In This Issue

The most normal thing I have learned over time is that no matter where you go across the globe, every home has its own sacred household rules. Don’t leave your shoes lying around. Take your shoes off before entering the house. Leave them on the balcony.

And then, of course, there are the drawers.

We all have that one drawer, container, or box—crammed with things we are keeping for a rainy day, or simply don’t know how to throw away. Batteries that might still have five percent of life left in them, a perfectly good cable with no matching device in sight (you know the exact one I’m talking about!), and a few random doo-dads mixed in with forgotten board game pieces. It feels messy to an outsider, but to us, it makes total sense.

These are our sacred rules and sacred drawers. The unspoken guidelines we follow just because, and the mystery objects we hang onto because we might—just might—need them next week, or next month, or next year.

What if these ordinary things we do suddenly changed, or disappeared entirely? Would you adapt and create a brand-new normal, or would you just forget about them and move on? What would actually change in our days, and what can we learn about ourselves when the routine breaks?

Sacred Rules, Broken Routines, and Search Histories.

In our lead editorial, we take a closer look at those everyday certainties—traffic, crowded shops, and morning coffee—and the strange, unanswered questions hiding just beneath them.

Over in The Rules I Never Knew I Had, Alexander starts with drawers that refuse to stay tidy and ends up asking where his ideas about order and responsibility actually came from—and what happens when someone else operates on a completely different logic.

Meanwhile, a quiet shift in workplace normal unfolds in When Normal Changes, where a new manager arrives by email and different generations clash over what work actually ought to look like.

Then comes The Search Engine of the Soul, where Janita takes an honest look at identity, clutter, deadlines, and a search history containing everything from bathroom mold to instant flu cures—proving that some questions are far easier to Google than others.

Local Boars, Road Trips, and “Okay” Holidays.

The journey continues outwards with three very different travel stories.

Fabrice introduces us to a whole wild boar roasting beside a Second World War bunker in A Wild Boar, a Bunker and Breakfast Schnapps, unlocking two local European traditions filled with old military vehicles, long walks, wine, music, and customs that require a bit of explaining.

Back on home soil, South African Road Trip – Hartbeespoortdam and a Thabazimbi Festival takes us on a 380-kilometer family journey past farm stalls, roadside curiosities, and fires lit before dawn, heading north toward old country traditions.

And in The Holiday That Was Just Okay, Babette proves that missing out on dolphins, wobbly hotel beds, and improvised cocktails often make for a far better story than a picture-perfect getaway.

Heists, Inventions, and the Trust Machine.

Things get tense in The Xenia Gallery Heist, where a ten-million-dollar painting vanishes into thin air, leaving Detective Kennedy and a mysterious art specialist with a hangover, a clever thief, and a case that refuses to stay simple.

Over at Sylvie’s, a tennis match, an ultramarathon, a supermarket queue, and a concert crowd collide in From Tennis Courts to Cocktail Queues, uncovering the strange calculations we make about effort, nerves, and waiting.

Around the lunch table, a celebration of everyday inventions turns chaotic in The Day the Doorbell Became a Mousetrap, ending with missing shoes, threatened coffee, and a redesigned doorbell that will make visitors think twice before ringing.

At The Swimming Club, a useless drawing board, an abandoned cross trainer, and a trip back to 1995 technology lead Manfred and Martin somewhere unexpected in The Rather Nice Inconveniences—asking what disappears as life gets easier, and whether some friction was worth keeping.

Bruce and Frank follow the thread between hotel thefts, cashless payments, and morning coffee in The Trust Beneath the Machine, examining how much of modern life depends on trusting systems we never see.

Finally, Fruitloop University needs a new council in Peeling Potatoes (Episode 64: Logica Magica). With dragons, mermaids, witches, and a deeply ambitious toaster applying for the job, selecting four leaders is chaotic enough—right up until the mysterious buttons appear.

Explore everyone else’s rules, drawers, and daily routines with us in this issue, and discover which everyday inventions we applaud (and which ones leave us scratching our heads).

Sit back. Read. Explore. Enjoy Issue 29 of The Pineapple.

Editorial

When the Ordinary Stops Making Sense

What is the actual meaning of “ordinary”?

On paper, it means normal, usual, or expected. Something that happens regularly without fanfare. Nothing special, nothing different—everything just stays the same. It is an ordinary day, an ordinary job, an ordinary drive to work or school. There is no major excitement, nothing goes wrong, and everything runs relatively smoothly.

You know that when you go shopping on a Saturday morning, the mall will be packed. You know that when you hit the road for work, you will sit in traffic. You know that when you brew your morning cup of coffee, it will taste exactly like it did yesterday.

We build our lives around these quiet routines because they give us order, even when the logic behind them disappeared years ago. But every now and then, it pays to shake up the ordinary—if only to see what is actually holding the whole structure together.

But what happens when the ordinary suddenly breaks?

Imagine stepping onto the road to find no cars. Walking into the mall to find no people. Taking a sip of your morning coffee only to realize it tastes completely different. Suddenly, nothing makes sense anymore.

It feels a lot like those early days of the pandemic—when everything closed down overnight and we were confined to our homes. Towns turned into ghost towns. No bustling shops, no movie theaters, no sports events. The ordinary we had known for years stopped making any sense at all, forcing us to adapt, reshape our days, and build a completely new kind of normal.

In this week’s issue of The Pineapple, we explore the ordinary things hiding inside everyday mysteries—queues, tangled cables, unspoken rules, and habitual routines. They all seem so ordinary on the surface, yet the moment you look closer, you realize just how strange they really are. All across the world, people in completely different places still share the exact same habits—like keeping a dedicated drawer full of random junk. It is considered totally ordinary… but why on earth do we actually do it?

When you really think about it, life is far less about having all the answers and far more about noticing the strange little details along the way. So before you throw away that extra cable or reorganize your junk drawer today, ask yourself: Is this making sense, or am I just used to it?

Perhaps we are just saving things for a rainy day.

Or perhaps we are still trying to figure it out.

So buckle up, sit back in your favorite spot, and join us as we explore the ordinary things that do not make sense at all.

Welcome to Issue 29.

Feature

The Rather Nice Inconveniences

At Swimming Club, a conversation about useless objects became an experiment in 1995 technology — and a question about what disappears when everything becomes easier.

Painful object divorces.

Martin does not need long to think about the things he owns but never uses.

There are, apparently, too many to count.

He lives in a small apartment and estimates that only about two square metres remain available for actually moving around. Other people might look at the accumulated objects and make the obvious suggestion: it can all go.

Martin has tried that.

He calls the experience “painful object divorces.”

Among the survivors is a drawing board that takes up a respectable amount of space despite not having been used for perhaps fifteen or twenty years. Its defence is magnificent in its simplicity: theoretically, it could also be used as a table.

Manfred looks around his office and discovers a different archaeological site. In one corner stands a cross trainer, rather forlornly waiting for the day on which exercise may once again break out. There is camping equipment. There is a holder for socks. There are the ordinary remains of a life in which useful things have a habit of outliving their immediate usefulness.

“We are hunters and gatherers,” he says.

The only reliable restriction may be space.

Or not.

Manfred also has a caravan, which introduces a dangerous loophole into the entire system. It can function not merely as a holiday vehicle but, as he cheerfully admits, as the ultimate mobile junk storage area, travelling throughout Europe.

There is, however, a distinction. Some things are materials. Nails, screws, bits and pieces left over from old jobs: these can return to usefulness without warning. Manfred remembers his father, a bricklayer, keeping things recovered from demolition because they might be reused. Years later, Manfred sometimes finds exactly what he needs among those saved materials.

That is different from the cross trainer.

The screws are waiting for a job.

The cross trainer is waiting for Manfred.

And once an old object has unexpectedly proved useful, the damage is done. Throwing things away becomes even harder. The experience lodges itself in the brain: You see? I knew we would need that eventually.

It is an excellent argument for keeping almost anything forever.

But the conversation did not stay with cupboards for long.

The useless objects began to raise another question. What else have we discarded because it appeared obsolete — and what did we lose with it?

Back to 1995.

So Swimming Club conducted an experiment.

Tomorrow morning, the world returns to the technology of 1995.

What would we miss first?

Martin chose the mobile phone.

Manfred, with impeccable preparation for the collapse of civilisation, still has an old one. It can make telephone calls. For the purposes of 1995, that would seem to settle the matter.

Except it does not.

The modern phone is no longer really a telephone. It has become, as Manfred put it, a computer in the pocket. Without quite noticing how it happened, we have become remarkably comfortable with it — and remarkably dependent upon it.

Asked what piece of modern technology he would happily lose, Manfred had a quicker answer: the chatbots that now appear everywhere. He dislikes not knowing whether he is communicating with a human being or a machine.

Asked what piece of modern technology he would happily lose, Manfred had a quicker answer: the chatbots that now appear everywhere.

Martin nominated the electronic ordering terminals in fast-food restaurants.

Even here, Manfred was unwilling to let the machine escape without investigating it properly. Technology, he argued, has to be examined closely enough to find where it can work in your favour. Somewhere inside the electronic McDonald’s menu, he has discovered the option to order a drink without ice.

This matters.

Because otherwise, in his experience, you risk receiving more ice than drink.

The great technological revolution has therefore brought us artificial intelligence, smartphones, global networks — and a hidden button that allows Manfred to defend his Coca-Cola against ice cubes.

Progress is complicated.

Martin faced another problem when asked to smuggle one modern invention back into 1995 and explain it without using vocabulary that did not yet make sense.

How would you explain Spotify?

You cannot say streaming. You cannot rely on the cloud. Even explaining the internet starts creating another explanation underneath the first explanation.

Eventually Martin abandoned explanation altogether.

Ask the person from 1995 for their favourite song, find it, press play.

The result is more convincing than the explanation.

Which may be true of much of modern technology.

No more friction.

Then the experiment became less funny.

Manfred imagined an ordinary part of life before so many processes moved onto screens: ordering a pizza. Today you can tap an app and wait for it to arrive. Previously, you went somewhere, spoke to somebody, ordered from a person and either ate there or carried the pizza home.

The modern process is easier.

Something has also disappeared.

“The process steps have become too easy,” was the thought that emerged around the table. There is less friction.

That sounds entirely positive until you ask what the friction contained.

Sometimes it contained waiting, inconvenience and inefficiency. But sometimes it contained another person.

A telephone call. A short conversation. Someone who knew the system well enough to bend it slightly when real life did not fit the standard procedure.

The 1995 experiment now started running into reality. Banking. Train tickets. Medical appointments. Insurance. Security codes. Services that increasingly assume access to a digital system.

The Swimming Club was not arguing that the old way was universally better. Online banking, Martin pointed out, has real advantages. Manfred himself does plenty on his computer.

The tension was elsewhere.

We have embraced convenience very successfully. We may have been less careful about what was bundled up inside the inconveniences we removed.

Manfred described the difference through insurance. His brokers are local. When a friend had a problem with a car, the process involved providing pictures and proof through a more remote system. When Manfred faced a car problem of his own, he spoke to his local broker and the matter was dealt with.

His conclusion was practical rather than nostalgic: saving money in one place can produce difficulty somewhere else.

You can save at the wrong end.

The same concern appeared in banking. Martin still uses a bank with a branch in town. Manfred noted that his bank no longer has a machine for printing account statements. Paper itself can increasingly feel like an extra service rather than the normal way of receiving information.

The customer performs more of the administration.

The institution needs fewer people to perform it.

Convenience has winners.

And sometimes the person enjoying the convenience and the person benefiting most from the efficiency are not the same person.

The good old days were not necessarily good.

It would have been easy at this point to turn the conversation into a defence of the past.

Swimming Club did not.

Nobody seriously proposed giving up online banking, returning to paper for everything or rebuilding 1995 around the modern world. Some old inconveniences disappeared because they really were inconvenient. Some skills disappeared because there was simply no longer much need for them.

That is normal.

Manfred reached for the example of the Landauer carriage. Once, people needed the knowledge and craft required to build such things. Cars changed that. Skills disappeared because the world around them changed.

The interesting question is not whether everything old should be preserved.

It is whether we notice what we are removing before it has gone.

