AWG's final event of the year - our Christmas holiday party.
Attendees brought wonderful eats, both savoury and sweet,
in keeping with the holidays. A number of us dressed in
festive red outfits and bling-y jewelry, and Cerese was a delight in
gold tinsel and purple tulle (no photo I regret, so we'll have to ask her
to re-create the look again for us).
Michel, Michel and Gerard
Thank you to everyone who came and making it such a festive evening:
Mary-Catherine and Michel; Hannah and Luc and baby Gabriel; Susan Rey; Claire F;
Caroline and Michel; Jessica and her children AnnaRose and Michelangelo; Kevin and Sheila;
Rachel and Sebastien; Dalene; Denise and Gerard; Elisabeth; Anne; Jennifer; Joyce; Cerese;
Mireille; Orla and Ross;
Hannah and Luc and their 6-week old baby boy, Gabriel
Gabriel and Hannah won the prize for the best Christmas outfit.
Susan and Claire
Caroline cutting her buche de Noel
Jessica and Kevin.
Sebastien, Rachel and Sheila
Phil & Elisabeth
Caroline, Michel, Anne and Dalene
Anne won the prize for the most outrageous holiday outfit (that none of the rest of us would dare to wear on the tram ......
.... and Jennifer won the prize for the most bling-y jewelry
Jennifer, Denise and Joyce
Michel, Mary-Catherine and Mireille
The Editor of Scriveners wishes a very happy holiday season to AWG members and their families and sends best wishes to everyone for 2017. We are going to need it.
I found this in one of the FAWCO bulletins, and thought AWG members might enjoy it.
Holiday Food
One
aspect of American holidays is the traditional food, and that may be
hard to find in Timbuktu, Bangkok or Lima. Resist, if you can, the urge
to buy imported items like turkeys and mincemeat, both of which have
racked up their own CO2 emissions in getting to you. The WWF in
Switzerland has done a number of studies comparing the energy expended
when a fruit or vegetable is grown locally compared to one that is
imported. A ratio of 15 to 1 is not uncommon for veggies that have
crossed the Atlantic - "veggies with jet lag", as my fellow eco-writer
Ann Zulliger calls them. Consider local and seasonal substitutes that
are close to the mark. Want a bird for dinner? If you are in Eastern
Europe, for example, how about a goose? Request recipes from new-found
friends or Google "international recipes", where you will find dozens of
websites. Balance this concentration on the new with traditions like
Christmas-cookie making, particularly as this usually involves
togetherness with the little cookie lovers in the family.
In fact, the whole Environment Bulletin is usually full of interesting information. Here’s another example:
There
are probably a million websites devoted to do-it-yourself projects; get
the most IT - savvy family member to trawl the Internet. Don't forget
those helpful YouTube videos with how-to instructions for nearly every
aspect of every handcraft. And while we are on the subject of material
gifts, let's look at wrappings other than
the
traditional seasonal paper and ribbon. How about newspaper tied with
red yarn? The comics? Cloth scraps left from sewing projects? The point
here is not to compare the environmental cost of manufacturing ribbons
and yarn, it is to recycle what you have rather than buying, buying,
buying.
We gathered at Sue Rich's to make scented decorations for the holidays. Sue had
kindly acquired beeswax candles, so we set about a morning of decorating glass jars
in an elegant manner. Or not, as the case, and the talent and capability, may be.
I think Pam summed it up - this is a Kindergarten project. Most enjoyable, being
Kindergarteners again and some of the more skilled among us would definitely
be promoted to First Grade. This writer: not so much.
Sue had bought beeswax candles for us to use, using AWG booster funds (Thank you, AWG) and we each one long candle and three little candles with which to work. We had brought glass jars to decorate. We also made pomanders of oranges stuck with cloves, and tied with ribbon.
The group worked outside happily all morning - the sky was blue, the sun shining if not warm.
