 Hello, hello, hello. And welcome to another coordinating call of DiEM25, A Radical Movement for Europe. I'm Aaron Kearney, and today we're doing something a little bit different to our usual fortnightly live streams. It's a bit like an extended interactive holiday greetings card for all of you because we're traveling. Some people are traveling, some people have dropped out. It's the end of the, I mean, not dropped out of DiEM, this live stream is the end of the year. And we just would like to see how far we can get to have a more upbeat call without too much politics. And we'll be back as usual with the heavy business of shaking Europe gently but firmly next year. Yeah, as you see, I'm kind of hiding in my parents' bedroom right now. And if you can hear Peppa Pig in the background, well, you can imagine why that is. So we're going to start just by getting some recommendations from our crew here to ask people here, what are a few books, movies, music or art that have influenced them this year? Some recommendations for things for people out there. Last-minute Christmas presents perhaps or just some suggestions for you to indulge in. Let's start with, I forget who we said would start now. Julia Moore, go for it. Hi, thank you, Miran. Good evening. Hi, good evening everybody, the crew and viewers out there, good to be back. Yeah, well, keeping it light. So I'll start with the less liked film that's inspired me this year. It was not a giggle, but Nomadland, if everybody sees that or if you'd like to look it up, I thought was probably one of the most inspiring films that I've seen for a very long time. The plight of a gig worker going further and further down in what life was throwing at her, moving, touching, thought-provoking, the photography was absolutely stunning. And I would just say that if you are bored over the December holidays, however you spend that, if you can find that online and stream that online, thought-provoking, you will be thinking about it for a couple of days. It was amazing, but not a giggle. So to balance that, my politics and giggle was to go through very quickly the two parts of Alexi's sales biographies, Thatcher stole my homework and Stalinate, sorry, Thatcher stole my trousers and Stalinate my homework. And there are two sections in both of those where I laugh so much, I was actually asked to slightly move away from the group of people in the departure lounge because I think they thought I was having some sort of seizure. So Alexi's sales two biographies were the lighter moments of this year and they're the books that you can go back to and read again. So that was great. And then on the sort of slightly heavier and heavy history, mainstream, but nevertheless thought-provoking specifically was the last in the trilogy of Hillary Mantell's Warfell, Mirror and the Light. And I know it's slightly been overdone, but absolutely fantastic. You cannot read that without looking at the parallels of the Cummings Affair, Boris Johnson, looking at the King Makers, looking at those in power and those who keep people in power and why they keep in power. And also it's a fantastic thread that runs all the way through those trilogies about the role of women and the position of women in that medieval period and that counterplay. So they would be my sort of go-to things if people need to have a break from the festivities. That's me. Thanks, Julia. Lucas for Brara. Yeah, thanks. Cover enthusiasm. Who here watches it, right? Yeah, that's my recommendation, to go very, very, very light, as light as can be. If you watch it and you haven't seen the new season, it's great, go and watch it. If you never watch it, what the hell are you doing? Start watching it, start from the beginning. Just the holidays, get the family together, watch some of it, learn if you're as neurotic as those people are, which they probably are, or maybe aren't, maybe it's just me. And then other than that, me being still in Greece after our CC meeting here, it's got me thinking about Assassin's Creed Odyssey, gonna go video game here, throw a little bit of a curveball. I know that Eric, we have some fellow players here, Eric and Juliana, and yeah, I'm sure they'll be happy to back me up on it, go see some Ancient Greece, go as part of Athens, all that. I think Eric told me that he can even navigate it in the game, that's how true to life the map is. So yeah, that's me. Thanks for that, Lewis, great recommendation, that Lewis, Lucas. I'm always confusing Lewis and Lucas, sorry about that. Somebody from the chat, Nemanja Vidanovich is asking, is the new Matrix any good, by the way? So if any of you've seen it, please respond. Srejko. Not yet. Not me neither. Can't wait though. Srejko, have you seen the new Matrix? Not yet, but I heard that a common Balkan, Balkaner from the Balkans was working on the movie, Alexander Heman, Sasha Heman, a great writer from Bosnia and Herzegovina, who, since the war is living in the United States. So I guess it will be interesting and I'm looking forward to it. What are my recommendations? Well, in the last four weeks, I haven't been reading or watching anything because I just returned from Mexico to Croatia. And it was great, I missed