A shop once might not simply have sold bedding. It might also have offered the service of opening a duvet, cleaning it and replacing its feathers. That kind of repair and maintenance belongs to a different relationship with objects. Increasingly, Manfred suggested, we live in a world in which replacement can be easier than restoration.

Again, convenience wins.

But not without changing what people know how to do.

The question becomes more unsettling when the disappearing skill is not repairing a duvet or constructing a carriage.

What happens when the thing we use less is our own brain?

What becomes a luxury?

The final experiment looked twenty years ahead.

What ordinary thing that people can still do with their hands today might become a luxury by 2046?

It proved harder to answer than expected.

That may be the point. People living in 1995 would probably have struggled to predict which ordinary human interactions would be transferred to apps, which services would disappear behind websites and which objects would be absorbed into a single device carried in a pocket.

The next disappearance may be equally difficult to see from here.

Perhaps it will be another craft.

Perhaps a service.

Perhaps some part of healthcare will become increasingly robotic.

Perhaps it will be something less visible: remembering, navigating, calculating, composing, searching, deciding — small acts of thinking that gradually become unnecessary because a machine can perform them faster.

The conversation finally arrived at artificial intelligence, but not with a tidy answer. The technology is developing quickly enough that even some of the people working closest to it publicly acknowledge uncertainty about where it may lead.

That is a rather bigger mystery than the cross trainer in Manfred’s office.

Yet the two somehow belong in the same conversation.

We keep old objects because they might still be useful.

We adopt new technology because it certainly is useful.

Between those two instincts lies an uncomfortable question: how do we know what is safe to stop doing for ourselves?

Perhaps the most valuable old things are not the things gathering dust in cupboards.

Perhaps they are the habits, skills, conversations and minor human inconveniences we only notice after somebody has made them unnecessary.

Member Stories

The Rules I Never Knew I Had

It started with a drawer full of random things. It ended with the quiet rules I learned from my mother, and the question of which of those rules still matter now.

By Alexander, Germany.

The famous drawers.

We do not have one of those famous drawers where everything goes when nobody knows where else to put it.

We have many.

I think there is one in nearly every room of our house. In the entrance hall we have a cabinet with four drawers that all look exactly the same. Inside you can find almost anything: tissues, a knife, a roller for cleaning clothes, games, a Polaroid-style camera and other things where, if I showed them to you, you might ask, “Why is that in there?”

That is a good question.

Every year I clean these drawers. I sort everything out and put things where I think they belong. Then, perhaps one week later, I open a drawer and it looks almost exactly as it did before.

Years ago, this would probably have irritated me much more. Today I can look at it and think: it is not nice, but it is also not so important.

That has taken some learning.

I am normally quite clear about things. I know what I need and what I can throw away. At least, that is what I like to think.

But I also have a cardboard box on top of the wardrobe. Inside are old boxes from my phone, my tablet and other things. I hardly ever look inside it, and I cannot really explain why I have not thrown these boxes away.

So I am not completely innocent.

There is another kind of box too. When my son was born, we received a wooden box where we keep things with sentimental value: drawings he has made, a handprint and the first lock of hair from his first haircut.

Those things are different. They have a reason to stay.

For me, the interesting question is where that difference comes from. Why am I so clear that some things have a place, some things should disappear and some things must be kept?

I think the answer begins much earlier.

The rules I learned without being told.

I grew up with my mother. It was just the two of us.

She was, and still is, a very clean and tidy person. I think I was also a very tidy child. My room was normally clean. I do not remember my mother having to tell me again and again to tidy it.

I also had a drawer for my toys. The difference was that when I finished playing, I put everything away again.

Nobody sat me down and explained a philosophy of tidiness. I simply saw it every day.

Clean up your things. Keep things clean. Do what needs to be done.

It became an unwritten rule.

There were other rules like that. My mother did not always give me an exact time when I had to be home. I would tell her where I was going, and somehow I knew when it was time to come back.

There were other rules like that. My mother did not always give me an exact time when I had to be home. I would tell her where I was going, and somehow I knew when it was time to come back.

Once, when I was younger, I was on the other side of the city with friends from school and missed the last bus. I had to walk perhaps eight or ten kilometres home. I arrived around one and a half hours later than expected.

At that time you needed credit on your mobile phone, and I had none left. I could not call or send an SMS.

My mother was not happy, of course, but it did not become a huge drama. I explained what had happened. She was glad I was home, and she told me that next time I should find another way to handle the situation.

That was her way.

There were expectations, but there was also trust.

When a rule becomes automatic.

When I was six, I got a cat.

It was my present, so my mother made something very clear: the cat was also my responsibility. I had to clean the litter tray every day.

I did it.

Years later, when I was maybe sixteen or seventeen, my friends often came to our house before we went to a disco or a bar. We would meet at my place, spend some time together and then go out.

Even on those evenings, my mother would remind me: before you leave, clean the cat toilet.

One evening my best friend said to me, “Alex, you have to clean the toilet.”

And I did.

That was one of those small moments when I suddenly thought: Why am I doing this now? Why do I always wait until this exact moment? I could have cleaned it before my friends arrived.

The rule had become so normal that I was following it without thinking about whether there might be another way.

I had the same attitude with other jobs. If my mother said the lawn needed mowing, I mowed the lawn. In my thinking, I was the man at home, so I should do the heavier things.

It did not feel like a big story at the time. Life at home was quite relaxed. This was simply how our household worked.

But looking back, I can see that those small routines became part of how I think today.

When something has to be done, my first instinct is often: do it now.

Then it is finished.

Leaving home changed the rule.

There was a point when I had to learn that responsibility also has a limit.

When I was eighteen or nineteen, I left home and moved in with my first girlfriend. For some time afterwards, my mother would still call when the lawn needed mowing or when snow had to be cleared.

Eventually I said, “Sorry, Mum. I was happy to help you all these years, but I do not live there anymore. Now you have to find a way to do the normal things yourself.”

We had a big discussion.

Today we have found a good balance. I do not go over to do the normal everyday jobs, but if there is something special, I help.

Recently, for example, she called because her garage door went up and immediately came back down again. That is the kind of problem I will look at.

For me, that works.

Helping somebody does not have to mean doing everything for them.

Another person’s logic.

Maybe this is also what I am learning in my relationship now.

My partner and I do many things differently.

I like order. I like finishing things. If something can be done now, I normally do not understand why it should wait until later.

She has her own way.

After more than three years together, I would not say that everything she does differently is suddenly fine for me. But I have become much more relaxed about the things that are not important.

The drawers are a good example.

I can clean one, open it again a week later and see that everything has returned. I may not like it, but I can also say: okay, that is her way.

There are other differences where I simply do not understand the method. If she has some work to finish and chooses to do it much later than I would, I might think, Why wait?

But if it is her project, I can stay relaxed.

She is clever. If she has something to do, she will do it. The way she gets there does not have to be my way.

Sometimes compromise is very practical. I hate supermarket shopping. She does not mind going much more often. Our middle way is that we usually go together once a week and buy what we need for the whole week.

It is not exactly my ideal system or her ideal system.

It is our system.

I think that is what happens when two people build a life together. You slowly discover which things are genuinely important and which things are only important because you are used to doing them in a certain way.

If another person’s way works, they do not automatically need to change just because I would do it differently.

At the same time, being in a relationship means looking at both people. I may love going to football training, playing a match and meeting my Stammtisch. But if something important comes up at home, I sometimes have to accept that my own plan cannot come first.

That works in both directions.

Today, I think I understand my partner’s logic better. I do not understand it every time.

But I understand that there is a logic.

Perhaps that is the biggest difference between the child who automatically cleaned the cat toilet because that was the rule, and the person I am now.

Some rules are useful.

Some are habits.

And some only make sense until another person comes along and shows you that there is more than one way to live.

Member Stories

A Wild Boar, a Bunker and Breakfast Schnapps

Janita asked me to explain two local traditions she had never heard of: a wild boar dinner among old military vehicles, and a 12-kilometre Marche Gourmande built around food, wine, music and friends.

Janita looked at the photographs and said, “I know absolutely nothing about the wild boar dinner. Start at the beginning. What on earth is it?”

The beginning is probably not what she expected.

On Saturday afternoon, a whole wild boar is put over the fire. It cooks slowly for four or five hours, turning until it is ready for the evening. My understanding is that the animal is local, probably from within about 30 kilometres. There are different hunting groups and defined hunting areas around here, and wild boar are not difficult to find. They come into the fields and vineyards and can make a lot of damage.

Then, at around half past seven or eight, we eat.

That still sounds reasonably normal.

The location is where it becomes more interesting.

There is no restaurant.

The dinner is held at a Second World War bunker, with old military vehicles standing around it.

There are Jeeps and other restored vehicles, mostly American, and the next morning there is an exhibition. So if somebody told Janita, “Come to dinner,” and she imagined doing her hair, putting on a nice dress and arriving at a good restaurant with her husband properly dressed beside her, there would be a small problem.

There is no restaurant.

There is a bunker.

There is a wild boar.

There are military vehicles.

And there are people eating, drinking and having a very good evening.

Janita wanted to know what she would see, hear and smell when she arrived. She was particularly confused by the vehicles.

“Aren’t they supposed to be in a museum?” she asked.

Not necessarily.

I was one of nine people who founded the military-vehicle association about 20 or 25 years ago, and I still go to the event every year. The vehicles belong to enthusiasts who restore them, maintain them and, importantly, drive them.

For me, that last part is not particularly strange because I knew some of these machines when they were still working vehicles.

When I was in the French army in the mid-1980s, we were still using old American vehicles. I remember American soldiers visiting our regiment and seeing rows of GMCs and Jeeps. They thought we were making a film about the Second World War.

No. We were using them.

Some of those vehicles continued in service until the end of the 1980s. So when older people come to an event like this, they do not necessarily see museum pieces. Some remember the vehicles from military service. Others remember them from different periods of their lives. Children and grandchildren come too.

The machines carry their own stories.

But on Saturday evening, the important thing is not a history lesson. It is dinner.

There were around 30 people eating. The boar had been turning over the fire since the afternoon, and when it was ready, people could take another portion if they wanted one. One, two, three—it was not really a problem until your stomach told you to stop.

There were potatoes, salad, beans, bread, cheese and enormous éclairs. There was wine. There was beer. There was schnapps.

I had to drive, so there are limits.

This is sometimes an unfortunate responsibility.

Then you go for a walk.

Janita had just survived my explanation of the wild boar dinner when she was introduced to another expression she had never heard before:

Marche Gourmande.

This required starting again.

A Marche Gourmande is a walk, but describing it only as a walk is not very useful. The one I did was about 12 kilometres, starting from the town hall. Along the route are different stations, and each station gives you another reason to stop.

Along the route are different stations, and each station gives you another reason to stop.

We were a group of friends.

The official start was around nine in the morning, although with the queue we actually got going closer to quarter to ten or ten o’clock.

The first stop was breakfast.

There was bread, omelette, coffee and schnapps.

Janita accepted the bread and eggs. The schnapps required more explanation.

“Where’s the coffee?” she asked.

There was coffee too.

I had already eaten something at home, but this was the first proper station of the Marche, and a brass band was playing only a few metres away. You eat, you drink, you listen to the music, you talk, and eventually somebody remembers that this is supposed to be a walk.

So you start walking again.

A few kilometres later comes another station. There was pâté, salad and white wine. Then another stretch of walking. At another stop there were pretzels and drinks, and this time we stayed much longer—perhaps 45 minutes or an hour.

This is where the theoretical idea of a 12-kilometre walk begins to become flexible.

At another station there was fish and wine. There was goat’s cheese from a local producer. Later came meatballs with white sauce and a potato-based accompaniment, again with wine. Then cheese. At the final station there was coffee and a sponge-style tart.

There was music along the way too: a brass band at one place, a woman with a guitar at another, and later a man playing songs from the 1950s, 60s and 70s, French and American.

Nothing was rushed.

That is important.

At some stations we stayed only 15 or 20 minutes. Somewhere else we stayed nearly an hour. You meet people. You talk. Somebody has another drink. Somebody starts another conversation. Eventually the group moves again.

The ticket was €41 and included the food and drinks allocated at the different stations. If you wanted more, you could buy more.

This creates another mathematical problem when you are walking in a group of ten or eleven people.

You think: I will buy a round.

Then somebody else buys a round.