As night follows day, so did lunch follow our morning's activities. Many thanks to Sue for welcoming us to her home, and for all the creative craft ideas.
l to r: Katharine C, Denise, Anne, Pam, Jan, Peggy R, Leslie L, Sue Rich our hostess
AWG's "salade sauvage" man, David from Vendémian, celebrated the 10th
anniversary of his moulin à olives, Rocher des Fées, on Sunday, 4
December, and once again, les absents avaient tort.
Fortunately the
rain held off, and the fête started with a "fanfare" while visitors
circulated and sampled the variety of products from the region - olives,
tapenades, oils, saffron delicacies, wines, and more. (I highly
recommend the financiers au saffran.)
There were activities for children
as well, and someone commented that it's not often that they are
allowed to "play with fire." David's family and friends provided a
"repas des champs" of soup, rouille de seche with rice, cheese and
dessert for only 10€.
After lunch, there was a very interesting
conference about the history of wine in the region, followed by an
all-male choir, Les Costards (led by a woman chef de choeur) singing in
Occitan, Russian, tsigane, and French (just to name a few of the
languages).
The party was drawing to a close at about 4:30pm, so I was able to race back to Montpellier to be at the International Chapel in time for the Carol Sing.
The last Coffee Chat of the year - as usual, a relaxed and happy gathering of
AWG members and a guest - Precious, from Zimbabwe, a friend of Jessica's.
Happy times all round.
Precious, Cerese, Katharine, Jane, Mariannick, Susan
Six of us met at Denise's to make
a vegetarian lunch. There was time for discussion and catching up on one
another's news while
we chopped and stirred.
Many thanks to Denise for
hosting this session which
was most enjoyable. KRC.
Many hands..... make a cake
Leslie
Raising a toast: from l to r: Orla, Anne, Leslie, Denise, Katharine, Susan
Brussel sprout salad
Sweet potato satay gratin
Pear cake
Fresh, nutritious and it tasted great. The Sweet potato had a peanut and lime filling .
By collecting data on how desperate we are to buy and how much we can
afford to pay, companies are finding sophisticated new ways to squeeze
extra cash from unwitting shoppers
Flighty prices: many airlines employ ‘dynamic pricing’ – and the practice is growing. Even
rocket scientists, I would wager, are befuddled by airline pricing. One
minute, a flight you’re looking at costs £400; 30 seconds later it has
increased by £100. Panic sets in; you buy a ticket before it ascends out
of your price range.
I experienced this fluctuation frustration recently while trying to
buy a ticket home to London from New York for Christmas. After about a
gazillion visits to British Airways’ website, I decided finally to book
something. Immediately, the price went up. That’s OK, I thought, trying
to console myself. I read on Twitter that London has gone all Islamic
anyway and Christmas has been banned. Probably nothing to go home to
any more, just ritual stonings and sharia. Then I remembered a rumour
that clearing your browser cookies could get you a cheaper flight. I
gave it a go and, voila, the flight reverted to its earlier, cheaper price.
The thinking behind the cookies trick is that airlines can tell from
your browser history when you’re particularly interested in a flight –
and thus willing to pay a higher price – and take advantage of this.
Whether this is true is known only to a few (when the Guardian asked BA about this in 2010,
it said it didn’t use cookies in this way). What is clear, however, is
that airlines – and many other companies – are increasingly moving
towards “personalised pricing”. Sometimes called “differential pricing”
or “price discrimination”, this means charging customers different
prices for the same product based on how much they think people are
willing to pay.
Price discrimination, to be clear, is not the same as “dynamic
pricing”. Airlines have practised dynamic pricing for a long time: there
are a set number of prices available, and you get a different fare
based on factors including when you book and the availability of seats
on the flight. Prices, however, are starting to get more personal. In
2014, a US regulator approved an industry-wide system,
the implementation of which started only recently, that allows airlines
and travel agencies to collect personal data – information such as
marital status, address and travel history – and use that data to offer
you “more agile pricing and more personalised offerings”. So, if an
airline can see that you live in a fancy neighbourhood and regularly fly
business-class, it may offer you a higher fare than it would someone
whom it believes is more price-sensitive. As technology grows more
sophisticated, companies may be able to serve you higher prices based on
factors such as your emotional state.
