Welcome to The Jukebox.
Every Wednesday evening, I will share a stream of thoughts and links from rabbitholes I fell into over the past week. These topics can range from the history of galawati kebab to a new movie. Never mind the reader, even this writer doesn’t know what might catch his fancy. Hence the name.
There’s plenty to talk about. Like, finding out that the tobacco industry in India is wilding. Or, stumbling upon this article, about how the smell from palak paneer landed an Indian student INR 1.8 crores in legal fees. As a Bengali who knows the stench of dried fish—shutki maach, specifically—I know what my next move is.
But this week, we’ll start with sport itself, because no amount of money made from palak paneer can top the insanity from the big story.
⛰️ Selfie at The Spire
On 25th January, 2026, Alex Honnold clicked a new selfie. He stood atop the Taipei 101—the world’s eleventh-tallest building—in a red t-shirt and grey trainers, his hands white with chalk, and chalk patches on his clothes, as if he was just wrapping up the weekend’s rock-climbing getaway with his friends. And there he got himself a new picture.
The Taipei 101 is 1667-foot tall (508 metres), and hasn’t been climbed since 2004. Alex Honnold climbed it in 1 hour and 31 minutes with bare hands, without ropes or safety gear. I know what you’re thinking, and you’re right. It’s not normal. It’s barely even human.
Nine years back, Honnold had climbed El Capitan the same way. It was the first time anyone climbed a complete route on that wall, from base to summit, entirely free solo—no rope, no harness, no protective gear. That climb was filmed by Jimmy Chin, a celebrated mountaineer himself, and catapulted Honnold to celebrity status.
How does he do it?
Nautilus Magazine did a now-famous profile on him, from which one passage revealed the margins such climbers work with.
“On the hardest parts of some climbing routes, his fingers will have no more contact with the rock than most people have with the touchscreens of their phones, while his toes press down on edges as thin as sticks of gum.”
The amygdala is the human brain’s threat detector. The immediate response to Honnold climbing the El Capitan was that maybe his amygdala doesn’t fire at all. In other words, the guy doesn’t feel fear.
It isn’t true. He just feels fear differently. That Nautilus article is probably the best explainer on how unique his brain is.
The entire Taipei 101 climb was streamed on Netflix. Camera-mounted helicopters whizzed around Honnold like flies as he stretched and twisted to find pencil edge-width grips to lift himself from. It was hard not to feel sick.
Netflix paid him $500,000 for the climb. Half a million sounds incredibly low for the world’s best, and most celebrated, climber risking their life on a 500-metre skyscraper. Joe Pompliano explains here why it was a calculated bet.
For a long time, I thought Honnold was probably the only madman doing such a thing. And while the scale of what he’s achieved defies sense, there are about a dozen or so similarly-fearless climbers who have scaled mountains and skyscrapers without safety gear.
Internet searches led me to a man called The French Spiderman and a base jumper and wingsuit flyer who also happens to be a free soloist. No biggie.
I have a feeling Tom Cruise is keeping track of all this. The first scene of Mission Impossible II has him free-soloing the Dead Horse Point in Utah and, at one point, hanging by one arm 2000-feet up.
Is there a person better suited to a Mission Impossible movie than Alex Honnold?
The most fitting part of Honnold’s climb was his mostly-Tool playlist. It is extremely Alex Honnold territory to climb one of the world’s tallest buildings while listening to music that is usually played at the peak of psychedelic trips.
🗡️ The Two Edges of Fame
Then there is this story.
Former Everton FC star and longtime Major League Soccer coach Adrian Heath was once offered a Saudi-club job. Through a trusted UK-based agent, he had detailed conversations on salary, staff, housing and healthcare. References in Saudi football checked out.
He flew to Tangier, expecting to meet the club owner. Instead, two men met him with flowers, drove him away from the main roads, and took him to a small, smoky apartment in a rough harbour town. There, he was told that the coaching job does not exist. They demanded a six‑figure ransom, threatened his family, and put a blade to his throat.
No more spoilers. Read it in full.
Heath’s story is harrowing, but in a perverse way, it reminded me of Alfredo di Stéfano. One of the finest players in football history, Di Stéfano was kidnapped in Caracas, Venezuela by the Armed Forces of National Liberation (FALN) to attract publicity for their campaign against government corruption.
The kidnappers reportedly told him, “We do not have anything against you; we are doing this only so the press pays us attention. The government forbids the newspapers to talk about the FALN. You are going to stay with us a few hours, and then we will bring you back. We do not want to hurt you.”
After 56 hours, he was released unharmed. One of the kidnappers later said they targeted him because of his fame, stating, “his prestige and fame in Real Madrid helped us get media attention.”
Perhaps the most infamous, and darkest case, is of Andres Escobar. Five days after Colombia’s elimination from the 1994 World Cup, Escobar, just twenty-seven years old, was shot six times in a Medellín parking lot. It was reported that the killer shouted “¡Gol!” after every shot, his punishment to Escobar for scoring an own goal in a game that ended 0-1 and sealed Colombia’s exit.
🐕 Dogs Are Great
Taking a hard left into a brighter alley, here’s a podcast on how having pets has a positive impact on longevity.
I found this study, which states: “A study of over 2,400 cat owners found that cat owners were significantly less at-risk of dying due to CVD, including stroke and heart attack, compared to non-owners during a 20-year follow-up.”
“Similar stress buffering effects of pet ownership have also been found in dog owners and pet owners in general. A systematic review focused on the impact of pets on their owners found that the presence of pets can effectively reduce stress-related parameters, such as heart rate and blood pressure, among owners.”
Then there’s this research that evaluates cardiovascular diseases with respect to pet ownership, and finds positive results. Cats, especially, seem to return great numbers.
This study finds that a pet companion increases life satisfaction by 3 to 4 points on a scale of 1 to 7.
🗺️ Track Your Word
Lastly, I found Wanderword, where you can trace the entire etymology of a word.
The creator has gone on a run of making addictive mini apps. His latest, Starweave, maps exoplanets with their distance from Earth, along with the telescope and the observatory used to track it.
That’s all from this edition of The Jukebox. See you soon.
I love it! Looking forward to the next Jukebox edition.
Also waiting to read about the AO semifinals.
Eclectic collection of stories indeed 😂