Then somebody else.

Very quickly, your one generous idea has become eight or nine generous ideas.

Fortunately, there is walking between the stations.

The point is not the 12 kilometres.

The Marche also gives local producers and caterers a chance to present what they make. You taste something at the event that you might never have ordered in a restaurant or bought for yourself, and suddenly you discover it.

But that is only part of it.

For me, the best part is being together with friends.

You walk ten or twelve kilometres, but nobody is trying to set a record. You stop. You eat. You have a glass of wine or beer. There is music. You meet people from other villages. The day keeps moving, but slowly.

The associations behind events like these matter because they are what allow people to keep organising things together. Somebody has to arrange the route, the food, the permissions, the stations, the musicians and all the small practical things that make the day work.

Then, when the day comes, it does not feel like organisation anymore.

It feels like everybody is simply there.

That was also what connected it, for me, with the wild boar dinner. One event involves a bunker, old military vehicles and a boar that has spent several hours above a fire. The other involves walking from one plate and glass to the next.

They look completely different.

But both are excuses for people to come together.

“Why not make one in South Africa?”

After all this explaining, I had a question for Janita.

Why not do something similar where she lives?

She said she would not even know where to start organising a Marche Gourmande.

It does not have to start with hundreds of people. I told her she could make a small version for family or friends: perhaps five or six kilometres, with three different stops. At one place there could be water and soft drinks for the children, beer or wine for the adults. Somewhere else, sandwiches. Somewhere else, coffee.

Friends could help at the different stations.

Then the idea became even smaller. Forget the long route. Take a local area, put some tables and chairs outside, light a few barbecues and invite the neighbours.

Janita thought about that.

“That’s not a bad idea,” she said.

Perhaps she will never think that breakfast schnapps is a good idea. She may continue to believe that Second World War vehicles belong safely inside museums. And if somebody invites her to dinner beside a bunker, I suspect she will now ask a few additional questions before choosing her dress.

But the rest is not so complicated.

You are outside. You have food. You have music. You have friends. You walk a little, stop a lot and keep meeting people.

As I told her, “It’s the moment when you are in a community with your friends. You make ten, twelve kilometres. It’s a very nice thing.”

Column

When Normal Changes

The Human Bit, by Frank Peters.

Last week, I had a conversation with someone in his mid-fifties who has spent about twenty-five years working in technical development.

We were talking about changes in his company. Managers have left. New managers have arrived. Interim managers have appeared. Departments have been reorganised. There are new names, new responsibilities and new structures.

Mostly, he knows this because emails keep arriving.

One departure was announced as effective immediately. Half an hour later came another email introducing new management. A new department head appeared. My conversation partner has seen him once. They spoke for about ten minutes during a break.

There had been no meeting with the team. No proper introduction. No moment when somebody stood in front of the people they were going to lead and said: Hello. This is who I am. Tell me who you are.

Just an email.

I found that extraordinary.

Perhaps I have watched too many American films, but surely the new boss is supposed to arrive carrying coffee for everybody.

Apparently not.

And then, sometime after our conversation, another thought occurred to me.

Perhaps I found it extraordinary because I am old enough to find it extraordinary.

What counts as normal?

My conversation partner is in his mid-fifties. Many of his colleagues are considerably younger. They entered working life in a different world.

Remote work is normal. Online meetings are normal. Teams spread across different locations are normal. A colleague can be somebody you work with every week without ever having shared a room with them. If that is the professional world you entered, perhaps a manager arriving by email does not seem particularly strange.

You cannot watch something disappear if it had already disappeared before you arrived.

That does not mean younger people do not value human contact, any more than everybody over fifty wants to spend five days a week in an office discussing last night’s television beside the coffee machine. But our sense of what an organisation should feel like probably owes something to the organisations in which we first learned to work.

My conversation partner said something that stayed with me.

“Face-to-face communication is no more in focus.”

When he said it, I heard criticism. Afterwards, I wondered whether he was also simply describing the world as it now is.

There was another new manager who had at least walked around one floor and introduced himself individually. My conversation partner still thought more should have happened. Somebody from senior management should have brought people together and introduced the new arrivals properly.

Nothing grand. No PowerPoint. No balloons. No motivational video.

Just people meeting people.

I understand that instinct. A manager can have a title, a square on an organisation chart and the authority to make decisions, but meeting somebody gives that authority a face. You hear how the person speaks. They hear how you speak. Something begins.

Yet even there I have to be careful. It is very easy for me to say that this is obviously better.

Obvious to whom?

Someone who has spent twenty-five years in organisations may have learned that relationships are built in rooms, corridors, workshops and conversations. Someone whose professional life began with remote teams may have learned to build relationships differently.

Someone who has spent twenty-five years in organisations may have learned that relationships are built in rooms, corridors, workshops and conversations.

The interesting bit is what happens when both understandings of work occupy the same company.

Where does commitment come from?

Another senior figure had apparently been talking about a lack of commitment. Not enough commitment to planning. Not enough commitment to decisions. Not enough commitment between the different functions involved in a project.

That bothered my conversation partner.

It bothered me too, because commitment is one of those words organisations like to demand without spending quite so much time wondering where it comes from.

Can you reduce human contact and still expect the same forms of attachment that developed when people knew one another differently?

Perhaps you can. People form very real relationships online. Distributed teams can work brilliantly. Sitting in the same building has never guaranteed trust, competence or even basic cooperation.

But commitment has to attach itself to something.

A person. A team. A purpose. A piece of work. Some sense that what I am doing connects with what you are doing.

You can put commitment into a presentation.

That does not produce it.

And then our conversation offered a wonderfully ordinary example of what happens when those connections become weak.

An external requirements engineer had been given hundreds of technical requirements to organise. She was new to the work. Her task was to divide them into two broad boxes: software or hardware.

One requirement concerned what should happen if an electronic unit came into contact with water.

Hardware.

So it went to the hardware developers.

Except the people receiving it developed circuit boards and the electronic components mounted on them. Protection against water belonged to the enclosure around the electronics.

Wrong desk.

My conversation partner explained this. The engineer’s answer, as he described it, was essentially that she had been given two possibilities.

Hardware or software.

It clearly wasn’t software.

Therefore it was hardware.

I liked the example more the longer I thought about it, because she was not necessarily being foolish. From where she was standing, the decision made perfect sense. She had a task, two categories and hundreds of requirements. She followed the logic available to her.

The people receiving the requirement had another perspective. They knew what hardware meant at the point where somebody actually had to build something.

Both sides were behaving rationally.

The nonsense existed somewhere between them.

The end of the food chain.

My conversation partner described his team as being at “the end of the food chain”.

Plans and decisions begin somewhere above them. Work travels through different levels until eventually it reaches the people who have to make something real.

There is nobody below them to pass it to.

They have to make it work.

That gives them a particular view of the organisation. A presentation can say that a project is “software focused”. Fine. But eventually software needs something physical to run on. Someone has to decide what that physical thing is. Someone has to build it.

So my conversation partner has chosen to concentrate on what he calls the “grassroots level”, or the “real doing level”. He has ordered evaluation boards. Development has begun on real electronics. He talks to colleagues who are trying things out. On an existing system, he keeps in contact with the people installing it and with those who call when something does not work.

“I try to keep the business running on the real operational level,” he told me.

That sentence stayed with me.

Not because the operational level is somehow nobler than management. It isn’t. Organisations need planning, coordination, budgets, priorities and people prepared to make decisions beyond today’s immediate problem.

But every level can see something the others cannot.

The person making the plan may be able to see the whole project.

The person holding the circuit board can see whether one part of that plan actually works.

Trouble begins when either believes that their view is the whole view.

Towards the end of our conversation, another expression appeared.

“Rolling planning.”

The phrase was new to both of us, although the idea is simple enough. Instead of making a plan and treating it as fixed, you keep adjusting it as circumstances change and new information arrives.

Perfectly sensible.

Probably essential in uncertain technical development.

But perspective changes this too. From one level of the organisation, changing the plan may look like responsiveness. From another, it may look like nobody knows what is going on.

A manager sees flexibility.

An engineer sees uncertainty.

A remote worker sees freedom.

Someone else sees isolation.

One person sees an efficient email.

Another wonders why nobody walked into the room.

The ordinary things.

I keep coming back to that new manager.

The email arrived. The organisation chart changed. Work continued.

For many people, perhaps nothing remarkable happened.

That may be the most interesting part.

We become accustomed to things remarkably quickly. Video meetings were once unusual. Working closely with people we had never met was unusual. Signing documents without paper was unusual. Having a working day interrupted by half a dozen digital channels was unusual.

Then they became ordinary.

And once something becomes ordinary, we tend to stop asking what it is doing to us.

That does not mean the old way was better. I have no desire to reconstruct some imaginary golden age in which every manager knew everybody’s name, every office was full of camaraderie and every face-to-face meeting was useful. Plenty of them were dreadful.

But there may be value in noticing what has changed before we become so accustomed to it that we can no longer see it.

My conversation partner remembers another way of working. Some of his younger colleagues do not.

Neither side automatically has the answer.

One remembers what disappeared.

The other has no particular reason to want it back.

And somewhere between those two perspectives sits a question I keep returning to:

If something has become normal, does that mean it makes sense?

I don’t know.

But if I arrived tomorrow to lead a group of people I had never met, I think I would still do one rather old-fashioned thing.

I would walk into the room.

Say hello.

And listen.

You do not need another place to practise English.

You need a place where English lets you take part.

At Brida, the conversation is about real life: what you notice, what you think, what surprises you, what matters to you. No lessons. No correction. No pretending.

You bring your experience, your curiosity and your point of view. English is simply the language that allows people from different places to meet.

Bring your life. Let it speak.

Find out more at brida.eu
WhatsApp: +33 7 01 49 84 85
Email: frank.peters@brida.eu

Open on brida.eu

Column

The Search Engine of the Soul.

As I sit here today, I realize something quiet and surprisingly grounding: I am content in who I am .

That might sound like a simple statement, but in a world that constantly tells us to re-invent ourselves every Tuesday, it feels like a small victory. Not everyone knows who they are or who they want to be, and I don’t take that clarity for granted.

Of course, I am far from perfect. I make mistakes. I forget things. Sometimes, a completely normal, unremarkable day can unravel in seven hundred different ways before lunch.

I get easily annoyed by noise and clutter. I genuinely dislike it when things are messy, but there are days when I simply don’t have the energy for a showdown. So I turn a blind eye. I walk right past the pile on the counter. Who cares? It’s not like royalty is dropping in for tea at that exact moment, and let’s be honest—if I tidy it up right now, someone will just ruin it again in twenty minutes anyway.

I like having things under control. Yet, I still procrastinate—which is rarely a brilliant plan—and I occasionally stress myself out to a point of absolute no return.

So yes, I have my share of insecurities. But I have good qualities, too.

I meet deadlines. In fact, I will cross heaven and earth to hit a deadline. It might take three cups of coffee, intense dedication, and a few choice swear words muttered under my breath, but I will get across the finish line.

I also have a gazillion ideas floating around in my head at any given moment. But so often, it feels like there isn’t enough time to bring them all to life. Not because the dedication isn’t there, but because life has a funny way of getting in the way of living your best life. Ironic, I know.

And that, right there, is usually the exact moment I open a new tab and start typing:

How to lose 5kg in two weeks?

How to get rid of mould in the bathroom with no draft?

How to binge-watch an entire series in one day?

What type of flower is this growing in my garden?

How to get rid of flu in two seconds?

How to DIY something ugly into something pretty?

The search history never lies.

Sometimes we just don’t have all the answers. Sometimes we want to do a million things, but the clock keeps ticking. We want to fully enjoy life, but the logistics of life keep interrupting the fun.

It reminds me of those old Mastercard commercials with the iconic slogan: “There are some things money can’t buy. For everything else, there’s Mastercard.”

In our house, the rule is a little different: For everything else, there’s Google.

You don’t need an algorithm to tell you who you are, what you value, or what brings you peace. The search engine can give you a recipe, a quick fix for the bathroom wall, or the name of a stray garden flower, but it can’t tell you how to feel comfortable in your own skin.

So all you really have to do is find yourself. Be exactly who you want to be.