Businesses are already using customised pricing online based on
information they can glean about you. It is hard to know how widespread
the practice is; companies keep their pricing strategies closely guarded
and are wary of the bad PR price discrimination could pose. However, it
is clear that a number of large retailers are experimenting with it.
Staples, for example, has offered discounted prices based on whether rival stores are within 20 miles of its customers’ location. Office Depot has admitted to using its customers’ browsing history and location to vary its range of offers and products. A 2014 study from Northeastern University
found evidence of “steering” or differential pricing at four out of 10
general merchandise websites and five out of five travel websites.
(Steering is when a company doesn’t give you a customised price, but
points you towards more expensive options if it thinks you will pay
more.) The online travel company Orbitz raised headlines in 2012 when it
emerged that the firm was pointing Mac users towards higher-priced hotel rooms than PC users.
Price discrimination doesn’t happen only online. Supermarkets have used personalised pricing based on information gleaned from loyalty cards and shopping habits.
Broadly speaking, economists tend to think of price discrimination as a
good thing for businesses and customers. Essentially, it is algorithms
robbing from the rich to subsidise the poor, all while growing a
company’s market.
There is the potential for this to go further still and for
customised pricing to help reduce some of the inequities in society. In
Finland, speeding tickets are linked to income,
a system known as progressive punishment. Could we not have progressive
pricing, a system where the cost of necessities such as bread and milk
is linked to your ability to pay for them?
However, it seems more likely that companies will exploit the
increasing amounts of data they have about us to our detriment. Take
Uber, for example. Its much-hated “surge pricing” is an example of
dynamic pricing: prices change according to supply and demand. They
don’t change according to how desperate you, as an individual, are to
get a cab, but this may not be the case for long. Uber knows a hell of a
lot about you – including, for example, how low the battery is on your
phone. It also has data that shows people are more likely to pay surge
pricing when their phone battery is low. “We absolutely don’t use that
... but it’s an interesting kind of psychological fact of human
behaviour,” a behavioural economist at Uber said
earlier this year. This may be true, but why do you think Uber employs
behavioural economists? It is not simply to marvel at the psychology of
human behaviour.
As airlines become more adept at gathering and exploiting data, I
shudder to think what “interesting facts” of human behaviour they will
start to factor into their pricing strategies. Fares will stop being
linked to variables such as seats already sold and start fluctuating
according to how many times your mum has texted you to ask if you’ve
bought your ticket yet, and how guilty you feel that you haven’t. Good
luck trying to clear your cookies to fix that.
Since I didn’t know until almost
the last minute that I was going to be able to go to Berlin for the
Region 5 conference, flights were already full for the day before the
conference and we had to go a day earlier, but that left time for Serge and I to enjoy
some tourism together. We walked a LOT that first afternoon and
evening, and only took public transport to return across the city to our
hotel on the Ku’damm. We had already decided to have supper near the
hotel, and there was a conference supper on the Friday night, but we checked out some places for our Saturday
dinner, and the one that we chose was a winner. It’s the
Altberliner Wirtshaus, in the former East Berlin, and seemed very
traditional, although there was an over-abundance of (other) French
tourists that night (which the waitress said was unusual). The beer
list was not as interesting as at Dicke Wirtin (see review a little later in this piece) and they have no
home-made schnapps, but the food was delicious, and there was plenty of
variety. The sauerkraut was perhaps the best I’ve ever tasted. It’s on
the internet, and one review lists it as fairly expensive, but we paid
only 39€ (plus “tip is not included”) for almost more than we could eat,
plus beers.
