London, Anne Frank’s House, Westerbork, Bergen-Belsen, Auschwitz and JCC Krakow’s Ride for the Living

London, Anne Frank’s House, Westerbork, Bergen-Belsen, Auschwitz and JCC Krakow’s Ride for the Living

Life is made up of experiences, and I have certainly lived over the past week. A friend of mine was joining a charity bike ride from London to Anne Frank’s house in Amsterdam. Without hesitation I signed up to retrace the Kindertransport route through Harwich, then taking the ferry to Hook of Holland where more than 10,000 Jewish children passed as they were saved from the Nazis. A group of 18 of us had a tremendous tailwind along the seafront…

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March of the Living 2015

March of the Living 2015

Walking into the Bełżec Memorial, one of the six death camps established by the Nazis, I was nervous as I led 45 young professionals, from March of the Living UK, down the path into the museum.  Suddenly, my new friend Harry Olmer, a survivor from the Holocaust, grabbed my arm and led me to the museum desk.  He proceeded to open up a book and pointed directly to a picture of his mother and sister, who were slaughtered right there,…

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WordPress Debugging: Optimising and making slow instances run faster

WordPress Debugging: Optimising and making slow instances run faster

I have a client whose WordPress site was compromised in the past and I managed to make some huge improvements by some use of a simple plugin – P3 Profiler. It was very easy to install and setup (I had to add a profiles directory to the wp-content/uploads directory and also make sure that the Media links directory was correct – I was testing on a local version so needed to update this). After running the scan I could see…

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A New Adventure: Home to Athens (via the Marathon)

A New Adventure: Home to Athens (via the Marathon)

After a great adventure by kayak across the whole of Poland last summer, I am itching to get back on my bike for a new adventure. The bike allows for a much faster speed and easily accessible hot food along the route! I have always wanted to go to Marathon, Greece and run the original 25 mile route from Marathon to Athens that was taken by an ancient greek messenger. From where I currently call home (Katowice, Poland), there is…

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Xbox One: Review – Don’t waste your money!

Xbox One: Review – Don’t waste your money!

I decided to splash out and get the new Xbox One with the intention of playing Halo: Master Chief Collection to re-live part of my childhood. The console has been out for well over a year now, but I didn’t see the need to get this newer console since my Xbox 360 does pretty much everything this new box does, and there are not (m)any games that you can only get on the One. This new Halo managed to convince…

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Detoxing

Detoxing

I recently saw an article being shared through social media that spread like wildfire. It was a comment piece about “detox” diets and it claims you can’t “detox” your body; it suggested that the word “detox” was a marketing word created by corporations and individuals to make money from an unsuspecting public. The images that accompanied the article were all about fresh fruit and vegetable juice. The premise of the article was that you can only “detox” when close to…

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The 6 influencers of life: How Joe Cross will make you happier

The 6 influencers of life: How Joe Cross will make you happier

Want to feel happier? Want to have more energy? Want to feel and look better? Then keep reading, and if you like the sound of it, watch the movies. Our health is incredibly complex, but it is made up of 6 main factors: Whether you smoke What you consume (food and drink) How much you exercise How much sleep you get How much stress you have and last, and definitely not least: Your network and sense of belonging Joe Cross…

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A Mysterious Underground City and a Jewish Polish Wedding

A Mysterious Underground City and a Jewish Polish Wedding

I got back late last night from a Jewish wedding in Wrocław in Poland. This was the first (or maybe second?) wedding between two Polish Jews at the White Stork Synagogue there for 50 years. Unfortunately, after the Holocaust and during the communist period, there wasn’t much room for Jewish life in this town. Today, Jewish life in Poland is not what it was before the war, but there is a strong community that is continuing to grow. This wedding…

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Ride for the Living 2014

Ride for the Living 2014

In October 2013, I spent 25 days alone with my bike, cycling a WWII liberation path from London, across Europe, to Auschwitz. (See articles here) It was a deeply meaningful trip, I did not want to dwell solely on the painful memories of this time in history, instead I wanted to look at the positive side of liberating Europe, the good that came with stopping the Nazi regime and celebrating the freedom we have today. Inevitably there were parts of…

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March of the Living 2014 (The March) – UK Group – Day 6

March of the Living 2014 (The March) – UK Group – Day 6

Finally we took part in the March today in order to commemorate and remember the losses of the Holocaust; and just as importantly to show the world that we are still here. Just a short 3km walk from Auschwitz 1 to Birkenau with 12,000 other people, mostly Jews, was an incredible sight. Many of the survivors completed the walk too which was amazing. Their determination, despite their age, to complete this act is a sure sign of revenge. To stand where…

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