Binge-watch that series. Leave the mess on the kitchen counter for just one day. Take a breath, find your center, and remember—everything else can be Googled.

Fiction

The Xenia Gallery Heist.

Written by Janita Le Grange.

Chapter One: The Morning After.

I woke up this morning with my alarm clock ringing wildly in my ears. The sound was so sharp and piercing it felt like it was cutting directly through my skull. I reached out, hit snooze, and promised myself I would not fall asleep before the next buzz started.

My head was pounding. Last night at the club was way more fun than waking up at 6:00 AM to face the real world.

Groaning, I pulled myself out of bed and dragged my aching body into the shower, letting the water try to wash away the night before. I shuffled to the kitchen counter, brewed a strong cup of coffee, swallowed a couple of aspirin for the splitting headache, and packed my lunch.

On my way to work, my phone rang through the car speakers. I glanced at the screen: Jason, my partner.

I let out a heavy sigh and tapped the answer button, pressing the phone to my ear as I steered through the heavy morning traffic.

“Morning, Jason,” I rasped, my voice thick and dry from last night’s drinks.

“Hey! You sound rough,” Jason said, his voice entirely too loud and energetic for six-thirty in the morning. “Did you survive the night?”

“Barely,” I muttered, wincing as the bright morning sun hit my eyes through the windshield. “My head is pounding, but the aspirin is slowly kicking in. What’s up?”

“We just got a call from the Xenia art gallery,” Jason said, his tone shifting to business. “They had a break-in, and there’s a stolen painting we have to investigate.”

I frowned, adjusting my grip on the steering wheel. “I thought we worked murder cases and missing people. Not missing paintings.”

“I’ll meet you at the gallery and explain everything,” Jason replied.

Chapter Two: The Ghost and the Specialist.

I managed to find a parking spot right next to Jason’s car. I scrambled out into the crisp morning air and walked over to where he was waiting near the grand entrance.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey, welcome back,” Jason said, taking in my bloodshot eyes. “I hope you’re able to concentrate today.”

“Yes, I’ll be fine,” I insisted, rubbing my temples. “So, what’s the deal here?”

“We’re on the case for the stolen painting,” Jason explained, leaning in closer. “It was on loan to the museum from the Winston family. It’s valued at ten million dollars.”

“Wow,” I breathed, taking a sip of my lukewarm travel coffee. “That’s enough to retire on and move to a tropical beach somewhere.”

We walked inside the grand gallery and were immediately met with the chaos of an active investigation. Other detectives were pacing the floor, while the forensics team swept the area for latent fingerprints, dusting the empty display frame and snapping detailed photos of the crime scene.

For the next four hours, we dove straight into the groundwork—interviewing the cleaning staff, questioning the night-shift security guards, and taking a formal statement from the museum director. We looked for broken protocols, disgruntled employees, or any small detail that might have been missed.

The entry point was clean. The thief had come in through the roof, rappelled down, and seemed to have vanished right back out the exact same way. We replayed hours of high-definition surveillance footage, but the perpetrator moved like a shadow. Like a ghost. We didn’t have a single solid lead.

And that’s when he walked in.

He was a man who looked like he had been custom-carved by the gods. He had dark, sharp features, eyes that held an effortless intensity, and a slow, effortless smile capable of making your knees turn to water and your heart miss a beat.

Pull it together, I fiercely reprimanded myself, gripping my notepad a little tighter. Maybe this hangover is playing tricks on my brain.

Ever since my fiancé walked out on me, I had officially sworn off men. My life was strictly dedicated to my career, surviving the occasional girls’ night out, and keeping my heart under lock and key. Besides, even if he was breath-taking, there was no way a guy like that would ever be interested in someone like me.

The stranger walked straight past the yellow police tape, his eyes locking onto Jason and me.

“Good afternoon, detectives,” he said, his voice a smooth, low baritone that sent an unexpected shiver down my spine. “My name is Blake Newman. I work for an art insurance company, and they sent me here to investigate the missing piece. Would you allow me to join your team so we can share intel on what happened?”

Chapter Three: The Ghost Painter.

“Hello Blake, I’m Jason, and this is my partner, Kennedy,” Jason said, shaking his hand. “My chief told me you’d be meeting us here.”

“So, Blake,” I asked, purely out of professional curiosity—though mostly just to hear that smooth voice of his again—”why would an insurance company send their own man to investigate a missing painting?”

“Because we specialize exclusively in high-value fine art,” Blake explained, adjusting the cuffs of his fitted suit. “Before our company pays out a ten-million-dollar claim, we’re required to conduct a parallel investigation to verify every detail.”

“Fair enough,” Jason nodded, gesturing toward the centre of the hall. “Let’s sit down and go through what we have so far. Just please, don’t touch anything on the active scene.”

A subtle, amused smile touched Blake’s lips. “Jason, I assure you, I’ve been on plenty of crime scenes before. Tell me, have either of you heard of the Ghost Painter?”

Jason frowned. “The who now?”

“The Ghost Painter,” Blake repeated smoothly.

“No,” Jason said, crossing his arms. “Why is that important?”

“Because looking at this setup, the execution is unmistakable,” Blake said, walking slowly toward the perimeter tape without stepping over it. “The thief breached the glass skylight from the roof, used localized cold-smoke canisters to blind the heat-sensors and security cameras, and lifted the canvas clean off the frame. There have been six other cases over the last few years—at least one every twelve months—where masterworks were taken using this exact blueprint, only to be sold on the black market to private collectors.”

“So you’re saying we’re dealing with a serial art thief?” I asked, leaning against a display case. “The same person responsible for all seven hits?”

“That’s my assessment, yes.”

Jason turned to me, his detective instincts kicking into high gear. “Kennedy, call Alice at the precinct. Have her pull up every archived file on those previous cases. If this Ghost Painter left a signature in the past, I want it on my desk in twenty minutes.”

“On it,” I said, pulling out my phone and dialling Alice as I headed toward the glass exit doors.

Within minutes, the walkthrough was wrapped up, and we were heading back to the station. I glanced into my side-mirror as we pulled out of the gallery lot. Blake was trailing right behind us in a low, sleek, turquoise sports car that glistened under the bright afternoon sun. Behind the wheel, his dark eyes were hidden behind a pair of sharp sunglasses, looking like a high-fashion ad on wheels.

My head was still throbbing from last night, but I couldn’t stop my mind from wandering to our new consultant. Mr. Dreamy, I caught myself thinking, before quickly shaking the thought out of my head.

I was so lost in thought, staring at the reflection of that turquoise car, that I didn’t even realize Jason had pulled into the precinct parking lot until he killed the engine.

Chapter Four: Dead Ends and Hunches.

We walked into the office and immediately dove into the mountain of paperwork Alice had pulled. Pages of incident reports, crime scene photos, and witness statements covered the table. I began piecing the puzzle together, pinning suspect photos, timelines, and floor plans to our glass whiteboard, jotting down notes in red marker as the picture started to form.

Then, buried in a folder from twelve months ago, I found a vital detail.

During a high-profile heist in the upper district, a night security guard had actually managed to discharge his weapon before the smoke canisters completely blinded him. He shot the Ghost Painter in the right leg.

A bullet wound meant an emergency room.

“Alice,” I called out, tapping the file. “I need every medical facility and urgent care clinic within a twenty-mile radius of this gallery on the night of October fourteenth, last year. Cross-reference their admissions with police reports for gunshot victims.”

Within thirty minutes, Alice handed me a list. The search had narrowed down to four potential individuals. We dug straight into their records, looking for red flags, missing police reports, or unexplained injuries.

We split up and tracked down all four.

Number 1 was Alberto—a local restaurant owner. His gunshot wound was tied to an armed robbery at his establishment, fully documented with an open police case. Besides, Alberto was heavily overweight and lacked the physical agility to rappel down from a high-vaulted glass ceiling.

Number 2 was Michelle—an innocent bystander caught in the crossfire of a drive-by shooting in her neighbourhood. The incident was on record, and the tragedy had left her permanently in a wheelchair.

Number 3 was Mike—a heavy-duty mechanic. Broad-shouldered and possessing the physical strength required to navigate a roof harness, he looked promising on paper. But his alibi was airtight. He had been at an indoor shooting range with three witnesses when a rented firearm malfunctioned and misfired into his thigh.

That left Number 4: Rowan—a young college student studying electronic engineering.

We brought Rowan into the interrogation room. This time, I took the lead as the good cop while Jason stood by the wall, watching intently.

“Rowan,” I began gently, leaning forward on the cool metallic table. “Can you explain to me why you have a bullet wound on your leg, and what happened that night?”

Rowan swallowed hard, nervously picking at his fingernails. “My friends and I made a bonfire… One of them thought it would be funny to throw a handful of live bullets into the flames.”

“Until someone got hurt,” I said quietly. “Why didn’t you report it to the police?”

“I was scared he’d get locked up,” Rowan muttered, looking down. “He was my best friend.”

“He could have killed you, Rowan. And you covered for him?”

“He moved away to another city with his parents not long after the accident anyway,” he whispered.

“Where did he even get live ammunition?”

“His dad used to own a gun shop—the old one that used to be on Baker Road.”

I sat back in my chair, studying the young man in front of me. He was young, terrified, and fiercely loyal to a fault. But he also had an athletic build, the advanced engineering knowledge to bypass a museum’s electronic security system, and a stolen ten-million-dollar canvas would instantly secure his financial future.

“Where were you last night between 10:00 PM and 2:00 AM?” I asked, dropping my voice into a cold, direct tone.

Jason shot me a sharp, shocked glance from the corner of the room, startled by how bluntly I had thrown out the line of questioning.

Rowan blinked, wide-eyed. “I… I was at the university library with my girlfriend. We’re working on a group engineering project. We were there until closing with three other students. Am I in some kind of trouble, Detective?”

Rowan blinked, wide-eyed. “I… I was at the university library with my girlfriend. We’re working on a group engineering project. We were there until closing with three other students. Am I in some kind of trouble, Detecti

“Not yet,” I said, standing up. “We’ll verify your alibi. If it checks out, you’re free to go.”

I pushed open the heavy interrogation door, and Jason followed me out into the hallway, pulling the door shut behind us.

“Kennedy! You can’t just throw out accusations like that without backing it up!” Jason snapped under his breath.

“Let’s just verify his library story first,” I replied calmly. “Check his student card scans, look at the door access logs, pull the security footage. I have a feeling we’re going to find him right where he said he was.”

A few minutes later, Alice walked down the hall holding a fresh printout. She looked up at us and nodded. “Rowan’s alibi is solid. Library key card scanned in at 8:15 PM and out at 2:30 AM. Video footage confirms he was at a study table the entire night.”

Jason crossed his arms, looking at me. “How did you know?”

“I had a hunch,” I said, rubbing my tired eyes.

“We don’t work on hunches, Kennedy!” Jason said, raising his voice slightly in frustration. “We work with cold, hard proof!”

I straightened my jacket and looked him dead in the eye. “Then I’ll go get your proof.”

Chapter Five: Gold Rings and Chief Orders.

Around 8:00 PM, I finally closed my office door and shuffled out to my car. I was completely exhausted and couldn’t wait to just head home, kick off my shoes, and fall straight into bed.

Once home, I heated up some leftover pizza, took a quick shower, and crawled under the covers. My mind drifted off, and before I knew it, I was asleep—dreaming of a certain insurance investigator with a million-dollar smile.

At 3:00 AM, my phone blared from the nightstand. I reached out blindly and tapped answer.

“Hi…” my raspy, half-asleep voice echoed through the line.

“Hey. We have a murder,” Jason’s voice cut straight through the fog.

“I’m on my way.”

“Meet me back at the art gallery.”

I dropped the call, threw off the blankets, got dressed, grabbed my bag, and was out the door in five minutes flat.

When I pulled up to the gallery, the scene was already glowing under red and blue emergency lights. Forensic technicians were sweeping the floor for evidence. Jason was standing near the tape, holding two cups of coffee, looking as tired as I felt.

“Who’s our victim?” I asked, taking a coffee from him.

“The museum owner, Mr. Miller,” Jason said quietly, nodding toward the back hallway.

“Yesterday a ten-million-dollar painting, today a murder,” I muttered, taking a sip of the scalding black coffee. “Something about this feels completely off.”