I
had been to Berlin 41 years ago, with a German man who had been a
prisoner of war at a camp near Marseille where my dad was stationed at
the end of the war. He had kept in touch, and my dad had suggested I
visit him and his family when I was travelling in Germany. They live
north of Nürnberg, and he had to make a business trip to Berlin, and
invited me to go along. I have just looked at my diary entries for
March 19 and 20, 1975. They make me laugh, so I’m going to share some
excerpts:
“I went looking for a pension
near Ku-damm. Most places didn’t even open the door – just spoke
through the intercom. And when they heard I wanted a room for only one
night, they said they had nothing. One place had a room for 23 dm, but I
said that was too much for me. She asked what I wanted to pay, and I
said 15 to 18 DM. So she said since it was only for one night, I could
have the room for 18 DM.
“About 5:30 pm
we set off for East Berlin via the S-bahn. Customs at Friedrichstrasse
station took forever, and the officials were not in the least
friendly. But I made my currency declaration, and after almost an hour,
we were through. It was quite an experience, and a bit frightening.
We walked along Unter den Linden, and I unfortunately found East Berlin
far more to my liking than West Berlin. The street was lined with the
big old buildings, reconstructed after the war – the opera, library,
Humboldt University, armory, etc. – all beautifully illuminated. Far
more impressive than the super-modern construction and neon lights of
the free sector. Mr. Ernst made a big point of the fact that the
churches had not been rebuilt. We walked past the fountain in front of
the Rathaus and over to the very modern and huge Alexanderplatz. I was
surprised by the absence of restaurants and cafés. Only a few
cafeterias. And it was a very unusual feeling knowing that I was free
to come and go, but the other people on the streets are Soviet
citizens. Another of my reactions, this morning in West Berlin, was the
strange realization as I looked at the burned out ruins of bombed
buildings that my countrymen were in a large part responsible for this
destruction.”
My
second day in Berlin in 1975, I crossed to the Soviet sector at
Checkpoint Charlie.
I noted in my diary that I was told not to take
photos of any buildings flying the East German or Russian flags. This
trip, in 2016, at the Tourist Checkpoint Charlie, there is a German dressed up as
an American soldier, who charges money for photos, or says to come back
after dark and take photos for free. Serge managed to get a photo
anyway. (Note the McDonald’s, which was not there in 1975.)
Also
from my diary notes. I had to change currency for East Berlin, and
then tried to spend it before returning to the west. “It’s not easy to
spend money. The postcards are black and white, and souvenirs are from
Bulgaria.”
I took hundreds of photos in
Berlin, and Serge took almost as many.
Here's another restaurant recommendation.
Dicke
Wirtin (Grosse Aubergiste) is a small, traditional brasserie with a
history, and with a large selection of excellent beers we had never
heard of, and an even larger selection of home-made eaux de vie from
various fruits and vegetables. Of particular interest (to me) were
those made from Jerusalem artichoke, rhubarb, and ginger. Very near a
bus stop, just off the Savignyplatz. The food was very good as well.
We discovered the restaurant (thanks to the French edition of the Lonely
Planet guide to “Berlin en quelque jours”) our first night in Berlin,
when we stayed at a hotel on the Ku’damm, and went back our second night
(after Robin Meloy Goldsby’s fund-raising concert at Steinway House for
the new Target Project). Serge went there another day for lunch, while
I was at the Regional meetings, and we went back for some more schnapps
our last night in Berlin. The waiters and waitresses were extremely
friendly, especially after we left 15% the first night in response to
the rubber stamped line on the bill (in English!) – “Tip Not Included.”
That got us an immediate extra order of schnapps, and the next night,
we were offered a stronger version of the ginger schnapps (nothing to do
with cookies), which nearly knocked us off our chairs. The last night
we were once again offered extra schnapps, but said one last glass for
the two of us would do, and the waitress should choose the flavor so we
could try to identify it. I did. It was quince.
