Sherlock who?
A swift movement in the dark, a stifled cry, an overturned chair. A crime, but no clues. “Oh, but there are always clues, chéri,” The Detective said with an enigmatic smile. Making eye contact with every suspect in the room, she took a magnifying glass out of her immaculately tailored trench coat. “It’s not enough to merely see; one must observe,” she declared. Then, briskly: “But first, let’s have a nice cup of tea, shall we?”
Sick of male, arrogant, know-it-all detectives (yes, even her own creation, Belgian dandy Hercule Poirot!) Agatha Christie decided to create a new type of sharp, witty female sleuth. The fact that the world still dismissed women as ‘the weaker sex’ was only convenient for Agatha’s female crime-fighter; it enabled her to do her investigating under the radar. While the men were busy giving their tiring ‘mansplanations’, she got the job done, efficiently and without a fuss. For this, she didn’t just use her ‘grey cells’ but also unashamedly relied on her female intuition. Like Agatha’s beloved Miss Jane Marple liked to say: “Intuition is like reading a word without having to spell it out.” From sassy flapper Tuppence Beresford to fearless math genius Lucy Eylesbarrow, Agatha’s detective heroines entered our subconscious as a manifestation of feminine empowerment, showing at least 3 generations of women how to use prejudices against us to our own advantage. Call it a feminist version of ‘when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade’. Or in Marple’s case: you solve the damn murder.
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MD Friends
Building bridges
From the Erasmus Bridge and the Mercedes-Benz Museum to Qatar’s metro network; Ben van Berkel’s iconic landmarks bring people together in rapturous beauty, again and again. I talked with the Dutch architect and educator about sensuality, ‘healthy’ buildings and the remarkable parallels between our designs.
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MD Friends
More than a feeling
Don’t ignore your emotions; they are much more powerful than you can imagine. By linking the magical world of emotions with hard science, Dutch scientist Pierre Capel, professor emeritus in experimental immunology, shows us the consequences of our feelings and the power of our minds. The message: we can do much more than we think. “Meditate. It’s the single best thing you can do for your health.”
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Marlies Says
Keto curious?
The fact that I feel bikini-confident all year round is, of course, a nice bonus. But for me, the biggest payoff of following the keto diet is the way it optimizes my health and gives me tons of energy.
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Marlies Says
Super (skin) food
‘If you can’t eat it, why put it on your skin?’. I pretty much live by this beauty adage. After all, with your skin being one of your body’s largest organs, anything – and I mean anything! – you put onto your skin will end up in your bloodstream.
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