I stepped past the yellow tape, slowly walking around the crime scene and taking in every little detail on the floor. As I turned near the edge of a velvet display rope, my shoe clicked against something metallic. I looked down.

Half-hidden under the base of a pillar was a ring. It was heavy, crafted from pure gold, and set with a massive, glittering diamond.

Expensive, I thought immediately. And familiar.

The name popped into my head instantly: The Winstons.

I pulled a clear evidence bag from my kit, carefully lifted the ring off the floor, and sealed it inside for prints.

“We need to bring the Winstons in for questioning,” I said, walking back over to Jason and holding up the bag. “I found this. My guess is it belongs to Mrs. Winston.”

Jason squinted at the bag. “Kennedy, it’s three in the morning. It’s a little early to drag prominent collectors out of bed, don’t you think?”

“Their heirloom painting was stolen yesterday, and I am almost positive this is Mrs. Winston’s wedding ring,” I argued. “I saw it on her left hand yesterday morning during our initial interview.”

Jason sighed, looking at his watch. “Okay, I’ll send a squad car over to park outside their estate and keep eyes on the property. We’ll call them in, in a few hours.”

After wrapping up at the gallery, we headed toward the precinct. Along the way, Jason decided it was the perfect time to pull into a drive-thru for an early morning breakfast. I was starving, so the smell of warm egg sandwiches and greasy hash browns sounded like heaven.

“Kennedy, are you okay? You’re awfully quiet,” Jason said as we waited at the window.

“Yeah, I’m just mulling over all the details,” I said, leaning back against the passenger headrest. “The way things are happening… in none of the previous Ghost Painter cases was there ever a murder. It doesn’t fit his profile.”

“I think Mrs. Winston went back to argue with Miller, got furious about her painting being stolen, and her husband killed the owner during a fight,” Jason offered, pulling into a parking space to eat. “Though… that still doesn’t explain who actually stole the canvas in the first place.”

“The Ghost Painter,” I said simply.

Jason groaned. “Don’t start with the Ghost Painter again.” He took a bite of his sandwich, a teasing smirk spreading across his face. “Besides, I saw you oogly-googling Blake earlier.”

I felt my cheeks warm up instantly. “Oh, stop it! He’s nice to look at, I won’t argue with that.”

“You need to have some fun, Kennedy,” Jason said gently, his tone turning supportive. “Get out there. Meet someone new.”

“Mmm… I think no,” I replied, taking a heavy sip of my drink. “Not right now.”

We finally made it to the station, and I immediately went back to my glass board, pinning up the new crime scene photos, running every single detail through my already overstimulated brain.

A couple of hours later, the squad car brought the Winstons in for questioning. Right on cue, Blake stepped off the elevator as well, trailing behind them in a sharp grey suit.

In the interrogation room, the pressure broke them fast. Mrs. Winston burst into tears, admitting that her husband had gone to confront Mr. Miller, blaming him for the security failure that led to the theft. The argument turned physical, and Mr. Winston had struck the owner in a fit of rage, killing him. She had dropped her ring during the desperate struggle to pull her husband off the gallery owner.

Mr. Winston confessed to the manslaughter on the spot and was taken straight down to central booking. Mrs. Winston, weeping and distraught, was given a ride home.

Case closed on the murder—but the painting was still missing.

“Kennedy, please come see me in my office,” a sharp voice called out from the upper hallway.

My blood went cold for a fraction of a second. It was Chief Sarah Matthews. I liked Sarah; off the clock, we were actually good friends, but inside the precinct, she ran everything strictly by the book.

“Yes, Chief,” I said, walking up the steps.

“Close the door,” she said as I walked into her glass-walled office. She sat back behind her large desk and leaned her chin on her hands. “Where are we on this whole mess?”

I laid out everything—the stolen painting, the physical entry through the roof, the Ghost Painter theory, the discovery of the ring, and the confession from Mr. Winston over the last forty-eight hours.

When I finished, Sarah looked at me with a softened expression. “And how are you doing?”

“I’m okay,” I said, offering a tired smile. “Just suffering from a severe lack of sleep.”

“I heard you had a rough night and then an ugly three-a-m call-out,” she said, leaning forward. “You look like you’re running on fumes.”

“I’ll be okay,” I promised.

“Well, the other reason I called you in here was to tell you… the squad is all heading out for drinks after the shift tonight. You never join us for department nights out, Kennedy. But maybe tonight, you should.”

I hesitated for a second, thinking of my cosy bed, but then Jason’s teasing words from earlier flashed through my mind.

“I’ll think about it, Chief,” I smiled. “Thanks.”

Chapter Six: Rooftops and Real Monet.

It was 5:00 PM. Everyone in the precinct was packing up their desks and grabbing their coats, buzzing with excitement for after-work drinks. The local pub was only two blocks down. I was still standing by my desk, debating whether I should actually go, when my eyes caught him across the bullpen.

Mr. Dreamy. Er… Blake.

I grabbed my bag and walked out toward my car, wondering why he was still hanging around. I knew the painting was still missing and the investigation was technically open, but he had practically lived at the precinct for the last two days. He spent hours staring at our glass board, listening in on interrogations, jotting down notes, asking sharp questions, and making genuine suggestions to help the case.

Doesn’t this guy have a fancy corner office somewhere to run? I wondered.

I reached my sedan, and just as I pulled out my keys, Blake stepped up beside my driver’s side door, an effortless smile on his face.

“Are you coming out for drinks with the team?” he asked softly.

I leaned against my car. “Actually, I never do. But I think I might need one tonight.”

His eyes gleamed with amusement. “Race you there?”

“Please,” I laughed, shaking my head. “I’m taking my time. It’s two blocks down, and I definitely don’t drive a sports car like yours.”

Blake chuckled, giving a nod of approval. “Fair enough.”

He walked over to his glistening turquoise sports car and pulled out into the street while I scrambled into mine, muttering under my breath, What on earth am I doing? Drinks after work, actually feeling excited to be around Mr. Dreamy… it was an unusual combination for me.

As it turned out, being out with my colleagues was exactly the medicine I needed. For two hours, we sat in a cosy booth, laughing, swapping stories, and recounting old precinct legends I had never heard before. For the first time in days, the crushing headache and the weight of the case completely melted away.

As the night wore on, people slowly started paying their tabs and heading home. I was finishing the last of my drink when Blake slid into the seat across from me.

“Kennedy, how about a nightcap at my hotel?” he asked, his voice low and smooth.

“Yes, sure. Why not?” I agreed almost instantly.

Conveniently enough, his hotel was directly across the street from the bar. I glanced at my parked car as we walked past, crossed the avenue, and entered the pristine marble lobby. The doorman greeted Blake by name, holding the elevator for us. We rode it all the way to the top floor.

The rooftop lounge was breath-taking. Surrounded by floor-to-ceiling glass and a semi-transparent glass roof, it offered a panoramic view of the glowing city skyline. Soft leather couches and intimate marble tables filled the space, with a sleek private bar tucked into the corner.

Blake headed to the bar to order our drinks while I sank into a comfortable leather sofa, taking in the view. A moment later, he walked over, set a glass in front of me, and sat down opposite.

“I haven’t figured you out yet, Kennedy,” he said, holding his glass and studying my face.

“Why do you feel like you have to figure me out?” I smiled, leaning back.

“You said you never hang out with your colleagues, yet tonight you looked like you were having the time of your life.”

“I did have fun,” I admitted. “I usually put my job above everything else. I don’t like mixing pleasure with work.”

“So why are you here?”

I looked at him over the rim of my glass. “Because I haven’t figured you out yet either. Curiosity got the better of me. I mean, you work for an art insurance company that only deals with multi-million-dollar pieces. They fly you in to join a police investigation. You stay in a luxury penthouse, drive a high-end sports car, wear designer watches, tailored suits, and custom shoes… You must earn a massive salary.”

Blake smiled into his drink. “I earn a decent salary, yes. But I also have a few side gigs I manage in my spare time.”

I raised an eyebrow. “So you actually have free time?”

“Yes,” he laughed softly. “I don’t have to hunt down stolen art every single day.”

“Tell me about these side gigs.”

“I buy and resell art,” Blake explained, setting his glass on the table. “I hunt for lesser-known pieces by obscure artists, purchase them, insure them, and eventually sell them at private auctions. I also write a weekly column for an art journal, which helps generate interest in the pieces and drives up their value before they hit the market.”

“Wow,” I said, genuinely impressed. “That’s brilliant. How did you get the capital to start something like that?”

“I inherited my grandfather’s estate years ago,” Blake said, his tone turning reflective. “I sold the property and the antique furniture, but I was left with a massive collection of paintings—some original, some completely unknown. I was working as a junior journalist at the time, so I convinced my editor to let me start an art column. That’s where it all began.”

“Who’s your favourite artist?”

Without a second of hesitation, his eyes lit up. “Monet. Hands down. I actually have an original piece of his back at home. Whenever I look at that landscape, the brush strokes, the soft light, the blending of colours… it instantly clears my mind. It makes me feel calm. It lets me breathe.”

I smiled softly. “You clearly know a lot more about art than I ever will.”

“Well, I actually have a few pieces down in my suite right now if you’d like to see them,” Blake offered, standing up and reaching for his coat.

“Why do you carry high-value art around with you in a hotel?” I asked, looking up at him.

“I acquired them at an estate sale nearby a few days ago,” he replied smoothly. “I’m taking them back with me when the investigation wraps up.”

“Sure,” I said, standing up and smoothing down my jacket. “I’d love to see them.”

We finished our drinks, left the rooftop lounge, and headed down the quiet hallway toward his private suite.

Chapter Seven: The Enormous Closet and the Extra Crate.

Blake unlocked the heavy door and pushed it open. The suite was pristine—almost as if no one had actually been staying there. Everything was immaculately arranged, with not a single jacket tossed over a chair or a pair of shoes left by the door. The only sign of life was a stack of carefully sealed wooden crates resting on the large dining table.

He walked over to the table and popped open the latches on the first box. Inside lay a beautiful canvas depicting a young girl sitting in a sunlit garden, staring back at me. He carefully lifted it out of the crate, revealing a second artwork underneath—a serene landscape of a blooming garden with a winding water stream.

Looking at it, I felt a wave of calm wash over me. Almost. But beneath the surface, a tiny knot of nervousness was starting to tighten in my stomach.

“These are beautiful!” I said, leaning closer to inspect the brushwork. “What are they worth?”

“Well, not a lot at the moment,” Blake replied with a modest shrug. “But they will be. They’re by a struggling new artist who couldn’t find a market. I bought them, and I plan on featuring them in my next journal column before taking them to auction. Once people start talking about them, the value will skyrocket. I make them famous.”

“Can I see the other paintings?” I asked.

“Sure.”

One by one, he carefully opened each crate, showing me every single canvas inside. I scanned through them with a practiced, investigative eye, searching for any subtle clues or a sign of the missing ten-million-dollar Winston masterpiece. But there was nothing. Just obscure, beautiful works from unknown painters.

After he packed all the artwork back into the crates, Blake turned to me with a relaxed grin. “How about we wind down in the Jacuzzi?”

He handed me a brand-new, boxed bathing suit from a side drawer. I took it and headed into the master bathroom to change while he got ready in the bedroom. He planned this.

The bathroom was staggering—an enormous, hyper-luxurious space. It featured a double-head rainfall shower, a walk-in closet, and a bathtub that felt almost as big as my entire apartment. It was completely over the top, but impressive nonetheless.

Standing in the middle of the bathroom, my detective instincts flared up again. I was curious whether Blake was the kind of traveller who lived out of his suitcase or someone who neatly unpacked into the drawers.

I reached out and slowly slid open the walk-in closet door.

No clothes. No hanging suits or folded shirts. Just a few spare hotel towels stacked on a shelf… and another wooden crate tucked quietly into the far dark corner.

My heart did a quick flutter, but I pulled myself together, slid the door shut, finished changing, and walked out to the terrace where the outdoor Jacuzzi was bubbling.

Blake stepped out a moment later, looking sharp in his trunks and carrying two glasses of chilled white wine. He climbed into the warm, steaming water beside me and handed me a glass.

“Let’s make a toast,” he said, raising his glass with that magnetic smile. “Here’s to our new friendship, and to a shared love for art.”

