Tequila Sunrise
Earlier this week, Vlad Yavorskyy posted a story about Mandarin Garnet on Facebook. He wrote: “In recent years many new gemstones have been unearthed in distant and exotic places, occasioning great excitement in the gem [...]
The girl of yesterday
In early September, the head of the IDEX design team sent me the draft of the info mailer that announced the publication of IDEX Magazine’s September issue. If you haven’t seen it, take a look. [...]
Time for OUCH: Openness, Understanding, Cooperation and Harmonization
This October, CIBJO – the World Jewellery Confederation will hold its annual congress in Bogota, Colombia, and shortly after that the delegates of the World Federation of Diamond Bourses (WFDB) and of the International Diamond [...]
Geen dag zonder Bach….in Israel
Bach-liefhebbers in Israel waren tot een jaar of wat geleden aangewezen op het luisteren naar hun eigen afspeelbare verzamelingen, op de - sporadische - uitzendingen van Bach's muziek op de lokale klassieke zender, op de [...]
A blast from the past: Counterclockwise – a review of BaselWorld 2013
This blog, written in 2013, did not make it to the digital screen at the time, but with the Swatch company announcing it is withdrawing from BaselWorld 2019. I'm happy to share it, five years [...]
The end of emotion – the beginning of reason
From today and onward, the diamond industry and trade can stop screaming foul. During the past decade(s), the diamond industry has been discussing, arguing and sometimes been kicking and screaming foul against the tendency to [...]
Welcome!
On this blogsite, I publish my professional, political and literary efforts, both in English and in Dutch, my native language. Each of these sections also has an archive.
While I have been writing all my life, I’ve not been diligent about ‘organizing’ my writing – columns, op-ed pieces or short stories, into a framework. So here we are, and I hope you’ll like what you find and read here!