you all, but it's also interesting to see that Europe obviously is not the center of the world and how many interesting things are happening across the world, especially in Mexico these days. And I had very interesting discussions there with friends. I mean, obviously after two years of not traveling, I also had quite some fun just visiting the markets, eating food, drinking mezcal, finding out more about the indigenous legacies or mainly about from the Maya and so on. So it was very interesting, something I really needed. So what I would recommend to everyone is to travel a bit if they can. And even if the situation looks pretty dire at this moment in Europe, it's, as I said, not the center of the world and there are many other things in the world. What would I recommend? There is one book which I don't have here but I have another one, which I would definitely recommend. I'm sorry, but that's, you know, when you ask people about light stuff, you either get Norman Lent, which is not that light, I would say, or you get this, which is also not that light. It's a book which is just published by Orbooks. It's Julian Assange in his own words. And I think it's the perfect reading which we need today. The other book which I don't have is a book by Niels Melzer, The Trial of Julian Assange, which I have read recently published by Warsaw, which I think so far is one of the best books detailing the case of Julian Assange, you know, from the so-called Swedish case to the embassy days, to Belmarsh Prison and the torture which he is having in prison. So I'm sorry not to go very light, but I think at this moment of Christmas, especially of people who have the privilege to spend it with their beloved ones, we have to remember those who don't have this privilege. Julian will spend another Christmas in Belmarsh Prison and it will be already three years that he's been in prison. So yeah, I'm recommending this book a bit lighter. I think stuff is, I think summer here. I just started to read this actually, but it really makes me happy. It's by Rebecca Solnit, Orwell's Roses. And it's well, trying to show how important gardening was for a very political figure. That's my recommendation for the holidays as well if you want to do something useful and fulfilling the try gardening. This book is very interesting because it shows a part of Orwell, which is not that known. From the movies or TV series, the latest I was watching Foundation, made of course, based on Isaac Asimov, where I find it very interesting that we have this science fiction. Science fiction is back, which is thinking long term and it's not just South Korean or Chinese anymore, but we also have some Western ones, which is interesting to see because so far the West was always stuck in the short-term perspective. The last movie I have seen two days ago was probably you all watch it during Christmas. I watched it with my five year old nephew. It's Home Alone, which is always shown during Christmas and I enjoy it every time again. I think it would be interesting to just have an episode of Home Alone and in which way this kid defies both the robbers, but also gentrification and commodification of Christmas and how much fun actually he has when he's not with his family, doing all this usual Christmas bullshit when he's fighting someone actually. So yeah, we need some fighting during Christmas as well. Thanks, Srećko, and trust you to find a political angle to Home Alone. Okay, Juliana. Yes, actually, Srećko also mentioned already one of my recommendations because I hadn't had much time to read this year, but I read two books. One was the book from Nils Melzer, whom I also had the pleasure of meeting in Geneva with Claudia this year. It's a really great book, I think, if you're interested in the Assange topic, you should really read it. And the other I read was Janne's book, Another Now, which I also would definitely recommend to read. And yeah, as far as movies, I think I've watched a lot of science fiction this year. So not much to recommend. I think everything that exists like The Expans and so on, I think that's very fascinating, one of the great science fiction series now. And yeah, totally on if gamers are watching, Assassin's Creed always a good choice if you're interested in history, for sure. It's fun to walk through history like that. And civilizations, like a strategy game, that's also something that I would recommend to ease your mind. You can really get lost in it for a bit. So yeah, so far my recommendations. Thanks, Juliana. I'm not seeing anybody that's seen The Matrix yet. You did. Have you seen The Matrix? Yeah, I mean, obviously, but not this year. Yeah, the new one, I mean. I'm going to go back to this one. I think it's out. Oh, Judith, there's a glitch in The Matrix. As soon as we say the word Matrix, she's frozen. Okay. Okay. Louis, no, you're back. Sorry, you're back. Sorry, like I said, my connection over here is really bad. I would try to be quick. I'm amazed that nobody has yet recommended as Regis works, poetry for the future. And after the apocalypse, I think are just amazing to describe the world that we're living in right now and the excesses that we see for example, the