) where we get ‘Israel says it’s distributing aid in Gaza, so why are people starving?’ Where we are given “Israel claims that shortfalls are occurring because much of the aid lies “rotting in the sun” because the UN has not distributed it. Israel’s military radio, Kan, recently reported that the Israeli army has burned or buried some 1,000 trucks’ worth of aid that it deemed spoiled or expired.” I personally feel that it is a setting of she said versus she said and the media cannot be trusted to give us the truth. There are too many games played by the United Nations and by Hamas. This is a personal feeling, but there are too many factors and in earnest none of them can be trusted. I don’t trust the Israeli side, I do not trust the UN side, not the BBC side and certainly nothing that Hamas gives us. 

Yet what is done and I feel that I can trust this is what Arab News gives us about KSrelief and I feel I can trust what I see on these fields. The assistance that KSRelief gives us in these last 10 years sits well with me. My problem is that I hope that the western media will give KSrelief that they deserve. I feel that I am about the only non-muslim that is paying attention to what they do. 

I went through the first 5 pages of links searching for KSrelief and none of them are western media. It is basically despicable to see such non-caring and I personally blame the western need for digital dollars. We might ‘hide’ behind that things are more complex and that is fine, but at present Saudi Arabia is getting aid to 5 places that seemingly are ignored by western media. Mostly I stay away from Gaza issues as I was there in 1982 and I have had my fill of it, It is a drawn setting of something I do not understand. It is prolonged by politics I do not consider valid and politics that seems weird (optionally because I do not understand it) But I was there (44 years ago) and nowadays I still do not understand it and don’t try to convince me as most people are shouting what they read, but what you read is basically false, so there. Yet KSrelief is giving us the setting that matters and even as it seems trivial they are getting help to the people who need it, one package at a time and in this we see That in these 5 nations they brought relief and aided over 50,000 people. That is real assistance and it might not be enough, but it is a start and in the end they will have given “a broader plan to distribute 625,000 cartons across 12 governorates” in Yemen, a setting that is working, and as I see it more was achieved than the United Nations, now my thought might be off here, it is fair to say that, but at present we see all these political settings and we do not see any actual results in Yemen. That is what the thoughts get to when we see the media. There is a larger need other instances to show us what is done, the media is not giving them to us, so who can? Perhaps Arab News could follow through with an expose as to what the United Nations achieve and what KSrelief gets done. The issue is that at present KSrelief has implemented 3,612 projects worth more than $8.1 billion across 108 countries. Whilst on the side of the UN (regarding the UN) we are given “From 2014 to 2020, U.N. agencies spent nearly $4.5 billion in Gaza, including $600 million in 2020 alone” seemingly it isn’t working in Gaza, so what did they achieve in Yemen? These question are important, because as I see it the UN is merely a political beast and no one knows what funds are used and what makes it to these people out there. We might get images of rotting food at Rafah, yet what is true remains to be seen and too many media is a political tool for the ones that care of self, not of the victims. 

And that needs to be addressed and it needs to be addressed soon. I personally believe that any media guilty of spreading disinformation needs to be held to account and with that the media guilty needs to be blocked from transmitting and other needs to give voice to these media players to be cut short from transmitting. I know it is a tall order and I have no idea how to do that (verification of data) but something needs to be done. For the same setting is the question of I am a source of information or a source of disinformation. It will be a fair question, because I no longer know and my visit to rafah in 1982 is no guarantee that I am giving information regarding Gaza. I feel that Arab News is correctly informing me regarding KSrelief, but that is all. 

We need to see where aid is required and the media needs to illuminate this, not illuminate the path that it is giving regarding what the media stakeholders what us to know and how much we are told. That is all.

So I apologise is this writing is a little all over the place, but there are issues with this setting. I hope I made at least that clear. So have a great day and try to find some joy this Sunday.

