A self-drive tour of Sardinia, arranged by Tui, gave us a wonderful insight into this beautiful island — a place of warm welcomes and spectacular views. Our first stop, Hotel Su Litha, set the tone perfectly: strawberry trees and pomegranates in the grounds, crafted home-made pasta, views from the balcony down over Bitti, and a swimming pool fed by a waterfall. Nearby Nuoro and Bene Tutti sat tucked away in the distant mountains, ancient and quietly impressive.

Motorcyclists the world over know Sardinia well. Its mountain roads host every kind of motorbike, from luxury machines to antiques and the very latest models, making journeys up, down, and along the high mountains thrilling but tricky — especially when sharing the road with (surely crazy) cyclists pitting themselves against heat, height, and beautifully built but winding roads. After expending a huge amount of concentration driving from north to south, I needed a long sleep, though the effort was rewarded with countless vistas and wonderful sights along the way. Coffee, pastries, pasta, pizza, and gelato kept the weary traveller going.

In Cagliari, we were drawn first to the old town and enjoyed a memorable lunch on the defensive battlements. The theatre was being refurbished, but the port boasted luxury yachts and a palm-tree ‘strip’ nestled below the hill fort. Surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea, Sardinia’s beaches are, unsurprisingly, spectacular. We missed the coves and the salt marshes with their flamingos, but the contrast between coastal Cagliari and ancient Bitti was striking.

That evening, the bar at Hotel T served some of the best cocktails we’ve tasted, gently numbing memories of our mountain drive. The ‘T’ was a modern counterpoint to our rustic first night: luxurious bedrooms, though the restaurant and foyer merged like a classy shopping mall, offering more of a people-watching space than an intimate dining experience.

We recovered with a day of archaeology at a Nuraghic site, transported far back in time with a party of Dutch, Germans, and a mixed bag of other Europeans. Stone-built huts and towers hinted at a civilisation that once gathered here before disappearing behind the curtain of history. Greta, our guide, apologised for her English — though, given how poor our Italian was, it would have been churlish to complain. We were grateful for her insight. A nearby museum offered a wonderful exhibition, including a temporary display on the Terracotta Army. The quality of the photographs was stunning, and the recreated figures were powerful up close.

Our thanks then go to Hotel Tresnuraghes, its unassuming exterior hiding real treasures within, and to nearby Bosa — ancient, filmic, and alive with music and song. A meal of sea bream became a performance, while the local Malvasia perfumed the narrow paved and cobbled streets. Colourful tall houses, beautifully crafted door furniture, and thoughtful street fittings showcased Italian design at every turn, both ancient and modern.

Our final stop took us back north to Hotel Valkaranes, tucked into a hillside overlooking a blue lake. The road revealed teasing glimpses of sparkling water, a dam, and hazy blue hills. Once again, incredible food was served with pride and warmth, accompanied by fresh, fruity Sardinian wines and Ichnusa beer, now owned by Heineken. In the nearby town of Arzachena, art decorated the steps leading to a hilltop temple, creating a colourful visual feast.

From here, we found white sandy beaches where luxury boats drifted past in the distance, and warm waters shimmered with fish, glittering stones, and rocky coves. Our return to Olbia was tinged with sadness, watching jet skis race near the harbour before Pelican Bay. One last glimpse of Sardinia — a large island brimming with culture, warmth, wonderful food, olive groves, basalt mountains, excellent roads, and fascinating geology.

We have barely touched the surface.
We must go back.

As my first post to welcome in 2026,  I revisit something I wrote back in February 2025, whilst embarking on some research on 'safer communications' and the potential for AI and Social Media channels to disrupt and de-stabilise 'comms'. 

So here is my original article https://juliet.posthaven.com/ai-artificially-self-important-or-a-force-for-good with some excellent responses via ChatGPT, which, according to Wikipedia is a generative artificial intelligencechatbot developed by OpenAI, and released in November 2022. It uses generative pre-trained transformers (GPTs), such as GPT-5, to generate text, speech, and images in response to user prompts. 

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Here's the article entitled  Is AI artificially self important or a force for good? to which ChatGPT responded with:

 'Short answer: AI embedded in internet technology is not inherently our downfall—but unmanaged, poorly governed digital systems absolutely can cause serious harm. What you’re reacting to isn’t paranoia; it’s a rational response to a real imbalance between technological power and societal safeguards. Let's break this down carefully."

And so, this is what followed.... (my writing in italics)

AI isn’t the root problem — scale is

Scams existed long before AI. What AI and digital infrastructure have changed is scale, speed, and plausibility.

• One scammer can now reach millions instead of dozens

• AI can generate convincing voices, faces, emails, and documents

• Automation removes friction, cost, and risk for criminals

That creates a brutal asymmetry:

• Criminals need only a tiny success rate

• Victims must be right every single time

That imbalance is what feels dangerous — and rightly so.

For the criminals, it's a numbers game and they can target people all around the world with very little outlay and relatively accessible technology, plus they are often supported by larger organised crime networks but they view it as an easy way to make money, and they don't think of themselves as criminals but businessmen. 