commercialization of even the end of the world. This is something that very few people are talking about and yet it's becoming more and more prominent. So I found it quite useful to understand this world, but since you wanted something more lighthearted, I would recommend anything by Ted Chiang, the science fiction by Ted Chiang, like stories of your life and others or exhalation, these collections of short stories that take, well, some of them are just plain science fiction just imagining in different future, but some of them take a premise like what if creationism was real? How would the world look then? How would our science look and so on or the theory of homunculus or whatever? And then just explore it for a bit. It's always just a short story, but it's fascinating or his most prominent story was turned into the movie Arrival, where he explores the idea that not just does language influence how we think, which is proven, but that it completely influences how it thinks, including that what we are able to express must be linear and therefore our thoughts are linear but they don't have to be. So whatever premise he picks, I just always find it fascinating and very enjoyable to read. Thanks, you did, Lewis. Hey guys, so I'm gonna go script a little bit and recommend a book, a place and the New Year's resolution about that. Book, completely light, humorous, hilarious, it's, I found it, Woody Allen's autobiography. It's really that reading and if you ever been to New York or like New York, it's also a great late tour around the city. As for a place, this year I discovered the island of Madeira in Portugal. So if you have the privilege or opportunity to ever visit, it's lush, it's green, it's awesome, it's really, really, really, really cool. And my New Year's resolution, which I hope other people wanna take on is to care, protect and appreciate public universal healthcare. This year I had a little bit of trouble, health trouble and my health service really saved my life. And it goes without saying that universal public healthcare is something dear to us and I think that we should work harder on it and I've made a resolution that I should do something about it. And so, yeah, those are my recommendations from here. Thank you, Lewis. Giving him some comments here. Someone's thanking us. Nambo is thanking us for recognizing the gamers, which is good. We don't often talk about gaming. And Christiane mentions that home alone is a classic and that the left should let go of the prejudice against popular culture. Yes, couldn't agree more. Okay, Bera. Thank you, Mehran. Despite all the difficulties because of the pandemic and economic crisis, political crisis, to my surprise, art and culture scene in Istanbul was very, very active. All the galleries were present and they made, they continued to make exhibitions even with foreign artists who could come to Istanbul and there were three major openings, actually four major openings. One of them is the iconic cultural center, Attative Cultural Center in the middle of Taksim Place, Taksim Square. And it is a new, very, very high digitalized building I mean, every visitor should see it now because there are also archive and many exhibitions in this building. And this golden horn was the shore of golden horn was completely restored. Some of the new older buildings were restored and new ones were built. And also the Galata Port, which is the Karaköy part of the city, completely new buildings with Istanbul Modern which will be opened in the coming months. And the Ottoman Modernism Collection is now on display in one of the museums in that area. And what else? I am still continuing my advisory position in a very important residency program in Istanbul. In 2020, we hosted over 12 artists from all over the world here. And I think I would recommend everybody to come to Istanbul and see all these new contemporary arts and historical collections in the city. I am still in the board of Room to Bloom project in Palermo, which is still going on. It's about eco-feminism and Patricia Pozo has recommended me to continue and we are still active. In May, there will be a huge exhibition in the city of Istanbul. And I think it will be very interesting and in May, there will be a huge exhibition of women artists in Palermo. And I am going to be in the board of Kazak National Pavillon in the next Venice Biennale. These are what I am doing here and I continuously recommend to people who are interested in Yannis and Serreco's books because they are very important for Turkey. And I hope they will be translated. I have recommended to some publishers and I will get an answer soon. Thank you. Thanks, Boral. Sotiris Rusus, Yasus Sotiri is asking in the chat, we recommend any podcasts that are not to miss during Christmas. So if you guys who are lined up to speak next have got any podcast suggestions, then please include those. Yannis, what do you got? Thanks. No podcast recommendation, unfortunately. But to all the gamers out there, I'm also really not up to date, but if you want to play a good old computer game, I recommend Age of Empires 2, which I spent a lot of time on in the past, but unfortunately nowadays I don't have the time to do