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August 2, 2025 · 21:20

As Hogwarts expands

That is the setting. We are given ‘Miral extends deadline for tender to build Abu Dhabi’s ‘Harry Potter’ land’ (at https://blooloop.com/theme-park/news/miral-construction-tender-harry-potter-land-abu-dhabi/) the quote is that “Miral has extended a bid submission deadline for a tender to build the new Harry Potter-themed land at Warner Bros. World Abu Dhabi on Yas Island. Per a report from Middle East media publishing company MEED, the deadline has been extended from 28 July to 4 August.” Implying that next week the Start of a  $545 million – $816m expansion is due to begin. And in addition we are given “Three new rides in Harry Potter land Miral announced the Middle East’s first Harry Potter-themed land in 2022. It will feature iconic locations from the Wizarding World, as well as three new rides, retail outlets, and F&B facilities. The 40,000 M2 addition to Warner Bros. World will join six existing zones in the park – Warner Bros. Plaza, Bedrock, Dynamite Gulch, Cartoon Junction, Gotham City and Metropolis.” As such The staff of Hogwarts will have to endure a rush of people howling “Yabadabadoo” whilst assaulting the death eaters. These death eaters are in a pincer setting as the other side will be shouting “Yibbity-Yabbity-Doo!”, those poor death eaters won’t know what hit them (nyuk, nyuk, nyuk)

And as I see it, the quote “Mohamed Khalifa Al Mubarak, chairman of Miral, said: “This is yet another testament to our commitment to continue to position Yas Island as a top global destination for entertainment and leisure, and a great addition to Abu Dhabi’s tourism offerings, contributing to the growth and economic diversification of the emirate.”” Is not entirely accurate. It is that international tourism will see Abu Dhabi as a much more appealing destination and with the ‘idiocy’ (as I personally see it) settings that America is setting with immigration, the costly ‘visa integrity fee’ and several other settings. So as I see it, Universal just dished out $7.7 billion USD (Hogwarts is merely a part of it) and the other park in Orlando will have a rather large problem. With the Hogwarts expansion, Yas Island becomes the most appealing choice for a whole flock of tourists, now definitely deciding that there will be a viable alternative for Orlando, and when Disney arrives in 2027/2028 also on Yas Island, Florida will see the largest downfall in economy they have ever had. When millions of tourists will select Abu Dhabi over Florida, the rest will become a mere escalation of something you could have seen coming miles away. But not to worry, I had the setting in view even as the media seems to be coming up short. In addition Abu Dhabi has the Formula 1® Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix 4-7 December 2025. I have no idea yet when the 2026 race is on, but for a lot of people combining the two would be preferable. Also there is a lot more around Yas Island. And the UAE has a much better visa setting where it is offered at a mere fraction of what America offers it. The setting was debatable (at best) when America was the only option, but that hasn’t been the case for almost 4 years. So now as America is bleeding money in almost every direction, the people in Europe, Canada, UK, India, Australia, New Zealand and China will consider Abu Dhabi and Yas Island as their destination in 2026, 2027 and 2028. So how many million of people will seek their preferred choice in EuroDisney (Paris), Efteling (Netherlands) and parks in Belgium, Sweden and several others. A setting that was there from the start. 

A setting that will also propel the UAE as a global tourist destination. They already were that, but the millions of Harry Potter fans had Florida, London and Tokyo in their sight, with Abu Dhabi added to the HP arsenal, I reckon that Florida (at present) is allegedly decently  much done for.

Have a great day and when in Abu Dhabi try the Emirati Chabab, it is a famous dish and decently yummy. 

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August 1, 2025 · 23:28

The Nintendo Charge

Nintendo makes another blitz record, it is not the first one, but this one is one for the record books. The story (at https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/nintendo-has-sold-6-million-switch-2-consoles-and-almost-the-same-number-of-mario-kart-world/) gives us ‘Nintendo has sold 6 million Switch 2 consoles and almost the same number of Mario Kart World’ as for my excuse not being part of that cluster is simple. I just don’t have the money at present. Nintendo played a near perfect awareness game. They went global with the teaser, they followed up with YouTube video’s and gave online presence. When Zero-hour was here. The streets were aligned around shops who sold it with people. We all wanted one, even the ones that couldn’t afford one. And there was a lot of interest. The expanded memory, larger screen, higher resolution, snap click controllers with magnets and the controller was also used as a mouse. 256GB against the 32GB of the original Switch. Basically everything was stronger. One exception, the battery life seemingly is not. I run my Switch on the TV, so I won’t ever see this one issue. And on the TV, you now get 4K. Cheaper than either Xbox or PS5 (not by that much) Nintendo made the record books yet again. In the first 7 weeks the Nintendo sold 6 million Switch 2 consoles and the real screamer is that nearly all of them got Mario Kart World, it sold 5.63 million copies. That is huge. I saw the videos and I would get that as my first game too. 

