Ghost Mail Weekender

Happy Sunday Voornaam,

I must apologise. I caved. After India's innings, I couldn't take the FOMO anymore. Having fundamentally ignored the cricket for the entire tournament, I put on the TV, had the inevitable argument with the DStv Stream app and found what I wanted: a march to glory for the Proteas. Alas, it was not to be. It seems I jinxed it once more.
But unlike the Australia game that ruined my childhood, I think we can feel pretty proud of this one. Sure, we probably should've won from the position we were in, but to compete with a country of over 1.4 billion people at their number 1 sport is seriously impressive. We get ever closer!
Things we learned this week: in Japan, Christmas and KFC are practically inseparable. Every December 25, Japanese families gather around a bucket of fried chicken - a tradition that might seem a bit odd in countries where Christmas usually isn’t about fast food.
This all started with Takeshi Okawara, the manager of the first KFC in Japan, which opened in Nagoya in November 1970. Inspired by an expat who missed having turkey at Christmas, Okawara decided that the next best thing was a party bucket of chicken. His idea took off, and in 1974, KFC launched the fried chicken party bucket nationwide with the slogan ケンタッキーはクリスマス！(Kentucky is Christmas!).
Since Japan doesn’t have many traditional Christmas customs, and with Colonel Sanders looking ever so slightly like Santa when you dress him in red, it was easy for this new tradition to catch on. People start ordering their buckets in early November, and on Christmas Day, you’ll see long lines outside KFCs across the country.
Move over little drummer boy, and pass the drumsticks please.
Of course, choosing which calorie fest to indulge in on a Friday night is a common point of negotiation among couples. Another bone of contention has nothing to do with the chicken wings and everything to do with the Netflix choices each night. Let's face it - these aren't exactly tough conversations.
When it comes to money though, things can get very serious for couples.
If alignment on financial goals is a cause of strain in your relationship, you certainly aren't alone. Satrix has written on this topic, delivering a highly practical piece that gives context to your disagreements and tips for addressing them. Get the fire out of your balance sheet and into the you-know-which room by reading this article.
Dominique Olivier watched Gladiator for the first time this week. With the Caesar's family often dressed in blue (and a specific shade of blue at that), it was the perfect reminder of the history of the colour and what it teaches us about rarity and supply and demand. There was a time in the world when even Michelangelo couldn't afford enough blue. With her background in art, Dominique loved digging into the reasons why "royal blue" is a thing. Learn about it here.
Enjoy the rest of Ghost Mail Weekender and your Sunday!
The Finance Ghost (follow on X) | Dominique Olivier (connect on LinkedIn)

A feel-good story about humanity

TL;DR: In Gujarat, India, a school for blind and visually impaired children has been specially engineered to allow its students to navigate by touch, sound and smell.
Here’s a bit of feel-good inspiration to make you happy to be human again: there’s a School for The Blind and the Visually Impaired in Gujarat, India that uses clever architectural solutions to help its students navigate their way around independently. The creative mind behind this thoughtful design is Anand Sonecha of SEALABS.
As a sighted person, it took some time for Anand to gain the insight he required to design this particular school. He did this by studying other schools for the differently abled and spending time with the students at the school, observing their habits and behaviours.
Understanding that most blind people can perceive some light or colour (only about 15% of blind people can see nothing at all) Anand incorporated various colours, smells, and textures to distinguish classrooms. For starters, the school features five different types of wall plasters and textures, while the floors have varied surfaces, like rough and smooth Kota stone, to mark classroom entries. This allows students to use touch to identify different spaces.
Each area in the school, including classrooms, corridors, and courtyards, is marked and written in Braille. To aid navigation through sound, Anand varied the volumes and heights of the buildings, creating different echoes. For example, the main entrance to the school has a wide and tall space, while another area is shorter and narrower, producing distinct echoes. Students practise identifying these spaces by walking, talking, and even clapping.
To assist low-vision students, Anand used bright, contrasting colours. Classroom doors, entrances and bathroom doors are all painted in bright colours, while the rest of the walls in the school are left white for optimal contrast. Additionally, various aromatic plants are placed at entries and windows to help students identify locations by smell, adding another layer of sensory navigation.
Courtyards play a crucial role in the school’s design. They not only serve educational purposes but also provide filtered light to classrooms, crucial in Gujarat’s hot and dry climate. This filtered light helps protect low-vision students from direct light glare. To further minimise glare, sunlight is brought in from the roof instead of windows, ensuring a comfortable learning environment.
This thoughtful design empowers differently abled children to rely on their other senses, making navigation easier and learning more accessible, all while fostering confidence and independence.
We like it!

Blue: the colour of money

Financial harmony for couples - some tips from Satrix

Dominique's fast facts: Luck or fate?

An assortment of facts that will take you only a minute to read.

Violet Jessop was a nurse and ocean liner stewardess who earned the nickname "Miss Unsinkable" by surviving both the accidents of the Titanic in 1912 and its sister ship, the HMHS Britannic, which met the same fate in 1916. Jessup was also reportedly on board a third boat, the RMS Olympic, when it hit a warship - but fortunately, the Olympic stayed afloat.

In 2014, there were two tragic plane crashes involving Malaysian Air flights. The first was shot down over Ukraine, and the second disappeared without a trace somewhere over the Indian Ocean in the greatest aviation mystery of all time. Beyond the fact that both incidents involved the same airline in such a short time span, there was another striking coincidence: Dutch cyclist Maarten de Jonge was scheduled to be on both flights, but cheated death by bumping his ticket at the eleventh hour, when cheaper options became available.

Tsutomo Yamaguchi is either incredibly lucky or incredibly unlucky, depending on how you look at it: unlucky in that he happened to be present in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the times of their catastrophic atomic bombings, and yet lucky that he miraculously survived both. Yamaguchi reportedly fled Hiroshima in search of safety, winding up in Nagasaki only to see a second flash of white light that would cover over half of his body in burns from radioactive ash. Yamaguchi is the only person recognised by the Japanese government as having survived both bombings.