that. What I wanted to speak about in terms of movie, what I really enjoyed this year is another round, not another now, another round. It was in German, it's I think Der Rausch and I think it's a Danish movie called Druck in the original title. And I really enjoyed it because it's about, yeah, drinking another round. It's about that culture that I also grew up with in the German countryside of alcohol being a drug that is everywhere, not being considered a drug. And the fun part of it, which was really nice to see in the video, and then also the, you know, the follow-up and so on, what's going to happen if you're drinking too much. And yeah, it's the whole movie is like a rush. It's nice to follow. I can really recommend you to go to the cinema and just think a little bit about what we are actually doing when we are drinking, besides having fun, of course. Thanks, Chehanis. Isn't the Age of Empires 2 like 20 years old? Yeah, I think that's about like, yeah, 15 hours, 20 years. Yeah, that's about right. The old ones are the first ones. Still you can play it and you can also go on YouTube and watch videos of people still playing it today. Okay, cool. I'm glad you're still carrying the flag for Age of Empires 2. Okay, Janis. Well, good evening, everyone. Now, this is not a recommendation, boys and girls. I'm just going to share with you what I've just finished reading, but don't do it. Don't do it without adult supervision. This is what I just finished reading, The Age of AI by Henry Kissinger and Eric Schmidt, because I believe that one has to invest time and effort reading the brilliant writings of awful enemies. These two men are horrid. At least Henry Kissinger should be in prison, but he's a brilliant mind and brilliant adversaries. We need to study them. Okay, so this is something that I was just given the other day by our very own Spearers de Venetes, who is a comic artist. He just published that. You can't buy it because it was sold out on the second day of its publication. So there's going to be another run, but not yet, and it's in Greek anyway. So, since I'm not recommending these, the first one, because I'm not recommending the second one, because you can't have it. Even if you do, it's in Greek. It's all Greek for you. Let me go a long way back. 1843, the book that I'm going to recommend, which I think is quite fitting for the period, is written by a promising author, promising young author called Charles Dickens, and it's a Christmas Carol. And I'm suggesting that, however stupid it may sound, because I read it again a few days ago. It's a short book, and it is brilliant. I had read it last time, you know, 10, 15 years ago, and I've forgotten how brilliant it is. And you know what? It is the first film script ever written. If you read it, it is written like a film script, you know, with science fiction inside. You know, the ghosts of Christmas past, coming to haunt the scrooge, to change his way of being. The way that Dickens takes you from one room to the other, one room melts into another and goes through the time-space continuum. It is wonderful science fiction film screenwriting. 1843, the fact that it was written in the same year that Marx was writing his economic and political manuscripts, in which he introduced the concept of the alienation of workers and the alienation of capitalists. That was a brilliance of Marx. It's not just the alienation of workers, but it's also the alienation of the oppressor. This is the Hegelian notion that the oppressor becomes oppressed by the oppression, so that no one can be free. At least one person is in chains, you know, the famous Hegelian thing. And you know, the way that Dickens portrays scrooge as alienated from himself and uses science fiction, the ghosts of Christmas past, in order to liberate him from effectively greed, from the profit motive, from what today we might call stupidly neoliberal. There's nothing neoliberal about it. It's, you know, scrooge. The scrooge alienation that destroys scrooge's life. And, you know, I was thinking that, you know, the way we teach economics, we economists, academic economists, I used to be one, remember? The way we teach economics to young kids, it's like teaching them scroogeonomics. Really, I mean, yeah, students go in at the age of 17, 18, university, and we teach them that the Russian person maximizes utility, which is subject to the consumption of certain goods. That's scroogeonomics. Moreover, allow me to just to take this a little bit further. It's also completely self-defeating because, come to think of it, one of the things we standard economics teach students is about the importance of efficiency, to get the most happiness out of existing resources. That's what efficiency is, to get the most out of the list. If you don't get the most out of the list, you're not being efficient, you're being inefficient in the use of resources. Now, gift-giving, which is, of course, part of Christmas Carol, reading again, Dickens made me think of all this. Gift-giving makes no sense to the neoliberal mind. Zero sense. For the neoliberal, gift-giving is stupid. It is inefficient. Why? Think about it. What are the chances that with the money that you're