So when we se all this we tend to think, what is next? But that is it, this setting will hurt Sony as well as Microsoft to some degree. People can no longer afford it all and when they get a Switch 2, their coffers are nearly empty as such, no direct sales for either Sony or Microsoft. Microsoft with its Game Pass will have an advantage over Sony (for the first time) and it will not be as hindered by Nintendo as Sony is, but they too will feel the pain. I reckon that this will continue straight through Christmas 2025. Because those who can not afford it at present, will work harder to get one before or at this Christmas (hopefully me too). 

So whilst we get the quote “Despite being a launch title and being constrained by its user base, Mario Kart World is the series’ second biggest launch behind Mario Kart Wii.” And that makes sense. I see the improvements and the plusses that Mario Kart World is bringing and I reckon that this game alone is the largest push to get the Nintendo Camera as well. It goes further, As of June 30, 2025, the Nintendo Switch has sold a total of 153.10 million units worldwide. This makes it the third best-selling video game console of all time and now add the 6 million Switch 2 systems and we see that Nintendo is overtaking Microsoft by storm. Consider that at present Xbox Series X/S (2020): Estimated over 28 million units as of June 2024. This implies that Switch 2 is already at 21% of Xbox Series X/S lifetime sales. And the Switch already surpassed that. This sets the  Microsoft systems in third position and should Amazon agree to my terms Microsoft becomes the 4th player. Not bad after spending Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion. That was money well spend wasn’t it? And should Amazon agree to surpass Microsoft too, that 68 billion dollar anchor will weigh harshly on their actions. The funny part is that neither Sony or Nintendo had to pay that much for anything they bought (as far as I know). And there is more (there always is) Nintendo is should of breaking its own record of the Nintendo DS which sold 154 million consoles. The Switch is now less then a million away from that record. It is anyones guess how far the Switch 2 will make it, but as I see it the numbers are in favor of Switch replacing a lot of systems within the next year. Nintendo said there were no changes to its financial forecast for this fiscal year, which is to sell 15 million consoles by March 2026. I tend to think that this number will be broken in several ways by Christmas 2024. That is before we consider the pleasing notions of all the Harry Potter fans who will be driven to this game on the Switch 2 as well. Yes, Nintendo is about to break record and this is the first time that I am saying this, but Nintendo is now approaching the pole position that Sony holds, as such they will have to up their game considerably if they do not want to be taken over by Nintendo, because that is no longer impossible. I don’t think Sony was ready to see the Switch family as a threat to their number one position, but that is the setting that they face in 2026, as such I wonder what Sony will come up with next. 

The armistice race on consoles tends to be a fulfilling one and there is the second step. When Nintendo get that done, it will find more gamers switching to their side. Although I have always stated that the Nintendo is the system you get next to your usual console, I still believe that and as such Nintendo tends to have great options. I merely wonder when Hogwarts Legacy 2 is released will it be released on day one for Switch 2 too? You might think that this doesn’t matter, but it does. It will be the first moment when Nintendo will have surpassed Sony and that is the kind of news that is massive in its own right. Sony released its PlayStation on December 3, 1994, it went straight to the top from the start and it will have taken Nintendo 32 years to overtake Sony and that is not something to think lightly of. I certainly am not. 

So, I merely have this to say “Well done Nintendo”

Have a great day today 

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August 1, 2025 · 04:58

The accusers

I saw a message fly past and it took me by surprise. It was CNBC (aka Capitalistically Nothing but Crap) and the accusation was ‘Microsoft and Amazon are hurting cloud competition, UK regulator finds’ (at https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/31/uk-cma-cloud-ruling-microsoft-amazon.html) with “The regulator is concerned that certain cloud market practices are creating a “lock-in” effect where businesses are trapped into unfavorable contractual agreements.” So, that’s a thing now? The operative word is concerned. So, is this the way former Amazon UK boss, Doug Gurr, on an interim basis is showing the world that he released the chain and necktie from Amazon?

