Softly Shouting

For years I have been coming back to Amsterdam as if coming back home. I have been homesick for the anarchy and the messiness of the city, the sights that have been so familiar to me in all seasons and at all times of the day and night. She was asking me to return. To return to the bicycles here there and everywhere, not paying heed to other road users. To return to the canals, lined with trees in leaf, the softest cover possible. To return to the sounds of the trams, the sounds of the city, my cradle of coming of age. But this last visit, I found something was broken. I didn't recognise the city I loved. It is tacky and incredibly filthy, she sells herself to tourists, selling stroopwafels, cheap tat, sex and the promise of culture which is never fulfilled. Probably in the neighbourhoods away from the centre you can glimpse a bit of what she used to be - and here, the Begijnhof, where in the Church Jim and I got married. I cried. For the loss of my city- the umbilical cord is cut.

  Fast fashion is bad for the environment. As it turns out, it is not a good story for our health either. On 27 February 2024, the Guardian printed an article about research in the US on human placentas. In all 62 placentas that were analysed, scientists found microplastics. Microplastics have also been discovered in human breast milk and blood. Other research focuses of what microplastics do to the human body and that brings more bad news. There may be a link with many health conditions that have seen a steep rise in the last decades, such as Inflammatory Bowel Disease and decreasing sperm counts. More research will be needed to determine how dangerous microplastics in our bodies are. In last month's article I mentioned that wearing and washing polyester clothing is an important source of these microplastics. However, there are other ways in which the clothes we wear can do harm. And it is not really a new phenomenon either. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the colour gr...