spending to buy a gift for somebody, you will hit the one thing that would maximize the utility of that somebody. It's very small. Very small probability that you are going to find the thing that really maximizes the happiness of the recipients. In economics, for instance, they teach young economists that if the state is going to provide something to people, you shouldn't provide them with food vouchers or you shouldn't give them food. You should give them money because they know better how to spend it. It's not a neoliberal argument. It's against, for instance, council housing. It's against giving free food to people, saying, oh, if you're going to spend money, give them the money, they know best. But if that is the case, what's the point of giving gifts at Christmas? There's no point because it's going to be inefficient. So what is the most efficient gift? Money. But if I give you, at Christmas, the whole thing is exchange, reciprocity. I give you something, give me something back. So I give you an envelope full of money and you give me an envelope full of money. What's the point? If I give you less money than you give me, I will feel embarrassed, right? Maybe I will feel embarrassed if I give you more than you give me. But if I give you the same amount of money to what I am receiving from you, again, what is the point? So, you know, Christmas car, alienation, Marx, Scrooge, they come nicely together. Speaking of movies very, very quickly. Since I went back to 1843, I'll go back to 2009 because I recently saw again a movie that was not particularly good by a director who is not particularly good. I can't even remember his name. By one of my least favorite actors, actors that I really don't like, Bruce Willis, right? But the movie, 2009, Saragets, does anybody remember Saragets? It's a story where you realize that everybody in the movie, they're just too perfect. They all look too good and so on. But what you realize in the end is that the people that you see on the street and you know, there is the whole plot happening, right? They are androids. They are avatars. They are robots. And they are made to resemble you. But you are at home. You're locked inside your room and you go everywhere. You do your business, you go to work, you go to the bank, you go to the post office, sending your avatar, right? And that way you don't have to make yourself up. You don't have to have cosmetic surgery because you can look as good as your avatar looks and you never go out. You can have sex without, you know, the avatars have sex and they are connected to your nervous system so you have the same sensation. And I was thinking that this is a perfect allegory for the pandemic and also for Zuckerberg's metaverse. And I also like the conclusion of the movie so I won't tell you about it. Just in case you want to see it. Sargec 2009. Bruce Willis, awful man. But anyway. Okay, thank you. Right. Some podcast recommendations? Anybody? In our time. Radio 4 BBC. Melvin Bragg. A library of everything. I mean, Melvin Bragg is quite right-wing, quite conservative, but the topics he's chosen. He's been doing this program for 30 years. There's one in our time program for every week of the last 30 years from topics about everything that you can imagine. And in each one of them he's got two or three great guests discussing in depth about that one topic. In our time. BBC Radio 4. Thank you. I also have a couple of podcast recommendations just quickly. The Dishcast by Andrew Sullivan is fantastic. It speaks to a variety of people that I disagree with fundamentally, but it's great to hear them and there are some brilliant interviewees. Also Blocked and Reported. A podcast by Jesse Single and Katie Herzog which is all about, I think they call it internet bullshit. It's just stuff that happens on the internet. And what's going on in popular culture. That's the podcast to tune into. And politics is downstream from culture. So it has a utility. Eric. Yes, I have a couple of podcast recommendations as well. We've got Philosophize This by Stephen West. It's a really sort of easy way to delve into philosophy in a very approachable way. Really get familiar with names that you feel you should be familiar with and feel awkward at dinner parties where somebody might bring one of them up and one of their theories up, but you know, quite familiar while washing the dishes or or hoovering the house. That's what I do at least and it's quite fun. Seven Deadly Sins by the lovely Stephen Fry, you know, he explores a bit the relationship we have with the Seven Deadly Sins in different cultures and also in the West and that's also good fun. In terms of books, being a history geek, you know he marks the 200th anniversary of the Greek Revolution. So for another 10 days, it's the 200th anniversary and the great, I personally am a big fan of historian Mark Matzower. He wrote the Greek Revolution 1821 and the making of Modern Europe where he kind of sort of looks into the series of events that led to the Greek Revolution but also the public's reaction across Europe because it is the first revolution that was successful against the Ottoman Empire, the first real, if you like, project in nation building