There is ‘some’ clustering and as the setting is advocated by some the score at present is “AWS holds approximately 29-31% market share, while Microsoft Azure has around 22-24%, and Google Cloud holds about 11.5-12%” The only surprising thing here is that Google is remarkably behind Microsoft by a little over 10%. Nothing to be worried about, but still the numbers set this out. The infuriating setting by the the CMA giving us “The CMA recommended a further investigation into Microsoft and Amazon under a strict new U.K. competition law to determine whether they have “strategic market status.” I am not ‘attacking’ the CMA, but as the old credence goes “Innovators create corporations, losers create hindrance for others” I suggest you take that as it goes. 

Yet there is more behind this all. Forbes gave us last week ‘Microsoft Can’t Keep EU Data Safe From US Authorities’ (at https://www.forbes.com/sites/emmawoollacott/2025/07/22/microsoft-cant-keep-eu-data-safe-from-us-authorities/) where we see “Microsoft has admitted that it can’t protect EU data from U.S. snooping. In sworn testimony before a French Senate inquiry into the role of public procurement in promoting digital sovereignty, Anton Carniaux, Microsoft France’s director of public and legal affairs, was asked whether he could guarantee that French citizen data would never be transmitted to U.S. authorities without explicit French authorization. And, he replied, “No, I cannot guarantee it.”” And this is how Microsoft faces a near death sentence by the American administration. So much so that Microsoft seemingly is creating a data centre solely for the EU. Julia Rone gave us last year (late 2024) “It has been well acknowledged that the European Union is falling behind the US and China when it comes to cloud computing because of its lack of technological capabilities. In a recently published article, however, I argue that there is another important and often overlooked reason for EU’s laggard status: the persistent disagreement between different EU member states, which have very different visions of EU cloud policy.” I take that at face value, as I am considering (through mere speculation) that these member states are connected to American stake holders in media trying to hinder the process, but that is another matter.

So as we see ““Microsoft has openly admitted what many have long known: under laws like the Cloud Act, US authorities can compel access to data held by American cloud providers, regardless of where that data physically resides. UK or EU servers make no difference when jurisdiction lies elsewhere, and local subsidiaries or ‘trusted’ partnerships don’t change that reality,” commented Mark Boost, CEO of cloud provider Civo.” It makes me wonder how America is different from the accusations that America threw in the face of Huawei. It is like the pot calling the kettle black. And this also gives wonder where the accusation against Amazon and Microsoft ends, because the cloud field is seemingly loaded with political players. They all see that data is the ultimate currency and America (as it is near broke) needs a lot of it to pay for the lifestyle they can no longer afford. In Europe the one that stands out (at least to me) is a firm I looked at in 2023 and it is growing rapidly. It is Swedish and not connected to any of the three and could become the largest in Europe. Its long-term vision involves operating eight hyper-scale data centers and three software development hubs across Europe by 2028, employing over 3,000 people. By 2030, the company aims to operate 10 hyper-scale data centers and employ over 10,000 people. There is too much focus on 2030, as I see it the American economy collapses on itself no later than 2028 and as I speculatively see it, it will drag Japan down with itself. That setting required a larger acceleration in both Europe and Asia as America will not play nice as per late 2026. At that point too many people will see where showboat America is heading too and the reefs in that area will be phenomenal. So, as I see it, the entire political swarm behind data centers and fictive AI will require a whole new range of management and I reckon that players like Amazon and Microsoft have never been dealt these cards before, so I shudder to think what will happen when it faces accusations from the EU, the CMA and others. This aligns with the accusation (from one source) giving us “An antitrust complaint filed by Google to the European Commission in September 2024, alleging that Microsoft’s licensing terms unfairly favor its own Azure cloud platform, making it difficult and expensive to use Microsoft software like Windows Server and Office on competing clouds.” I wonder, didn’t Microsoft played a similar game with gaming?