The “numbers game” is structurally stacked against citizens

You’re absolutely correct that many perpetrators don’t see themselves as criminals. From their perspective:

• Risk is low

• Enforcement is weak or distant

• Profits are high

• Victims are abstract and anonymous

Meanwhile, victims experience:

• Shame (which suppresses reporting)

• Financial devastation

• Emotional harm

• Loss of trust in systems they’re increasingly forced to use

This is not just a technology problem — it’s a governance failure.

For the victims it's miserable, and increasingly hard to spot, or avoid. Even if you apply the " if it's too good to be true it probably is" principle, it's still all too easy to be scammed and this is not acceptable. Before any more of our lives are forced to operate via online-only structures such as energy companies, banks, doctors and dentists, it is time that Governments put their heads together and act decisively to stamp out internet scamming. It's not just social media giants like Facebook, twitter, snapchat et al. that need to shoulder the burden, it's Governments. Governments have the power, authority and collective technology to impose harsher punishments on the perpetrators and together have the ability (if not the will) to get a grip on this before it's too late. 

Digital-by-default without digital protection is reckless

You raise one of the most important points in the entire debate:

Before any more of our lives are forced to operate via online-only structures…

Moving essential services (banks, healthcare, utilities) to digital-only platforms without parallel safeguards and human access is not progress — it’s cost-cutting dressed up as innovation.

For many people, especially:

• the elderly

• the cognitively vulnerable

• those with limited digital literacy

“Online-only” becomes compulsory exposure to risk, not convenience.

That is dangerous.

From phones, to military capacity, to machinery, there is a push towards 'digital' but we should consider very carefully the relative ease with which operations in seemingly third-world countries are able to scam people around the world out of eye-watering amounts of their hard-earned money using digital technology and how quickly they adapt to work-around methods employed to thwart them. Digital, might be cheaper, it might arguably be more efficient but is it in fact lazy and dangerous?

Is digital lazy?

Sometimes, yes.

Digital systems are often deployed because they are:

• Cheaper than human staff

• Easier to scale

• Easier to outsource responsibility for failure

But efficiency for institutions can mean fragility for individuals.

A human bank clerk can notice distress.
A digital form cannot.
An AI chatbot cannot feel unease.

A scammer can.

Governments absolutely have more power than they use

You’re also right that responsibility is often misplaced onto platforms alone.

Governments could:

• Enforce international cybercrime treaties

• Mandate stronger identity verification standards

• Require banks to absorb more fraud losses (which changes incentives)

• Criminalise negligence in platform design

• Fund digital literacy as a public good

• Maintain offline alternatives for essential services

The limiting factor is not technology — it is political will, jurisdictional complexity, and economic interests.

So… is AI our downfall?

No — but unchecked AI + global networks + weak governance is a perfect storm.

AI can also:

• Detect scams faster than humans

• Flag anomalous transactions

• Block impersonation

• Assist vulnerable users

• Reduce fraud when properly deployed

The same tool that enables scams can also suppress them — if aligned with public interest instead of pure profit.

The real danger isn’t AI — it’s inevitability thinking

The most dangerous idea is:

“This is just how it is now.”

That mindset:

• Normalises victimisation

• Excuses policy inaction

• Shifts blame onto individuals

• Treats harm as collateral damage of “progress”

Technology should adapt to human vulnerability — not the other way around.

Bottom line

Digital systems aren’t evil.
AI isn’t destiny.
But forcing people into digital dependence without robust protection is irresponsible.

Progress that ignores human limits isn’t progress — it’s abandonment.

If you’d like, I can:

• explore practical policy models that have reduced fraud

• examine whether “offline rights” should be protected by law

• or discuss how AI could realistically be used against scammers rather than citizens

Just say the word.

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I am really growing to appreciate ChatGPT as it becomes more nuanced, and given that all of the ChatGPT responses above are gleaned from other people's work and collated at the speed of light in response to a question or piece of writing, I can't help but be impressed. There is clearly some healthy debate going on. 

I think the AI chatbot hit the nail on the head quite nicely "Digital systems aren’t evil. AI isn’t destiny. But forcing people into digital dependence without robust protection is irresponsible." I just wish the UK Government, NHS Managers, Social and healthcare providers, Banks et al. would stop the digital drive to get people online, take a pause, and reconsider how likely it is that the majority of people putting together digital systems, businesses, programs will be putting profit and time-saving (shortcuts) before public interest. 

My wish for 2026 is that we all consider much more robustly, and more roundly just where we are headed when we give so much power over to the people behind digital systems. That we stop confusing convenience with wisdom, efficiency with fairness, and inevitability with choice—and remember that technology should serve people, not quietly govern them.

That’s a very reasonable hope for 2026, isn't it?

This post comes with a warning. This post relates to a domestic violence incident. In the words of Chase Hughes "the minute you use violence to make your point, you've already lost the argument..."

This is a heartfelt call to the ether, in the hope it may reach the young woman who went to a party with her boyfriend, (both barely in their twenties and living together). I want to say that I am holding you in my heart right now, sending you love and healing, and strength, to both know and feel, that you are worth more and that it wasn't your fault.