and also it was the first revolution that was successful because of foreign intervention which was the result of public sort of opinion in Europe turning in favor of the Greeks. That's something that had never happened before. So a lot of things you know then went to instruct Europe and remember this was a period in European history after Napoleon where all the great powers were horrifically allergic to the idea of a revolution and especially national one, multinational empires and so on was the word of the day. So you know it really traces back a lot of tendencies that we see in modern history back to those origins and I find that quite interesting. The Louvre also has a fantastic exhibition on this kind of relationship between France primarily in Greece but also more generally Europe and Greece and that is on until the first few days in February. So if anybody is visiting Paris I would definitely recommend having a look at that. Anyone who would like to try their hands at the 21st century video game so anything that is made after the last 20 years could also give a go at Age of Empires IV which is a couple of installments after you have is recommended. It's quite good but I'm not sure it's worth the 60 euro price tag. It doesn't shift enough from the older installments of the game so maybe wait for a sale before you get your hands on that one and finally in terms of films I was a absolutely huge fan of Dune when he came out of the cinemas by Vilnav. It's a series of incredible imagery one after the other telling a really really exciting story. I was a huge Lord of the Rings geek back in my youth. Still I am let's not pretend huge talking fan and you know when I came out from the cinema after Dune I felt exactly the same butterflies in my stomach and I know that if I was a teenager today I would be geeking out hard over Dune so that's my recommendation in terms of films. Couldn't agree more about Dune except that it sort of finishes and as I understand it it's a sequel because it's going to be a sequel that's why they will but they haven't even started shooting it so you get the same problem. It's going to be five years before we see it. Look Dune is spectacularly beautiful but it just goes to show the dearth of the human imagination of the modern imagination. They are creating a world a thousand years from now that is simply a recreation of feudalism. It just proves yet again that none of these people who created Dune, this, that and the other are anywhere near the sophistication and brilliance of Star Trek. I had to say that I just couldn't leave Star Trek. Yeah but I also I have to agree if I can just quickly with Yanis. It's not always a competition Yanis. But it is stupid that idiots they only reproduce the Middle Ages with they've been far more accurate in predicting the future the Star Trek has been so far so but it is about the future it's about the future world a completely advanced world in terms of its social organization and economic organization. Dune, Star Wars, it's the Middle Ages all over again with starships and laser guns. It's for kids. But it's escapism and sometimes that's what we need. Yeah that's fine. So let's go. Sorry I interrupted you. Go with Srećko. Go. Yeah no worries. I would agree on the point. What you said about Dune, I think the same could be said about foundation in the future world they're basically recreating the conditions of a past world. Whether it's enlightenment or imperialism you have it in foundation as well. Disbelief in rationalism, science. The foundation has a brilliant bit that Dune doesn't have which is psychohistory this wonderful dialectical predictive mathematical science which captures the whole conundrum of trying to predict society because unlike the weather society takes seriously predictions about it and therefore the predictions can never be true because we take it because we take them seriously. That's the beautiful thing about Asimov whether Star Wars and Dune don't have anything brilliant they just look lovely. A couple of recommendations from our friends out there on the chat. Someone's recommending the then and now YouTube channel for excellent high quality videos on theory and philosophy history with an anarchist perspective someone thanks us for the mention of Star Trek so you have a like-minded friend out there Yanis. Politics theory other from Alex Doherty as a Doty as a book recommendation, a documentary recommendation from Daniel. He says watch Nidye Nimet a very good documentary that reviews all the great events of this political current of anarchism that have been fighting for over 150 years against all masters and gods. Sounds like a wild ride. And I think that's it. Just another shout out for Age of Empires. Ivana what do you suggest that people jump into over this holiday? My gaming days ended with Sega Mega Drive and Mortal Kombat so I'm not going there. I also watched movies like Star Trek and so on on TV when I was a kid my attention span is not sufficient for new editing, fast editing serials and so on so I turned to reading two books this year and both of them are from Kabarmate one is when the body says no understanding the stress and the other one in the