So whilst the infighting is going on on a continued setting, I wonder where Oracle will end up being? As I see it this is rather nice, but I am accusing myself at this point that we aren’t face with a tidal wave, but merely with 5 cups of tea all stating there is a storm happening and whilst the teacups are talking to each other and showing how bad the storm is, the reality is that it is not smooth sailing, but seemingly as close to it as possible. For that you need to see where Evroc is standing, where it is going and how fast it is achieving this. The second market is Oracle, how it is progressing and who it is partnered with (pretty much everyone) and these two elements show us that there are governmental captains stating that their pond is in a dreadful state (whilst presenting their cup of tea as a much larger pool then it is) the corporate captain stating there is a storm brewing, but absent of evidence and the media is flaming every storm it can so that they can get their digital dollars. But consider that Oracle is presenting good weathers and there are alternatives whilst the media actively avoid illuminating Evroc, with only TechCrunch giving us in March “Amid calls for sovereign EU tech stack, Evroc raises $55M to build a hyper-scale cloud in Europe” there were a few more and they are all technical places. The western media is largely absent as there are no digital dollars to be made here.

So consider what you see and try to see the larger picture, because there is a lot more, but some players don’t want you to see the whole image, it distorts their profit prediction. So did you see the little hidden snag? Where is Huawei cloud? Whilst this is going on ‘Huawei hosts conference on cloud technology in Egypt’ where we see that “the event drew more than 600 government officials, business leaders, and ecosystem partners from over 10 countries and regions”, as I see it, this is a classic approach to the “While two dogs are fighting for a bone, a third runs away with it” expression. So consider that part too please.

Have a great day.

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July 31, 2025 · 10:22

Drowning in misrepresentation

That is the setting as I personally believe it to be. The problem isn’t me, the problem is that politicians are clueless and as such the people will end up suffering. As we get the article (at https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jul/30/zuckerberg-superintelligence-meta-ai) telling us ‘Zuckerberg claims ‘super-intelligence is now in sight’ as Meta lavishes billions on AI’ the dwindling situation is overlooked. This is not on Meta or on Mark the innovator Zuckerberg, well, perhaps it is a little on him. But the setting of “Whether it’s poaching top talent away from competitors, acquiring AI startups or proclaiming that it will build data centers the size of Manhattan, Meta has been on a spending spree to boost its artificial intelligence capabilities for months now”. So, what are you missing? It is easy to miss it and unless you are savvy in data, there is absolutely no blame on you. I will blame politicians shoving the buck to a pile that has no representation and I do see that the political mind is merely ‘money savvy’, it does not have an alleged clue on data verification. There is a second point, it was given to me by someone (I don’t remember who) who gives us “All AI startups are their own shells linking to ChatGPT” I see the wisdom of that, but I never investigated that myself. You see, all these shells have issues with verification and these startups don’t have the resources to properly verify the data they have, so you end up having a bucket with badly arranged and misliked data. You would think that if they all link to ChatGPT it is a singular issue, but it is not. Language is one, interpretation of what is, is another side and these are merely two sides in a much larger issue. And hiding behind “build data centers the size of Manhattan” is nothing else than a massive folly. You see, what will power this? Most places in this world have a clear shortage of power and any data centre relying on power that isn’t there will crash with some regularity and these data links are maintained in real time, so links will go wrong again and again. And that link is seen by ‘some’ as “A new study of a dozen A.I. -detection services by researchers at the University of Maryland found that they had erroneously flagged human-written text as A.I. -generated about 6.8 percent of the time, on average” that implies that 1 in 15 statements are riddles with errors and there is no way around it until the verification passes are sorted out. Consider that one source gives us “monthly searches to more than 30.4 million during the last month”, this gives us that AI events resulted in 2,026,666 possible erroneous results and when that happens to something that was essential to your needs? When technical support and customer care fails because the number, aren’t right? How long will you remain a customer? That is the folly I am foreseeing and when all these firms (like Microsoft) are done shedding their people and they realise that the knowledge they actually had was pushed out of the side door? Where does this leave the customers? Will they remain Microsoft, Amazon, IBM or Google customers? This is about to hit nearly every niche in America business. The ones that held on the their people knowledge base tend to be decently safe, but the resources needed to clean up the mess that this created will scuttle the European and American economies as they overextended the new they spun themselves and when reality catches up, these people will see the dark light of a self created nightmare.

So in retrospect consider “Behind the hype of Microsoft backing and a $1B+ valuation, the company reportedly inflated numbers, burned through ~$450M funding, and collapsed into insolvency.” This setting was hyped on every channel and praised as a solution. It took less then a year to go from a billion to naught. How many even have a billion? Considering that Microsoft backed it, implies that they were unaware how they were, driven by a simple setting that should have been verified before they even backed it to over a $1,000,000,000 plus.