I clinked my glass against his, keeping my tone light and cool. “Even though I know next to nothing about art—cheers to art.”

Chapter Eight: Framed

I leaned back against the rim of the Jacuzzi, taking a slow sip of my wine. I looked over at Blake, taking in those sharp, gorgeous features that had completely disarmed everyone around him. For a moment, I thought about all the chaotic feelings this man had stirred up inside me over the last forty-eight hours.

But I knew it was all just a show. And I knew, deep down, that any real future between us was pure fantasy.

Just as my thoughts of Mr. Dreamy came to a screeching halt, the front door of the penthouse was kicked open with a thunderous crash. Heavy footsteps stormed across the suite.

Before Blake could even react, my entire team, flanked by Jason and Chief Sarah Matthews, burst onto the outdoor terrace with their weapons drawn and raised.

“Blake Newman, you are under arrest!” Jason barked, his voice echoing over the bubbling water. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney!”

Blake froze, the colour draining from his face, though he quickly tried to force a calm, incredulous laugh. “Jason? What is this? Why on earth are you doing this?”

“We have reason to believe you are the Ghost Painter,” Jason said coldly, not lowering his sidearm for a second. “And we know the ten-million-dollar Winston canvas is sitting in this very room.”

Blake’s eyes narrowed into a sharp glare. “I am going to need my lawyer. And you are going to need a search warrant to touch anything in this suite.”

“We’ve got everything we need,” Chief Matthews replied firmly.

Panicking, Blake turned his head toward me in the water, his smooth facade completely crumbling. “Kennedy… help me out here. Please! You know me—vouch for me!”

I slowly set my wine glass down on the edge of the tub, pulled myself out of the water, and grabbed a towel, looking down at him without a shred of sympathy left in my eyes.

“Sorry, Blake,” I said quietly. “I was just doing my job.”

He blinked, realization crashing over him like a wave. “Does this mean… you were in on this the whole time?”

I looked over at Jason and offered a small, victorious smile. “I told you I’d get your proof.”

So, how did we actually get to this point?

The truth was, I had been digging into Blake Newman from the very first minute he walked into that gallery. Yes, he was breathtakingly attractive, but my instincts told me never to trust a man who seemed that perfect.

I had Alice run a deep background check on his financial history. Blake had indeed been dealing in art for a few years and wrote for a journal, but the story about inheriting his grandfather’s estate? A complete lie.

Instead, I traced a massive, anonymous wire transfer into his offshore account from six years ago—the exact week the very first Ghost Painter piece was stolen and auctioned on the black market. His job as a high-end art insurance specialist wasn’t just a career; it was the ultimate cover. It gave him access to security blueprints, high-value targets, and allowed him to walk right onto crime scenes to misdirect police investigations from the inside.

My suspicions peaked earlier in the evening when I noticed the subtlest hitch in his stride—a faint, lingering limp in his right leg from an old injury.

The absolute confirmation came the moment he climbed into the jacuzzi. Right there on his right thigh was a distinct, faded bullet wound.

While we were investigating local emergency rooms earlier that day, Blake’s record hadn’t shown up because he was smart. On the night he was shot by the gallery guard a year ago, he had chartered a private jet out of the city, flying to a hospital hours away and claiming he had accidentally discharged his own hunting rifle. He knew staying local would get him caught.

And then came the closet.

While Blake was setting up the wine, I had opened that unmentioned wooden crate hidden in his master bathroom. Nestled safely inside was the stolen Winston canvas, wrapped and waiting to be smuggled out of the state to the highest bidder.

My heart had been pounding so hard I thought it would burst through my chest. But keeping my cool, I carefully re-latched the crate, walked out to the terrace, and sent a single, quiet text to Jason under the table: Target acquired. Crate in the bathroom.

Our trap had worked perfectly.

No pun intended… but Mr. Dreamy was completely framed.

I found the proof. I found the evidence.

We set Blake up to fail, and tonight, I officially caught the Ghost Painter.

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Postcards

South African road trip – Hartbeespoortdam and a Thabazimbi festival.

We left early on Friday morning for the 380 km drive to Thabazimbi to visit my grandparents and attend their annual festival. We planned a few stops along the way, starting with Hartbeespoort Dam.

General Hendrik Schoeman had a vision, a pocket full of ambition, and a pile of rocks.

It was 1896. Standing on the banks of the Crocodile River on his farm, he decided to tame the water. He stacked stones and poured cement for a wall he called Sophia Dam—a tribute to his wife, set in concrete.

Then life happened.

Financial pressure crept in. The Anglo-Boer War broke out. Tools were dropped, the cement dried in the sun, and the half-finished wall was left alone against the current.

By 1905, they realized the spot was all wrong anyway. The project moved down the road to a narrow gap in the Magaliesberg mountains—a gorge where hunters once cornered hartebeest.

That is how Hartbeespoort Dam was born.

(Borrowed image of the dam wall, what it looks like now)

Today, it sits quietly between the Magaliesberg and Witwatersberg ranges, just a short drive from Johannesburg and Pretoria, feeding nearby farms and filling taps behind a smooth concrete arch.

Hartbeespoort Dam is a famous weekend destination, close enough to visit for a quick day trip or a full weekend escape. Whether you are taking a cable car ride up the mountain, enjoying a boat ride on the dam, or sightseeing along the dam wall, there is plenty to explore. Visitors can wander through local markets, visit the Upside Down House, go on hot air balloon rides, or stop by the cheese farm for lunch. For animal lovers, the Elephant Sanctuary, Lion Park, and Hartbeespoort Snake and Animal Park offer fun, hands-on experiences for the whole family.

Our first stop was at Jasmyn, a family-owned farm stall specializing in premium farm-to-table products sourced directly from local farmers. They offer fresh produce, dairy products, and artisanal goods alongside two sit-down restaurants. Best of all, the main building is designed to look like an iconic Dutch windmill.

A central theme throughout Jasmyn is plants, books, and fresh farm produce. My favorite detail was the staircase leading up to the restaurant, painted to look like rows of book spines— probably because I love reading so much.

Our next stop was Hart Mark—a place that started as a small stall at a weekend flea market before finding its true home right in the heart of Hartbeespoort. Built on grit and a passion for supporting local makers, it has grown into the largest permanent indoor market in South Africa. At its core, it’s still about creating a warm, quiet space where local businesses can shine, visitors can make memories, and creativity has room to breathe.

As you drive along, you’ll notice statues of African animals scattered along the route. This proud lion is one of them, keeping watch from his pillar just as he has for years.

Leaving Hartbeespoort behind, we hit the long stretch of open road. The landscape slowly unfolds into beautiful farmland—orange groves, sheep, cattle, and game farms. If you keep your eyes peeled, you might catch sight of an antelope, giraffes, baboons, or even a few zebras. Just wide-open fields, quiet mountain views, and the river winding alongside every now and then.

Finally, we arrive in Thabazimbi.

On the day of the festival, people travel from all across the country—some driving long distances, others even arriving by airplane or helicopter. Hosted every year in early August for the past 18 years, the festival is famous for its great food, affordable meat, biltong, and droëwors—classic South African delicacies.

The organizers start early, with some arriving at 3:00 a.m. to get the food ready. Traditional South African favorites like pap and kaaiings, sheep on the spit, curry and rice, roosterkoek, and pancakes are all cooking over the fires. By the time the gates open at 7:30, everything is hot and ready.

Each year, two big-name South African music artists perform live, while visitors browse a wide variety of stalls. The packaged meat, biltong, and droëwors stalls are always the most popular, alongside vendors selling plants, cakes, biscuits, books, sweets, and handmade leather products, quilts, and clothes. You can even pick up fresh farm produce or visit the animal stall, which is filled with chickens, geese, birds, puppies, hamsters, rabbits, pigs, and lambs.

Competions like guess how much the bull weighs – win a prize.

Carcasses of antelope, blue wildebeest, and sometimes warthog are also prepared for competitions and put up for sale.

At the end of the day, it’s the culture, the warm people, and the whole atmosphere that make it special. It feels so different from your everyday market, and that’s what makes it an experience worth having.

Essay

The Trust Beneath the Machine.

We worry about whether artificial intelligence will escape our control. But perhaps the deeper question is older and more ordinary: how much of modern life already depends on trusting people we will never meet?

Frank told Bruce a story from his days as a receptionist at the London Hilton on Park Lane.

The hotel had recently introduced electronic key cards, still something of a novelty at the time. One day, a guest came to reception and reported that somebody had been in his room and something was missing. The immediate reaction was that this could hardly have happened. The new electronic system was secure.

Except that the thief had found a much simpler way in.

He walked the corridors until he found a room being serviced, told the chambermaid it was his room and said he needed to fetch something. She believed him, let him in, and he stole what he wanted.

Nothing was wrong with the electronic security system. Nobody had hacked the key card.

The weakness was human trust.

The story surfaced halfway through one of Bruce and Frank’s conversations about artificial intelligence, control, hacking, power and all the increasingly alarming questions that seem to follow AI wherever it goes. It changed the direction of the discussion because it suggested they might have been looking at the problem from the wrong end.

Much of the public debate asks whether humans can trust the technology.

Bruce and Frank found themselves asking something more difficult.

Can humans trust one another?

Both sides of the fence.

Bruce has often thought of himself as an outsider trying to sit on both sides of the fence at the same time. He is critical of many of the contradictions within existing systems and questions whether some of them can continue without substantial change. Concentrations of wealth and power, weaknesses in institutions, ownership of information and the growing influence of technology all deserve scrutiny.

At the same time, he is completely dependent on those systems functioning.

So is everyone else.

His own work has sometimes involved helping institutions operate more effectively, which produces an obvious paradox. A person can spend time trying to improve the workings of a system while simultaneously wondering whether the system itself needs more fundamental change. Artificial intelligence has not created that contradiction. It has simply made it more visible.

Oddly enough, their conversation had begun with something much smaller.

Frank was explaining his experiments with a possible new app for The Pineapple. It might open hundreds of archived articles to readers, allow more interaction around them and perhaps, eventually, provide a different financial foundation for the Brida community.

Almost immediately came the usual questions. What should people pay? What happens if demand grows quickly? What infrastructure would be needed? What if the volume became too great?

Bruce’s response was fairly prosaic. There seemed little point worrying about being overwhelmed before there was anything to be overwhelmed by. Start carefully. See what happens. Monitor it. Adapt.

Frank then connected his possible new role, jokingly, to an earlier discussion they had been having about Karl Marx and the age of AI.

Was he about to become a miniature digital capitalist?

It was a joke, but a useful one.

The factory owners of the Industrial Revolution controlled machinery, labour and capital. Today, extraordinary power can sit in servers, data, algorithms and the systems through which information passes. Bruce had been experimenting with asking different AI models to analyse questions around Marx, technology and modern ownership, and what interested him was not simply the individual answers but how often the different systems converged on similar underlying questions.

Ownership. Control. Purpose.

Who runs the intelligence that increasingly helps run the economy, and who decides what it is for?

For Bruce, that was not an answer. It was the beginning of a discussion, and perhaps that is where some of the real value of AI lies. Not in producing a final response that settles the matter, but in helping people ask better questions, compare different perspectives and keep the argument going.

What happens when the system stops?

There is considerable anxiety about AI agents and the possibility of systems acting without direct human intervention. Bruce makes no claim to expertise in that field. Even with the AI systems he already uses, however, he occasionally notices them doing things he did not explicitly ask them to do. Usually, they appear to be trying to help.

He has never felt that he had lost control.

The concern becomes more serious when increasingly capable systems are connected to infrastructure where failure carries much greater consequences. But even here, AI may simply be drawing attention to a vulnerability that has existed for years.

The concern becomes more serious when increasingly capable systems are connected to infrastructure where failure carries much greater consequences.

Long before generative AI arrived, there was hacking, ransomware and attacks on computer systems. People had already become deeply dependent on technologies most of them neither understood nor controlled. An air traffic control failure can cause widespread disruption without AI having anything to do with it. Electronic payments can stop. Electricity can fail. The internet can disappear.

Then what?

Bruce began wondering what would happen in a society that had become almost cashless if electronic payments disappeared for any significant length of time. How would ordinary transactions continue? Would people suddenly return to cash? Would shops offer credit? Would handwritten IOUs make an unexpected comeback?