realm of hungry ghosts closing counters with addictions and one of my new year's resolutions is to be a better listener and to try to understand people better instead of sending our avatars to social media to print that we are to pretend that we are perfect living perfect lives while we are just jumping at each other's throats living miserable depressed lives behind our screens so my message would be for 2022 wear a mask, get vaccinated and be a better listener thank you Ivana well said a shout out also to the worldwide heavy metal band Gojira from Zach he's recommending that because they financially report support C Shepherd and indigenous people in the Amazon so listen to their music help the Amazon don't know if their music is any good but you can feel good about listening to it Eric knows Gojira who's next Julia go for it thanks just listening to the talk about gaming and sci-fi another book that I've just published the current one by and without giving the plot line away because people want to read it a wonderful and beautiful moving study of human beings through the eyes of an AI robot and it's just a fantastic lateral view of humanity as seen by a robot the whole concept of the transition relationship that we're going to be having with artificial intelligence so that's a real recommendation it's a moving and beautifully written book as you'd expect by that author so it was all that talk of avatars that just brought that to mind again so I thought I'd recommend that thank you Julia some great recommendations here who would like to go in there suggest the recommendations or I can move on to another question I'm quite curious about where all you guys are at now like what are your plans for the holiday period I know we'll stretch back with us in Europe Eric I thought you were travelling and you wouldn't be able to make it but you've managed to find where are you are you in a motorway cafe or something Stockholm syndrome no no look look I'm in the heartland of the GDR I'm in Saxony surrounded by good old East German architecture and internal design I'm at my wife's grandmother's house and we'll spend Christmas here with her because she didn't manage to come to our wedding which happened earlier this year and she really wanted to see us and so on so you know we said we'll spend Christmas with her and our nephews are here for Vivian's sister and so on so it's going to be a family Christmas and we just arrived today and we'll be going back to Brussels just before New Year's nice and Lucas you're still in Greece what are you doing after Athens yeah still in Greece before answering just one last recommendation that I wanted to give I got this great gift here in Greece it's called a book called Reexcript Hacking by one Judith Meir and very good if you want to learn Reexcript that's a book to get Reexcript Hacking Judith, my agent will be calling you yeah I'm still in Athens and in a few days I'm going to be going to Thessaloniki my girlfriend is Greek and she's from there so I'm going to be meeting the family then I'm going to a small village because Thessaloniki called Everpost which I heard is a wonderful place Eric's been there Jochen as well excited to gain weight mate excited to finally experience a proper Greek Christmas dinner cool TM25 the most self-referential movement okay Juliana where are you staying in Frankfurt what are your Christmas plans no I'm home I'm looking forward to spend time with my children because after Athens they were happy to see me actually the most happy was the dog he kind of now as older he gets the more he misses me when I'm out and the children are like okay my fine mommy's back but yeah it's really fun to be home now and to enjoy the time just with the children playing and I'm really looking forward to the next year also because our meeting in Athens was so inspirational it's like I think a lot of us can't wait for the next year to begin yeah and this meeting that everyone's been referring to was our coordinating collective meeting where speaking personally I got to see several of you guys in the flesh that I had already seen just on zoom calls like this it was a very exciting and I think very energizing meeting and I think we've really got a great team here when I told you we're a self-referential movement so you know I had to get that in in terms of my plans I'm well I'm in Luxembourg at the moment the grand duchy of Luxembourg freezing who are you it's well it's beautiful I must be honest but as usual I can't get used to the excitement of the beholder I'll send you some pictures you'll love it honestly it's like a fairy tale landscape it's beautiful but freezing who hasn't spoken yet here you did you speak and then I'm gonna pick on who hasn't spoken you lurkers go for it you did well after essence I'm also back in Germany but not in Berlin but with my parents and after this I was supposed to go to an Esperanto New Year's party I'm not sure if you're aware but Esperanto is alive and kicking and the speakers tend to have two-day long parties around New Year's including concerts by Esperanto bands and movies and so on and of course because of Covid this big party that normally attracts 250 people got cancelled