No matter how many ‘back to school’ ads pop around (and one tries to ignore), mid August is still summer. Which means holiday travelling for many, myself included. Sometimes I feel a sort of hopelessness when walking through certain old towns in certain cities, or visiting some coastal areas. Everything seems so prepared to be ‘locally’ authentic (paella, sangria, amigo) that it looks fake, and the number of tourists is inversely proportional to the locals', who are conspicuous by their absence.

As the saying goes, ‘necessity is the mother of invention’. It is not by chance that similar bywords exist in almost every other language, since many innovative solutions come indeed to light in times of generalized crises: for example, the trueque (barter) markets during the Argentinean corralito. Transforming plastic waste into building bricks is another good illustration of these innovations forced by need.