Now, we can feel sorry for Zuckerberg, not for the money, he probably has more in his wallet, but the ones wanting in on such a ‘great endeavor’ are bound to lose everything they own. This is a very slippery slope and as governments are seeing what some call as AI as a solution to solve a expensive setting in a cheap way are likely to lose the ownership of data of their entire population and these systems do not care who the owner is, they copy EVERYTHING. So where will that data end up going? I wonder who looked at the ownership of collected data and all the errors it has within itself.

The fear is not what it costs, but for billions of people is where their information will end up being and these politicians sell ‘sort of solutions’ which they cannot back with facts and in the end it will end up being the problem of a software engineer and that setting was too complicated to understand for any politician who was too eager to put his name under this and merely will shrug saying ‘I’m sorry’ whilst he is exiting through any side door with his personal wallet filled to the brink to a zero tax nation with a non-extradition treaty.

A setting we will see the media repeat time after time without seriously digging into the mess as they told us “Wall Street investors are happy with the expensive course Zuckerberg is charting. After the company reported better-than-expected financial results for yet another quarter, its stock soared by double digits.” All whilst the statement “Zuckerberg did not provide any details of what would qualify as “super-intelligence” versus standard artificial intelligence, he did say that it would pose “novel safety concerns”. “We’ll need to be rigorous about mitigating these risks and careful about what we choose to open source,”” is trivialized to the largest degree and in all this there is no setting of verification. Weird isn’t it? 

So feel free to enjoy you cub of toffee and don’t worry about the jacked setting of demonstration which was tracked by the original AI as “enjoy your cup of coffee and don’t worry about the impact of verification” because that is the likely heading of the coming super-intelligence

Have a great day (not have a grate clay).

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July 30, 2025 · 14:39

The erratic vision

That is where I found myself this morning. It was a confusing dream but things made sense whilst the dream was going on. I was in some kind of hobby store and I was buying Star Trek figurines. They were small (really small) and this set had the USS Enterprise (the first one), Deep Space Station K7, a Klingon D7-class battlecruiser and a Romulan T’Liss Class. The ships came with an envelope with codes. You see, the ships are a mere setting. The ships connected to a program and that program (courtesy of Adobe) had a new stage in marketing (it will make sense). This setting was a collaboration between Apple and Adobe. The ships are ‘decoration’ prototype and there are settings that are free and professional. This setting is what the fans will use or in other terms fanfare of systems. The larger setting was the pen, there were two types of pens, one was simplistic (for starters and low level marketeers). The pen was different It was not used against a tablet or pc, it was use anywhere, your desk if need be. The pen draws and the lines appear on the mobile, tablet or desktop. There are two kinds of lines. Lines that are drawn with the pen and I the guidance lines are also drawn but looked a little different. As I saw it, I clicked on the table and  clicked on the Deep Space Station K7, the station appeared in my viewfinder on the display. I drew a line around the station and clicked on the Enterprise. Now the Enterprise moved around the station and I could set the screen as a static point of a dynamic point and from there the animation started. The animated started as I gave the signal and all the elements were hi-resolution as the codes transferred the Hi-res images to my desktop. It was all around the pen, the apple pen that had surpassed whatever we had in mind. The ballpoint was some kind of rubberized mica and as it rolled it did the same a mouse did, but now with the freedom of the hand. The pen also had a few buttons and two sliders. To make the interaction more smooth and a lot more intuitive. The professional pen was a lot more expensive and was connected to a wrist pad. A pad on your underarm which had a screen with buttons and could be customized. 

This is the future of what Meta calls AI marketing. 3D settings of an object which could be linked to the high res setting of any object a person wants to have and that is how marketeers set the stage for a lot of new advertisements. The display guru’s design the settings and whilst a lot is done on the pc, prototyping is done at your own desk, dozens of people guiding a new setting of any brand and that is ‘encouraged’ with the fanfare objects as is seen here. But it goes beyond a mere series. Most series are represented Star Trek, Babylon 5, the Expanse, but it goes beyond these settings, the generic objects like pawns, cubic forms and others for people, animals, buildings and so on. All linked to an objects and they could be reused in seconds and could alternate over themes and personal touches. As such the designers could set up themes and create the overall, whilst any marketeer can turn prototypes into fine tuned advertisement. A new setting that is giving brands a lot more control at a fraction off the cost. And as each element id completed the Meta AI will turn it all in dozens of advertisements pretty much a new advertisement each minute. 