Some photos of the wall (not the one proposed on the Mexican border):
Serge looking through the hole in the wall - looking from west to east
East Side Gallery - Graffiti on what’s left of the wall, near the Oberbaum bridge
My return to the “monumental” socialist boulevard Karl-Marx Allee, 41 years later.
The “super moon” over East Berlin.
The original (real) Checkpoint Charlie kiosk, which is now at the Allied Museum.
The thinking behind the cookies trick is that airlines can tell from your browser history when you’re particularly interested in a flight – and thus willing to pay a higher price – and take advantage of this. Whether this is true is known only to a few (when the Guardian asked BA about this in 2010, it said it didn’t use cookies in this way). What is clear, however, is that airlines – and many other companies – are increasingly moving towards “personalised pricing”. Sometimes called “differential pricing” or “price discrimination”, this means charging customers different prices for the same product based on how much they think people are willing to pay.
Price discrimination, to be clear, is not the same as “dynamic pricing”. Airlines have practised dynamic pricing for a long time: there are a set number of prices available, and you get a different fare based on factors including when you book and the availability of seats on the flight. Prices, however, are starting to get more personal. In 2014, a US regulator approved an industry-wide system, the implementation of which started only recently, that allows airlines and travel agencies to collect personal data – information such as marital status, address and travel history – and use that data to offer you “more agile pricing and more personalised offerings”. So, if an airline can see that you live in a fancy neighbourhood and regularly fly business-class, it may offer you a higher fare than it would someone whom it believes is more price-sensitive. As technology grows more sophisticated, companies may be able to serve you higher prices based on factors such as your emotional state.
Businesses are already using customised pricing online based on information they can glean about you. It is hard to know how widespread the practice is; companies keep their pricing strategies closely guarded and are wary of the bad PR price discrimination could pose. However, it is clear that a number of large retailers are experimenting with it. Staples, for example, has offered discounted prices based on whether rival stores are within 20 miles of its customers’ location. Office Depot has admitted to using its customers’ browsing history and location to vary its range of offers and products. A 2014 study from Northeastern University found evidence of “steering” or differential pricing at four out of 10 general merchandise websites and five out of five travel websites. (Steering is when a company doesn’t give you a customised price, but points you towards more expensive options if it thinks you will pay more.) The online travel company Orbitz raised headlines in 2012 when it emerged that the firm was pointing Mac users towards higher-priced hotel rooms than PC users.
Price discrimination doesn’t happen only online. Supermarkets have used personalised pricing based on information gleaned from loyalty cards and shopping habits. Broadly speaking, economists tend to think of price discrimination as a good thing for businesses and customers. Essentially, it is algorithms robbing from the rich to subsidise the poor, all while growing a company’s market.
There is the potential for this to go further still and for customised pricing to help reduce some of the inequities in society. In Finland, speeding tickets are linked to income, a system known as progressive punishment. Could we not have progressive pricing, a system where the cost of necessities such as bread and milk is linked to your ability to pay for them?
However, it seems more likely that companies will exploit the increasing amounts of data they have about us to our detriment. Take Uber, for example. Its much-hated “surge pricing” is an example of dynamic pricing: prices change according to supply and demand. They don’t change according to how desperate you, as an individual, are to get a cab, but this may not be the case for long. Uber knows a hell of a lot about you – including, for example, how low the battery is on your phone. It also has data that shows people are more likely to pay surge pricing when their phone battery is low. “We absolutely don’t use that ... but it’s an interesting kind of psychological fact of human behaviour,” a behavioural economist at Uber said earlier this year. This may be true, but why do you think Uber employs behavioural economists? It is not simply to marvel at the psychology of human behaviour.
As airlines become more adept at gathering and exploiting data, I shudder to think what “interesting facts” of human behaviour they will start to factor into their pricing strategies. Fares will stop being linked to variables such as seats already sold and start fluctuating according to how many times your mum has texted you to ask if you’ve bought your ticket yet, and how guilty you feel that you haven’t. Good luck trying to clear your cookies to fix that.