Enormous effort goes into making systems faster and more efficient. Far less goes into thinking about how people would function when those systems were no longer available.

Frank took the thought somewhere even more ordinary.

Get out of bed in the morning. Switch on a light. Turn on a tap. Make coffee. Check a phone.

Behind each trivial action is a complicated chain of people the user will never know. Somebody keeps the electricity flowing. Somebody maintains the water supply. Somebody operates the telecommunications infrastructure. People monitor networks, repair faults, inspect equipment and make thousands of small decisions that remain invisible until something goes wrong.

Society trusts them.

Nobody investigates the character of the person maintaining the electricity network before switching on the kettle. Modern civilisation would become impossible if everybody tried.

That took Bruce and Frank back to AI from a different direction.

Do people trust those working inside OpenAI, Anthropic and the other organisations developing increasingly powerful systems to do their jobs properly and, just as importantly, to raise a hand when something does not look right?

That does not necessarily mean making a public declaration. It could happen inside a laboratory, a technical team or a meeting nobody outside the organisation will ever hear about.

Somebody simply has to be willing to say: this needs another look.

Many of the systems civilisation already depends upon function because somebody, somewhere, does exactly that.

Trust is not faith.

The story from the Hilton also warns against making trust sound too comfortable.

The chambermaid trusted the man outside the hotel room.

Her trust was exploited.

Every security system creates another opportunity for somebody to look for a weakness. Society adds passwords, identity checks, authentication systems and two-step verification, and somebody begins searching for a way around those too. Complete security may be impossible.

Trust therefore has to live alongside scrutiny.

Bruce spends quite a lot of time experimenting with different AI systems. Sometimes he asks one model to evaluate answers produced by several others. The frameworks they create can be surprisingly sophisticated. They establish criteria, compare arguments, identify areas of agreement and disagreement and occasionally expose weaknesses none of the original answers recognised.

But there are traps.

Sometimes Bruce has asked one system supplementary questions that another was never given. The AI carrying out the comparison does not necessarily spot that the playing field is uneven. It can produce an impressively structured analysis of evidence that was never quite comparable in the first place.

That does not make the analysis useless.

It makes it something to question.

Perhaps that is closer to the kind of trust an AI world requires. Not faith. Not obedience. Not the belief that a sentence becomes true simply because a machine delivers it confidently.

Trust with inspection. Trust with argument. Trust that remains capable of changing its mind.

The same issue appeared when their conversation moved from AI to the media. Bruce spoke rather broadly about the incentives towards sensationalism in media and social media. Frank pushed back. Serious publications, he argued, should not casually be grouped with outlets whose commercial model depends far more heavily on provocative headlines.

The distinction mattered.

If every institution is described as untrustworthy, the word itself becomes almost meaningless. There still has to be a distinction between reliable institutions and unreliable ones, careful evidence and noise, mistakes and deliberate manipulation.

Trust only means something if discrimination remains possible.

The human infrastructure.

As often happens in conversations between Bruce and Frank, they then wandered through newspapers, taxation, billionaires, innovation, family structures, voluntary organisations and village life. They sounded like different subjects, but underneath them was much the same question.

What holds a complicated society together when no individual can possibly understand, supervise or personally control more than a tiny fraction of it?

Frank described the network of associations and voluntary organisations around him in France. People belong to sports clubs and cultural groups. They pay modest subscriptions. Volunteers sit on committees. Grandparents help with children. Communities organise events and keep local traditions going.

Frank himself had been recruited into the local grape harvest festival.

For about twenty minutes, he would be dressed as a peasant from roughly a century ago, wearing a costume produced by decidedly modern global manufacturing, and take part in the village parade.

It would cost him nothing.

He would meet people, have some fun and, if everything went according to plan, receive a glass of wine into the bargain.

It is easy to dismiss such things as picturesque local colour. Yet they are also part of the invisible infrastructure on which society rests.

Not digital infrastructure.

Human infrastructure.

Bruce added an important qualification. Community works best when it is inclusive rather than exclusive. The solidarity that creates belonging can also become suspicious of outsiders. Local pride can sustain a place, while parochialism can close it off. In the same way, the wider argument cannot simply be reduced to individualism versus collectivism. Competition can encourage innovation; collective structures can provide stability, care and cooperation. Either can become destructive when pushed too far.

Finding the balance is the work.

One of Bruce’s AI experiments had arrived at something similar when presented with competing alternatives. Sometimes the useful answer is not to choose one side and defeat the other, but to look for a third possibility that preserves something valuable from both.

Perhaps that is also where the conversation about trust ended up.

People are right to ask what happens when machines become more powerful, more autonomous and more deeply connected to the systems around them. They are right to ask who owns them, who controls them and what happens when they fail.

But none of those questions begins with artificial intelligence.

Every morning, before most people have finished making coffee, they have already placed their lives in the hands of hundreds of people they will never meet.

The machine may be new.

The trust beneath it is not.

Member Stories

The Holiday That Was Just Okay.

Babette went to Egypt hoping for a wonderful family holiday. She came home with a wobbly bed, an improvised cocktail, a stingray she couldn’t photograph, four massages and a firm belief that Egypt deserves another chance — just somewhere else.

Coming home from holiday is difficult enough. Coming home to three weeks of emails, orders and information waiting for you is another matter entirely.

By the time I was back at work, I already felt very busy again. Perhaps that made the holiday seem even shorter. When Janita asked me how Egypt had been, my first answer was simple: “It was too short.”

Then came the more complicated answer.

It was okay.

Not spectacular. Not terrible. Just a holiday with some really good moments, some disappointing ones, and quite a few things that made us think, Well, we won’t choose this particular place again.

The Hotel Needed Help.

Hurghada surprised me. There was rubbish beside the streets, unfinished or deteriorating buildings, rough pavements and traffic that felt very different from what I know in Germany. I would definitely not want to drive there myself.

Our hotel did not improve the first impression very much.

The room was normally meant for three people, but there were four of us, so an extra bed had been added. That made everything rather cramped. Worse, the legs of one bed were different heights, so when my son lay on it, the whole thing wobbled.

My husband solved the problem with a piece of paper under one of the legs.

Then the room was cleaned.

The bed moved.

The wobble returned.

Luckily, the piece of paper was still there, so our highly technical hotel-bed repair could be installed again.

If I had to write one sentence in a review, I knew exactly what it would be: the hotel urgently needs renovation. In fact, I did write that in my review.

But that is only half the story. The staff were very friendly and helpful. That was really great, and it mattered. It is possible for a hotel to need serious work and still have people inside it who make you feel welcome.

Unfortunately, the building was not our only problem.

Several of us developed stomach trouble during the holiday. I was first, beginning on the second evening, and it lasted for about two or two and a half days. Then my husband had problems, followed by my son. At one point, public health officials were at the hotel, and from conversations with other guests, we realised we were not the only people who had been unwell.

By then, the holiday was becoming rather different from the one we had imagined.

Porridge, Dates and a Better Dinner.

The food was mixed.

There was plenty of choice in the main restaurant: rice, potatoes, pasta, eggs, omelettes, beans, fruit and many sweets. There were even mini cupcakes at lunch and dinner. We could never have tried everything.

After my stomach problems, though, I found something safe and simple: porridge with sugar, cinnamon and a little coconut. I tried pancakes too, but porridge became my breakfast for most of the holiday.

After my stomach problems, though, I found something safe and simple: porridge with sugar, cinnamon and a little coconut.

I also tried a fresh date. I discovered that I still prefer dried dates, but at least I tried one.

The best dinner came at a sister hotel. It was beautiful there, the meal was very good, and I ate lamb — only the second time in my life that I remember having it. Our Italian restaurant, on the other hand, was okay, but I was not unhappy that we only ate there once.

Perhaps that is the best way to describe much of this holiday: there were good things, but they appeared between quite a lot of “okay.”

Even the cocktails followed this pattern.

There was no piña colada, so on our last day I attempted to create my own version. I had found a drink with pineapple, mango and coconut milk, and I suggested adding a little white rum.

The bottle that appeared was not white rum. It was brown.

I drank it anyway.

It was okay.

It was definitely not a piña colada.

Sometimes the Best Picture Is the One You Miss.

There were better moments away from the hotel.

The aqua park had a lazy river, a wave pool and plenty of slides. My husband tried seven or eight of them. I tried none.

He did persuade me to climb the stairs by telling me that I could take beautiful pictures of the view from the top. Once we were up there, he suggested that perhaps I could slide down too.

Nice try.

I went back down the stairs.

The beach was another mixture of beauty and disappointment. The reef near the hotel appeared badly damaged and we saw rubbish there too, but one day my daughter and I were coming out of the water when we saw a blue-spotted stingray.

I had no phone ready.

No photograph.

Just the stingray.

Earlier in the holiday I had been watching another guest at the buffet taking photographs of the food. My husband was standing there when she came along with her phone, intent on getting her picture. She did not even apologise for getting in his way. Apparently the photograph was very important.

I do take holiday pictures. My sister has even reminded me that I am not necessarily much better than my mother when it comes to putting photographs in my status. But I photograph my family and the places around us. I do not need to show everybody the buffet every day.

“That’s not my cup of tea.”

So perhaps there was something fitting about the stingray escaping my camera. I saw it. Hannah saw it. That was enough.

The Party Bus and the Boat.

On our first trip to the beach, we took the hotel bus.

The driver turned the music up loudly, and I decided that if we were on holiday, I might as well enjoy myself. I was having my own little party on the bus.

My daughter covered her ears.

“Mama! Mama!”

I suspect I was embarrassing her.

After that, we discovered that walking back to the hotel only took about ten or fifteen minutes.

Our boat trip brought another collection of good and disappointing moments. We had booked it partly because we hoped to see dolphins.

We saw no dolphins.

We stopped at a reef for what felt like a very long time. There was also confusion over which island we would visit, and when we eventually reached an island, we only had about an hour there.

Yet the boat also gave us one of the best meals of the holiday. The crew were a little crazy and great fun, and while the long stop became boring for some of us, the others found another form of entertainment: jumping from the boat.

My son had met another boy on the trip, and the two seemed to encourage each other. My husband jumped from the top deck, while my son tried a jump from the sun deck.

I was proud that he tried it.

The sad part was that the boys were staying in different hotels. Had they been in the same place, my son could simply have gone off to find his new friend and returned at lunchtime or dinner. We exchanged contact details with the other family, but our paths had already begun separating again.

That is another thing holidays do. You can travel thousands of kilometres and unexpectedly meet people who live surprisingly close to home.

Not the Last Time.

There were plenty of things I would change about this holiday. I would choose a different hotel. I would choose another region. I would hope for better food, a better-maintained resort and perhaps a boat trip where the dolphins actually receive the invitation.

But Egypt itself has not been crossed off our list.

“We think it was not the last time that we visited Egypt.”

Maybe next time we will try another part of the country. Maybe next year will be Turkey or Greece instead. We do not know yet.

And despite all my complaints, I did manage to relax in certain ways. I slept until half past seven or eight. I spent time in the water. I had four massages, although after the first one my back hurt so much that even a soft touch made me say, “Ow!” By the fourth, things were considerably better.

There was also my daughter’s excitement about flying. On our night flight from Cologne, she said goodnight, closed her eyes and then, about five seconds later, opened them again to look out of the window.

She was simply too excited to sleep.

And I came home pleased about something else. During the holiday, I had used my English. Back home, I spoke English with a neighbour too. After three weeks away, I worried that I might have forgotten the language. I had certainly forgotten plenty of words, but the words came back when I needed them.

Maybe that is how this holiday deserves to be remembered.

Not as the spectacular Egypt holiday we expected, and not as a disaster either. It was a wobbly-bed, porridge-for-breakfast, no-dolphins, brown-rum-in-the-cocktail kind of holiday, with a party bus, a brave jump from a boat, friendly hotel staff and a blue-spotted stingray that never made it into a photograph.

It was okay.

And sometimes “okay” makes a much better story.

At The Table

The Day the Doorbell Became a Mousetrap.

Lunch with Rosii, (Brazil), Janita (Fruitloop, South Africa), Frank, (The Mayor, France)

We use them, lose them, complain when they stop working and almost never wonder who invented them. Then Fruitloop suggested replacing the doorbell with a mousetrap, and ordinary life became considerably less ordinary.