That is where graphic design is going to (as I personally see it) and the pen is turning what was a simple 3 trillion into a new setting of at least 9 trillion. There is nothing like waves that push people forward and when the world needed innovation Apple and Adobe pushed it all to the surface. And Adobe used a new setting to grow a loot larger. The themes gave fans an outlet and it was all pushed by the figurines that allow people to prototype settings on their own desk. I saw that this set costed $69 now consider that 50% of their fans (in excess of 40 million) that makes this 20 million times $69 giving the Adobe system a quick $1,380,000,000 and that is merely one fan system, now consider the stage of dozens of fanbases, it allows for the stage of online mediation of fanfare. And it goes beyond that, when the brands will take another setting Now take this setting in the professional stage with over 500,000 and they need this and a lot of people are setting the stage to advertising. Adobe is sitting on the forefront of what everyone needs and now there are almost no competitors out there. A stage of devices that do what is normally reserved for directors, now at the fingertip of almost every market driven person. And when the people are up to what Meta saw initially, and that is now used to new heights by Adobe and Apple, the stage of repetitive advertisements end and that will push new viewers to a visibility of brands. 

I reckon that there will be cloud solutions by Adobe in new directions and to new heights of bandwidth.

A setting that my mind saw but it was still early. As I see it the world belongs to innovators and Adobe is about to come around the corner with all kinds of innovations as I personally see it. 

Have a great day and don’t stare at this too closely because I haven’t revealed all here. Ad as some thoughts from the past are set to new branches of what was revealed earlier, we can see where the data ends up bring and that is part of the solution some cannot see yet.

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July 28, 2025 · 22:07

On the cheap

That is at times a worry, when things go on the cheap it tends to be the more expensive setting you are driven to select. But as I see it, it isn’t always bad. Abu Dhabi (capital of United Arab Emirates) have a few options here. So to show this lets take the ‘normal’ setting.

Warner Brothers Theme park $129
WaterWorld $123
Sea World $177
Ferrari Them park $144
Yas Mall Free

You would think that this will be the master of all bills, but you would be wrong. You see when you get into the Warner Brothers hotel you automatically get a ticket EVERY DAY to one of the theme parks for that day. There are more hotels on Yas Island that give that option. In case of the Warner Brothers hotel, its theme park is across the street (WaterWorld is its neighbour). Oh, and enjoy breakfast there is to be cherished. Don’t take my word for this, YouTube is filled with walkthrough videos of the Hotel and the Theme parks, see for yourself what you could be enjoying.

There is however more. Tourists have the option of buying a 4 Park Ticket for a mere $184 which allows you to visit any of the Yas Island theme parks within 6 days of activating your pass. You have to consider this setting as this implies hundreds of dollars saved per person and you get to select which park you will select. You could spend 4 days in the same park. To give you a comparison a Universal theme park ticket will set you back $600 and that is also per person. So that implies a saving of an easy $400, so what would you select? The added benefit is that the UAE is a zero tax country, so there is a decent reason to visit the Apple Store in Yas Mall and get yourself the apple extension you always wanted. 

So as America is setting the additional $250 visa cost, as such Abu Dhabi becomes the premiere location for people wanting the theme park experience. The news (up to recent) was that America is getting a $29,000,000,000 pain invoice from lost international tourists and as I was looking at the presented data from several sources pretty much anywhere, I reckon that by late September, the presented damage will be worse, much worse. 

So, why am I focussing on Abu Dhabi? Well, the theme parks are advertised by people who were there as top notch and when you consider the setting that the Diamond pass is annually AED 3,295 ($900) for a whole year with additional discounts all over Yas Island. A full year of access for $900? It is worth retiring there and cool down and soak twice a week in WaterWorld. Nearly all theme parks are indoors in air-conditioned settings and as I see it, next year we get the Harry Potter expansion and the year after that Disney will grace that setting too. In addition (at present) you also get a Unlimited Quick Pass Access, also there is the 25% discount on Dining (at places that support this and also the 25% Discount on Shopping and several other benefits. That implies that the price of the pass will be earned back in just over a week, as such you have 50 weeks of true profit. So what retirement setting offers that? The universal annual pass is seemingly set to $1,095 before taxes. As such Abu Dhabi is seemingly giving you a blast for your bucks. 

