The 24 March, 2020 will be remembered by some for the news that Prince Charles tested positive for Covid and was isolating in Scotland. In Athens it was memorable as the day the traffic went silent. Twenty-four hours into a hard lockdown, Greeks were acclimatising to a new reality in which they had to send an SMS to the government in order to leave the house. As well as millions of text messages, the Greek government faced extraordinary dilemmas. The European Union's most vulnerable economy, its oldest population along with Italy, and one of its weakest health systems faced the first wave of a pandemic that overwhelmed richer countries with fewer pensioners and stronger health provision. One Greek who did go into the office that day was Kyriakos Pierrakakis, the minister for digital transformation, whose signature was inked in blue on an agreement with the US technology company, Palantir. The deal, which would not be revealed to the public for another nine months, gave one of the world's most controversial tech companies access to vast amounts of personal data while offering its software to help Greece weather the Covid storm. The zero-cost agreement was not registered on the public procurement system, neither did the Greek government carry out a data impact assessment – the mandated check to see whether an agreement might violate privacy laws. The questions that emerge in pandemic Greece echo those from across Europe during Covid and show Palantir extending into sectors from health to policing, aviation to commerce and even academia.

Transformation is a huge component of the Fox show "Gotham," and a lot of its characters has changed - for the better or worse - from Seasons 1 to 4. One of these characters is Solomon Grundy (Drew Powell), who used to be known as the mobster, Butch Gilzean. He had one of the most drastic transformations in the show because he went from being semi-dead to undead. Executive producer Bryan Wynbrandt told Comic Book that his old self and new self will merge and form a completely new character. "I think what you're going to see is a story of duality and of this Frankenstein story when the monster becomes aware that he's a monster," Wynbrandt explained. "How does that person move forward? How can someone move forward knowing, remembering maybe pieces of what they were and now they're this for all intents and purposes a hideous thing?" "So I think what's great is there's really something interesting…that we dive into with Grundy/Butch and you'll see him sort of becoming almost a new version of the character," he continued.

The music is blasting, fans are cheering and lights are shining on the iconic hardwood floor at the TD Garden. Next year, 17 NBA teams, including the Celtics, will form professional basketball video-game teams and compete against other pro teams in NBA 2k, a long-running series of basket- ball video games. "It's not crazy to think that one day we might be able to fill a theater or an arena with fans who want to watch the Celtics eGaming team, but we have a ways to go before that becomes a reality," said Celtics President Rich Gotham. The NBA and NBA 2K maker Take-Two Interactive Software said yesterday they will launch a competitive league with more than half of the teams in the NBA signed on, including the Golden State Warriors and Cleveland Cavaliers. Teams will be responsible for assembling and running their organizations.

It's the new year, and TV shows are starting to finally filter back to the airwaves, including Gotham last night. While fansites have been reporting this for a while now, it was the first time that I realized that the show was actually bringing back Cameron Monaghan's Jerome, the show's "proto-Joker" that was (spoilers) killed off anti-climactically in a frankly fantastic arc that seemed oddly short, given the caliber of the performance and the importance of Joker to the entire Batman universe. But now Jerome is back, at least for another few-episode arc. Gotham has crafted a new plotline where despite Jerome's death, a cult is trying to resurrect his corpse Frankenstein-style so he can come back and wreak more havoc in Gotham. I do not believe the timing of this is coincidental.