Met David at breakfast in the hotel (la Quinta, IIRC, the smallest rooms I ever saw since 1990), and we walked to UniJewel. Jüzek wasn't there, something came up so he had to stay in Belgium, but we talked with his son-in-law, who was the manager. Though, it's clear that he just pretends to be some authority, for which nobody gives a fuck, they just play along to indulge him. Scheduled another trip for 11th, this time they're paying the airfare, at the fuckers' rate of 665$.
At least I saw where I'm going. It's across one corner of the diamond district on Manhattan, 5th avenue, no less. And they have one horrible app, written in Access :slapforehead: which mostly works, except it doesn't quite follow their production process and never actually has the inventory right. About which they don't really care, few thousand stones more or less.
I already learned more about diamonds than I ever wanted to know. And my disbelief was confirmed - the stones have only psychological value, this is the scam of the century. But it trudges along, leaning on hundred years of entrenched advartising. He mentioned some article where the whole con was debunked convincingly and clearly and the nature of the trick was explained. I found it later and yes, it's exactly so. But the article was published in the eighties and it changed nothing - what can a handful of those in the know do against a billion bucks advertising campaign?
Along the way I asked how come, in elementary I learned that the world diamond centre was in Amsterdam, why is it now in Antwerp? „Ah, the silly Dutches, they tried to tax us“.