As I see it, Universal has blacked out dates, Abu Dhabi gives you 365 days of fun. Seems like the optimal saving.

So what is behind this? I am not paid by Miral Experiences (the operator on Yas Island), there is nothing in it for me. But this shows you the utter stupidity of the Trump administration adding a new $250 ‘visa integrity fee’ and when you consider that in 2023, Florida’s theme parks welcomed close to 77 million visitors, merely one state, so when you consider that a massive part of International tourists now have an alternative and a much bigger resentment of America, that are merely two of a bigger set of anti-America setting. Together with decreased rights of privacy at the border. To be clear, I am not anti America, I am merely anti-stupid and at present America is no longer worth it. This is beside America trying to push the 51st State into the face of Mark Carney (Prime Minister of Canada) and his 40,100,000 Canadian brothers and sisters. As such America is getting massive doses of hardship. So when Florida and California loses millions of tourists, what do you think will happen. I see the adjusted ‘videos’ that it will not get back to normal until 2026. Well, that time has gone. As I see it, as there are alternatives America will see this hardship in 2026, 2027 and 2028. There might be some revival in 2028, yet I doubt it, as America sees hardship beyond 2026, crime numbers will accelerate and the quality of life in America is unlikely to see any bright spots before 2029. And that is if America stops being stupid tomorrow morning before 03:00. After that the setting becomes near disastrous and that is merely the summer, at this point their winter seasons are not looking too great either. Winter is a different chicken, most ski and boarding fanatics have their slopes and that’s fine, but at present as places lose control over staff, infrastructures almost everywhere will be near collapse and without infrastructure the tourists will become absent. As a source gave me “Tourists, particularly from Australia and Canada, are increasingly rebooking or cancelling trips away from America due to concerns about border security, perceived political tensions, and a general sentiment of unease, leading to a significant drop in visitors to the US and a surge in interest for alternative destinations like Europe and Bermuda.” As such the setting for America looks grim, very grim. 

In an age and a stage of seeing the cheap route thee is a massive setting of people who will be resetting their vacation to the UAE and Abu Dhabi with Dubai a mere 35 minutes away per train. And when you consider that a 30-day tourist visa fee: AED 200 ($54). A 60-day tourist visa fee: AED 300 ($81), seems a lot less than the ‘added’ $250. So how was their ‘visa integrity fee’ a good idea? If my initial understanding is correct and America is utterly broke, then America stops being the place to go until far beyond 2030, but in the meantime the UAE and Saudi Arabia become places to go to. And that is not all, there is every chance that Europeans will return to places like Acorn Adventure (UK), as I see it, there are several places in Europe who will see a returning tourist option. 

For me there is this dish which I enjoyed in Ghent in the 11th century (before embarking on the Crusades) and that was possible as the Medieval times are set in the Archeon. They also have a Roman age (complete with gladiator arena and bathing house) and a prehistoric area. 

And the Netherlands has more. The Efteling, a theme park that won the biggest theme park award at least twice, making it the biggest contender for Disney parks. And it has its own charm. All places that will feel increased attention as America is slowly strangling its influx of tourists to death.

As such America is due a massive downturn, they forgot that they are not all powerful and other nations have alternatives to what they offer and as they are now raising prices by at least $250 the stage changes. Sweden, Netherlands, Belgium, France, London (UK), Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia are all in the running of welcoming the tourists who are now over the American BS (that stuff that makes grass grow in Texas). As I see it, $29 billion was a understated and that will go on for at least 3 years. With border controls impeding out privacy, the setting for business tourists will go down more and more as well. But not to fret, Canada has a welcoming position for these business vendors as well,  a visitor visa (single or multiple entry) costs CAD 100 ($72) per person, also a lot less than $250 and that setting will continue for some time. 

It is a shame for some, but if America prices itself out of the running, the impact is on themselves. Have a great day and feel free to dream yourself into the past with pastries, I am still dreaming of Dutch poffertjes. And I have an art work by Anton Pieck to assist me in this matter. 

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