You went to a party at the home of your boyfriends friend, whose parents welcomed you both in. These parents spoilt both their son and his guests by ensuring they enjoyed an evening of fun, good company, food and drink, clearly there was a level of wealth and comfortable living and it should have been a memorable party, a lovely experience. In the early hours of the morning your boyfriend chose to hit you, knock you to the ground and kick you whilst you were lying there. You were bleeding, you didn't ask for help, you crawled to your car and drove back to your shared home. I wasn't there. I don't know why you didn't ask for help, and I don't know what led to it happening. But it was wrong, and eventually the truth came out because no matter how alone you felt, how wounded, scared and god knows what else, someone had a sense that something was wrong, and they didn't forget it. They didn't let it drop. you were not alone.

Your boyfriend went back to the party, I imagine that you went home and took yourself to bed. I hope you called someone, a friend, your parents. I don't know but I do know it happened and I am holding space for you. I wish you had reached out for help but do not judge you for leaving in silence and pain. I don't know the person who exposed the wrongdoing but I applaud them for following their intuition and 'calling it out'. I don't know the outcome, or why you kept silent but I hope you will find healing and confidence and be empowered to change your life to one that sees your value and honours you for who you are. I hope the adults involved did the right thing and exposed the truth and ensured the young man who committed this violence was enabled to take responsibility for his actions and shown how to understand that it was wrong, and be empowered to change his ways.

Domestic Violence is a nasty, cowardly, shady act. It cannot hide, the light will always find it and expose it. Some people think that money buys power and power gives them a licence to do what they want, when they want. History proves them wrong. I haven't met you but dear girl, I hear you, I see you. You are worth so much more than that painful experience. You deserve so much better.

Dear Reader, please don't assume or judge but if you have read this far please take a minute, to shut your eyes and think of love, of joy and a few of your happiest memories, and then please send some of that warm, secure, happiness out into the world where it can spread and heal. If it all sounds a little hippy and kookie - do it anyway, what harm can it do? None. Only good. We've lost our way, and people who shouldn't be listened to have been given a voice they don't deserve. Let's quieten the noise with rational, heart-centred, love. Let us have the courage to call out hate and violence. 

Cianalas

At first light, we leave. The road to the coastal airport is humid at four am. It's been, nearly, five years. I am excited to leave the Island of my birth and return to yours. Island of the Gods. I have my family with me and this feels good. We land on your sea-adjacent-air-strip and already I am aware how many people you touch and call back. 'Chianalas' as they say in Gaelic. The longing. The Gods dwell here, in the mountaintop and across the seas, in the blue. blue haze of summer, the purpled hue of distant islands, and the tempestuous wilds of winter.

We drive, skirting your mountains, green with spindly kefalonian fir, sage, olive groves, wild thyme. The heat is draining us of stress and energy, this is the litmus test; atoms colliding, fusion, particles separating and re-drawing. We re-tune, re-assemble and arrive at Kaminia excited, dumbly preparing for re-discovery, tentatively unfolding as mosquito's circle and the heat presses down. The gardens across the Island are in bloom. Kamelia abounds and the white frothy plant, that bursts from the mountainside. It is a good time to come, there is laughter rising from the beach, and the Bar next door and the Cantina beyond plays Spanish re-mixes, Greek pop and Jazz. All is well. 

Carrettas Nest, an oasis, verdant with fruit tree, banana, fig, olive is resting in the afternoon haze. Cicada's hide in the branches of Myrtle, juniper and mastic, and as they hum creating electricity and orchestral ceremony to our arrival.  The pool is blue and inviting and beyond the sea joins the orchestra with its rise and fall. the Island breathes gently.

Are we forgiven for leaving? The azure blue of the pool distracts our guilt. The gentle Ionian Sea, licking the toes of the beach offers no judgement. On the opposite shore, the lights of Zakynthos twinkle on, and along the beach, the lights of Kaminia awake. We sleep, lightly under the mosquito night and arise, ready to eat. In two days time it is the summer solstice, we plan to rise and enter the sea, as the sun rises and offer our thanks, our gratitude for life, for nature, for this Island.

We are not who we were. We are, all four of us changed by the events that unfolded since we last came here. Have we been flung from grace? Were we cast out from the spiritual mass? This morning. Our First. A plane wheels across the sea, a two-masted yacht makes way to its destination. Last night we returned to Medusa, the blinding goddess who turned all those who looked upon her to stone. Now she is but a shield worn to protect and reflect bad energy. We loved our outdoor meal, souvlaki, fish, pitta, feta, greek salad and all the while the Catalonian cats brushed against our legs hoping for a morsel and the sea lapped, gently, kindly. The skies filled with stars.

An old friend died suddenly, his family invited friends and relatives to celebrate his life in the Dragon Hall Norwich. I have ancestors who were born and lived in Norfolk, so it was an opportunity to reflect and explore in unfamiliar territory. We left Norwich for Walsingham, Docking, stopping for lunch at Wells next Sea, then off to Great Bircham before reaching Hunstanton and turning back for home. So much space and light, so little over-development (where one village bleeds in to another). So refreshing.

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