but there are quite a lot of people that already booked their flights from Russia, from Nicaragua and so on so we'll be organizing my boyfriend and I will be organizing like a small party for those who weren't on their flights and we will have a New Year's event involving a lot of video games brilliant Dushan what are you up to there thanks Macron for picking on me when I didn't put a hand up so yeah I'm in Montenegro finally I missed this place to be honest and I can't wait for the holiday this has been a really really long year so I'm looking forward to the new one regarding the recommendations yeah I will be stereotypical DM'er and say again another now and poetry from the future so yeah that goes with it also regarding the movie I was blown away but by one relatively old movie it's 2013 and it's called Coherence I won't say more because it's easily I can easily get spoilers say spoilers so big recommendation definitely for a movie that will get you thinking thank you Dushan Jochen how's it going where are you well yeah I'm in Athens still and I won't leave go to any other country and except for the next country where we have to find another wing, electric wing for DM25 I don't know which one it's going to be but yeah I'm with my recommendations were already said by the others I don't want to repeat them everyone has heard it another recommendation I can always make is about a classical a very classical masterpiece which is has a title Joseph and his brothers and was written by Thomas Mann this is the book of books for me and it's I don't know how it is in any other language but in German it is just perfect I mean you will enjoy every page and there I think 800 or so of them I've read it twice during my life until now but I can imagine to read it a third time as well if otherwise I'm we'll be spending my holidays with my son from my second wife they don't go together those two families so I had to cancel the visit with my first family and I'm not happy about it because my daughter sent me a little video of her son my first grandson who said into the camera that he is wishing for Santa Claus to bring him a tiger and a grandfather and since I'm the only grandfather I was really moved and I'm trying to find out a way to combine these two families this year so that's what I'm going to do and of course I can agree to everyone having said very very nice words about our meeting in Athens we have been very very productive and we also personally we came close to each other and this will be a team which next year will probably surprise anyone all over Europe and I will be happy again and hopefully we will have another meeting too so have a nice Christmas, have a nice walk into the new year and hopefully see you soon in 2022 Thank you Jofen lovely Janis in the spirit of light-heartedness let me convey to you a piece of news, a news flash that came to me literally 60 seconds ago as we speak in parliament in Greece there was a debate about accidents in workplaces very important topic and as this was happening a Greek flag came off its mast and landed on the head of parliament's secretaries she's okay she was taken to hospital but she's fine but I thought I had to share this with you for some reason let me say what I'm going to do I'm in Aegina I'm going to wrap up my work parliamentary work, DM work all that probably on Thursday I'm going to have two days off and then I'm going to have to write my book on techno-fidelism because once I open my big mouth and I come up with ridiculous theories then I have to back them up with a book so that's what I'm going to be doing but I thought that today's chat was invigorating it was a great departure from the usual heavy-handed and depressing serious politics let's all rest everybody should be using the time between now and the new year to recharge batteries because this is going to be the next one is going to be much much more demanding year than the previous ones the post-pandemic period is going to see a resurgent establishment a resurgent ultra-right a weaker left than ever before and it is up to us to pick the pieces up and try to create something new from them blending the old pieces with new ideas young people who have been unalloyed and unblemished by the past we have a lot of work to do Carpe Diem Thank you Yanis and a big thank you to all our volunteers volunteers out there the translation teams the campaigning teams all the volunteers who actually make Diem tick because we would not be able to do any of this without the fantastic work that you're doing so thank you from the bottom of all our hearts we've got some really exciting stuff next year we've got an election to win we've got a team that's very very well placed to dismantle the oligarchy and shake Europe again gently but firmly so I think with that and thank you also out there for your comments and your recommendations guys it was really nice to get your take on things too I think with that we're going to go because Judith's got an Esperanto party to go to a 20 year old game to dust off and play Yanis has got a book on techno feudalism to write and I've got to get back to Peppa Pig so take care and we'll see you same time, same place January