On Fridays I suggest worthwhile weekend reading that’s guaranteed to improve your posture, your online dating prospects, and make you an all around better person. Read ten articles, lose five pounds.
First though, the quiz. Where is this place? It’s not easy, so here are two photos. It’s a capital city. Can you name it?
The answer is down at the end of the post.
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Now, stuff for your weekend reading:
Harrods, in the bustling heart of London, is in a good location for a shop. So, for that matter, is Macy’s, which boasts of serving 350,000 New Yorkers every day at Christmas time. Down at the Mulka Store, in the furthermost reaches of South Australia, George and Mabel Aiston used to think themselves lucky if they pulled in a customer a week. The loneliest shop in the world
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“See, I knew what the Queen’s face meant, what it stood for. There she was, my whole life, looming in the darkened hockey rinks on the Canadian prairies, waving from the tops of airplane staircases, or smiling somewhere in the Caribbean like a tourist on the most exclusive package tour available.
The Queen was why I, a Canadian, had to learn which fork went with which course. What if I were invited to dine at Buckingham Palace and embarrassed myself by using the fish fork instead of the venison spoon? What would she think of my parents?”
God save us all: Britain is about to get the king it deserves
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Since she first started working in the hospitality industry two decades ago, Vida Afram has cleaned nearly 60,000 hotel rooms. Queen of Clean: a hotel housekeeper on her life and work
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““Medically,” Dr. D said, “Lisa is much better. Her vital signs are strong, and she is not experiencing any nausea. This is the good news. The bad news,” he continued, “is that your wife called the nurses in the middle of the night to say that she saw her parents on a boat outside the window beckoning her to come. I know this may not make sense,” he went on, “but we see this repeatedly in our patients. When patients report a vision like this, they almost always die within a day or two. I’m so sorry.” My wife died a little more than twenty-four hours later."
End-of-Life Dreams: a hospice doctor makes sense of our final visions
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Who among us hasn’t compared the shortcomings of British food in the 1980s to neoclassical economics? Why everyone needs to learn some economics
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Travelers to tiny islands in Vanuatu claim to fulfill a local belief that a mysterious figure from afar will one day bring prosperity. What are they hoping for? ‘There was a prophecy I would come’: the western men who think they are South Pacific kings
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You gotta go to Belize to find the best sounding tree. Exotic lumber salvaged from a remote forest in Belize is the world’s most coveted tonewood. The Legend of the Music Tree
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“Asian countries who view the West negatively have no need of help from Russia, whose global influence is diminishing by the day.”
Except for cheap oil. Still, A Future Allied to China and India Is Wishful Thinking on the Kremlin's Part
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Walter Russell Mead maintains that these days “Political opponents are not just people with whom we disagree. They are people whose misguided views could destroy the planet.” He writes that “words must correspond to realities, or both the political and social realms will collapse into disorder.” Our Singular Century
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Skip this one if you’re already Skyping with a parrot. Parrots learn to make video calls to chat with other parrots, then develop friendships, Northeastern University researchers say
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Meduza does consistently absorbing work, and the more you know about Moldova, the more you’ll want to. Dispatch from Gagauzia Moldova’s autonomous region where Soviet-era Russification and Moscow’s political influence remain strong
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Shop talk here: the eight reasons Common Sense & Whiskey might as well not aim for the big time. All eight reasons: no listicles. Travel Writing, SEO & Boring Blogs
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So where are we? This is Tórshavn, capital of the Faroe Islands, part of the Kingdom of Denmark. There are a few more photos in the Faroe Islands Gallery at EarthPhotos.com, and last week’s weekend reading suggestions included No man is an island: life on the Faroes – in pictures.
A whole lot happened in the world this week. Tomorrow we’ll take a look at the week past, and it’s time to get started on pronunciation practice for the candidates in the new week’s elections.
Please consider a subscription to Common Sense and Whiskey. Ask someone you know to join you? We’ll all have bookclub blogclub newsletter club. Subscriptions start at free and through June they come with 50% off the pre-shipping price on every order from Earthphotos.com. Thanks. See you tomorrow.