Music, food, and love are poured into the Famadihana festival — I’m teetering on the roof-edge of a concrete tomb. The air is filled with the scent of sweat and rum, and I’m being jostled from all sides by excitable, dancing men, hollering announcements in Malagasy to the surrounding crowd of two or three thousand people. They wave their arms, swaying…

I know it feels nice to write about you. But really, it’s just another bloody thing to read. — If 2018 was the year of the personal newsletter, it would explain why 2019 is the year of inboxes crammed with newsletters we just don’t have time to read and can’t bring ourselves to unsubscribe to. Sure, 2018 arguably perpetrated worse crimes against human sanity — children trolled for not…

In a world of automation and algorithms, human authenticity will be worth more and more — The saving grace of the approaching robot jobpocalypse might be that nobody, yet, is taking it literally. The regular flare-ups of the “immigrants are taking your jobs” rhetoric has led to actual hate crimes, but even amidst exaggeration around the automation of millions of jobs, no one has yet, to…

A former ‘Guardian’ journalist on how revisions to the British paper’s style guide can alter our view of the climate crisis — The language of our impending environmental disaster is changing. In a note to staff, the Guardian on Friday announced it was responding to increasing concern about climate change by calling it the “climate emergency” instead. The email, as tweeted by BuzzFeed reporter Mark Di Stefano, reads: “Use climate emergency, crisis…

I thought I was crying because of our memories. Walking past it every day, learning French at a school around the corner, giving way too much of our money to the famous bookshop opposite (which doesn’t need another mention). I thought I was crying because I’d lived nearby, because it’s…

As the likes from a tweet passed 100K, I received love and hate — but mostly felt raw terror — Imagine you’re at a party, chatting with people. Most you met there, while a few you met before you arrived. You make a comment. People nod enthusiastically, maybe laugh. Some reply. Then the walls surrounding the party crack and tumble away, revealing thousands, even millions of people. You look down…

Was it phishing? Or was it friendship? — I’d always wanted to go to India. So I was pretty outraged when, in 2011, my iPhone went without me. I think it’s only fair to place around 5 percent of the blame on my friend Blair. A group of us were in a London wine bar pretending to be…

I am really, really good at using technology to make sure people are still alive — I’m in a London branch of the Apple Store, about to buy a pair of Apple watches. And not for any of the standout apps or ludicrously expensive straps, but because it has a “send your heartbeat” feature. “Place two fingers on the screen until you see and feel your…

And other truths travel writers need to internalize — If there’s one thing a travel writer needs, it’s fear. Caution. A decent sense of self-doubt. This is especially true for travel writers from any country which have historically barged into nations where people lived, claimed to have “discovered” them, and then begun a campaign of mass murder. Travel website…