Some inventions arrive with fanfare. Others quietly enter our lives, become indispensable, and then disappear into the background until the electricity goes off, the internet dies, the car keys vanish or somebody discovers there is no coffee left.

At the Lunch table, the plan was to give a little applause to the everyday inventions we take for granted.

Instead, within minutes, we were discussing who invented headaches, whether inconvenience had an inventor, what would happen if every shoe disappeared overnight, and whether visitors to Fruitloop’s house should be required to risk a finger simply to announce their arrival.

In other words, it was a perfectly normal Lunch conversation.

It began with Rosii feeling tired and nursing a headache, while Fruitloop was battling flu and feeling, in her words, as though she had been “hit by a train.”

The Mayor immediately saw the connection.

Perhaps the flu and the train hitter were in cahoots. Perhaps somebody had invented inconvenience. If so, he suggested, that person should report to reception.

Fruitloop was not convinced she was in the mood to be kind to them.

And yet she was smiling.

Rosii noticed this. She couldn’t imagine Fruitloop in a bad mood at all. The Mayor agreed that even when the occasional “little grumpy wave” crossed the Sahara, Fruitloop somehow remained remarkably cheerful.

Which raised our first truly important scientific question of the day:

Who invented laughter?

Nobody knew.

But by the end of the conversation, we would have some evidence that it was one of the better inventions.

And the award goes to…

Fruitloop began sensibly enough.

If ordinary inventions had their own awards ceremony, what would deserve first prize?

There were plenty of candidates: the mobile phone, laptop, television, radio, dishwasher, fridge, toilet paper and sunglasses.

Rosii’s mind travelled somewhere more personal. She remembered a creative project from her teaching days, when students had to invent or improve something. One group arrived with a cleaning glove designed to make cleaning kitchens and bathrooms easier. Another created an enormous washing-powder box as part of their presentation.

Years later, versions of that cleaning glove are completely ordinary.

That was the first little mystery of the morning. An object can begin as somebody’s strange idea, become useful and eventually reach the point where nobody even thinks of it as an invention anymore.

The Mayor took the question in another direction. He remembered A History of the World in 100 Objects, the British Museum and BBC Radio 4 project that explored human history through objects. It made him think about money: coins, banknotes and, later, credit cards.

A piece of paper can have value because we collectively agree that it does. A piece of plastic can allow us to buy something now and pay later. Today, money can travel electronically between bank accounts without a banknote appearing anywhere.

The Mayor happened to have a €10 note nearby.

Tear it in half, he pointed out, and you do not magically acquire two €5 notes.

A pity, really. That would have been an excellent invention.

Then Rosii remembered the old credit-card machines from her travel-agency days: the card, the paper slips and the machine that went zip-zip across them. Tickets were handwritten too. A customer could buy a journey on a piece of paper, and if that piece of paper disappeared, the journey suddenly became considerably more complicated.

Then Rosii remembered the old credit-card machines from her travel-agency days: the card, the paper slips and the machine that went zip-zip across them.

The Mayor became fascinated by the ticket itself.

Somebody, somewhere, had invented the idea that a document could give a human being permission to travel from A to B.

And before the ticket, somebody had to invent paper.

Before handwritten tickets, somebody needed ink and a pen.

One invention was sitting on top of another, which was sitting on top of another.

Suddenly the ordinary world looked less ordinary.

You notice it when it disappears.

Fruitloop asked which invention we use almost every day without noticing it.

For her, a toothbrush came to mind. Then her glasses. She needs them to see things in the distance, especially when driving or watching something from far away.

The Mayor pointed out that he was thousands of kilometres away and she could see him perfectly well without them.

Yes, Fruitloop explained. Because although he was far away, the screen showing him was close.

Modern life in one sentence.

Rosii chose the car key—or rather the modern version of one. It is still called a key even when it has become a collection of buttons. In some cars, you do not even put anything into an ignition anymore. The key simply needs to be nearby and the car knows what to do.

“This is the world that we live,” Rosii said.

The Mayor reversed the question. Perhaps the things we take for granted are easiest to identify when they stop working.

Lose your keys and suddenly they become extremely important.

Let the laptop break and there is trouble.

Lose the internet and there is even more trouble.

Then there are the inventions behind the inventions. We walk into a kitchen, switch on a light, turn on a tap and boil a kettle without considering the enormous system—and the people—behind that tiny morning routine.

Fruitloop has a slightly different relationship with this assumption.

“No water, no electricity, make another plan.”

Living in South Africa has given her practice.

The Mayor admitted that a sudden loss of electricity where he lives in Europe could produce a rather different reaction. There is a gas stove and an old-fashioned kettle, so at least cooking would remain possible.

Work might not.

He seemed surprisingly willing to consider that a possible benefit.

Tomorrow morning, nobody has shoes.

Then Fruitloop asked the dangerous question.

Imagine one ordinary invention disappears tonight. Which disappearance creates the funniest chaos tomorrow morning?

Her first answer was clothes.

Everyone wakes up.

Everyone opens the cupboard.

Nothing.

“I don’t think anybody’s going to leave their homes,” she decided.

This reminded the Mayor of old Roman spa baths he once visited near Frankfurt, where nudity was perfectly normal. He was therefore unconvinced that disappearing clothes would produce quite the universal stay-at-home crisis Fruitloop imagined.

Fruitloop tried another invention.

Wheels.

Imagine walking outside in the morning and discovering every car sitting there perfectly intact but completely wheel-less.

Rosii chose shoes.

That might be even better.

Fruitloop immediately pictured her son asking where his shoes were. She would tell him they were in the cupboard. He would insist they weren’t. She would check. Then the shouting would begin.

“Where are your shoes?”

Meanwhile, nobody on Earth has shoes.

At least, the Mayor pointed out, one morning question would disappear forever: Which shoes am I going to wear?

The discussion briefly wandered into untidiness, zodiac signs and Fruitloop’s family combination of water, fire and air. Her son is Aquarius, she is fire, and her husband is air—a cloud, according to a family discussion inspired by the film Elemental.

The Mayor immediately saw the financial potential.

One day the child could simply ask: “Dad, you’re a cloud. Can you download some money, please?”

Fruitloop thought this was an excellent idea.

Please protect the coffee.

The Mayor struggled to choose an invention whose disappearance would create funny chaos.

His morning depends on a few basic things: a shower, breakfast and coffee.

Fruitloop suggested removing the coffee.

Rosii’s reaction was immediate.

“Oh my God.”

This was no longer a comedy.

The Mayor had, in fact, once run out of coffee and been forced to survive temporarily on his wife’s instant coffee until he could reach the shops and restore civilisation.

Nobody seemed convinced that removing coffee would make the morning funnier.

Rosii added water to the list of things that absolutely must not disappear. She begins her day with a large glass and drinks water throughout the day.

So we had discovered an important distinction.

Some inventions may disappear for comic effect.

Shoes: possibly.

Wheels: chaotic but entertaining.

Coffee and water: absolutely not. The experiment is cancelled.

From three television channels to everything.

Then the conversation moved backwards.

What do we consider completely normal today that did not exist when we were growing up?

For Rosii, electronic payment has transformed ordinary life. She can buy something small with a card or phone and may suddenly discover that she does not have even a small banknote in her wallet.

Fruitloop’s list was longer: mobile phones, the internet, laptops and Netflix.

She also remembered growing up with only three television channels. There was no endless menu waiting for her. Whatever was showing was what you could watch. Cartoons appeared during a particular afternoon window, followed by programmes such as Days of Our Lives and The Young and the Restless. Sometimes Saturday television meant rugby.

The Mayor grew up without television because his parents did not want one. At school, this occasionally left him outside conversations about The Three Stooges, Bugs Bunny and Mickey Mouse. Later came television, then colour television, while radio moved from AM to FM and eventually to internet radio.

Each technological leap felt remarkable.

Then it became normal.

And somewhere along the way, convenience changed something else too.

The Mayor wondered whether we once had more time and more person-to-person contact. Years ago, getting takeaway food meant going to the shop, speaking to somebody, carrying the meal home and perhaps reheating it. Now food and groceries can arrive after a few taps on a phone.

He remembered lying in bed with his wife one Sunday morning and buying a garden table and two chairs.

Just like that.

No expedition. No great resistance. A few clicks and €165 had disappeared.

Whether that is good or bad was not the question. The strange part is how quickly the unimaginable becomes mundane.

His mother, born in 1937, now uses the internet and buys books online. Her childhood world could hardly have imagined that experience. Fruitloop’s seven-year-old son is growing up in another world again.

What will he find hilariously old-fashioned one day?

Ding-dong. Ouch.

Then Fruitloop announced that it was time for the Fruitloop questions.

This was where civilisation began to deteriorate.

The challenge was simple: replace every doorbell with a completely different invention.

Fruitloop had an answer.

“A mousetrap.”

There was a pause while everybody considered the hospitality implications.

The new system was beautifully simple. A visitor presses the button. The mousetrap snaps. Fruitloop hears the scream from inside the house.

No electricity required.

The Mayor reconsidered all future plans to visit South Africa.

Fruitloop remained delighted with her invention. There might be screaming. There might be swear words. More importantly, visitors would have to stop before ringing and ask themselves an important question:

How desperate am I to visit this person today?

The Mayor imagined arriving at Johannesburg airport and being questioned by immigration.

You want to visit her?

Are you sure?

You have been warned, Mr Peters. Proceed with caution.

The joke became even better when Fruitloop explained that her real intercom had already caused enough trouble. At her complex, visitors at the gate could press buttons connected to residents’ phones. People sometimes pressed random numbers late at night simply because they wanted somebody—anybody—to open the gate.

Fruitloop eventually had their number removed from the intercom.

So perhaps the mousetrap was not entirely hypothetical.

The Mayor proposed a virtual version that could leap through the phone and bite whoever was pressing the button.

Innovation was accelerating rapidly.

Please explain the cassette to the year 3026.

The final Fruitloop challenge sent a time traveller from the year 3026 into everyone’s home.

What would they laugh at?

The Mayor suggested himself.

A thousand years from now, perhaps a visitor would stare at him and ask, “What’s that? Can we eat it?”

Fruitloop chose her husband’s old Xbox. It still works, but newer games have already moved beyond what the old console can handle.

Rosii thought of an even better museum piece: the cassette.

That tiny plastic box unlocked an entire world of memory.

Rosii remembered an Enya cassette she loved and the frustration when the tape stopped working properly. Then came the universal cassette-repair tool.

A pen.

The Mayor remembered cassette players chewing up the tape. He remembered waiting beside the radio for a favourite song and hitting record at precisely the right moment—only for the DJ to continue talking over the beginning.

Fruitloop knew that world too.

At eight o’clock in the evening, she used to listen to a programme called Top 8 at 8, waiting for the week’s favourite songs. If the song she wanted did not make the top eight, there would be no recording for her homemade mixtape that night.

Now there is Spotify, YouTube and other streaming services. A song can be found in seconds.

The Mayor wondered what Fruitloop’s son will remember struggling with when he looks back.

Perhaps his great hardship will be the day he could not find a song on Spotify.

Perhaps the time traveller from 3026 will laugh at the idea of pressing buttons, carrying keys, owning an Xbox or putting a cassette into a machine.

Perhaps they will find our credit cards, laptops and mobile phones as strange as we find handwritten airline tickets and zip-zip card machines.

Or perhaps they will stand outside Fruitloop’s house, stare at the ancient mousetrap attached to the doorbell and wisely decide not to press anything.

By the end of the conversation, Rosii’s headache had lifted.

“I’m better now,” she said.

Maybe the best invention had been hiding in the conversation from the beginning.

Laughter.

We still don’t know who invented it.

But whoever did deserves first prize.

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Member Stories

From Tennis Courts to Cocktail Queues.

From tennis nerves and supermarket calculations to concert crowds, safari nightmares and the quiet art of letting someone go first, an ordinary conversation about waiting kept finding somewhere else to go.

Sylvie lost her tennis match 6–2, 6–1, which did not particularly surprise her. What mattered more was that the score did not tell the whole story. In the second set, there were several games where she reached 40 and stayed level with her opponent before the final point went the other way.

At the beginning, though, she was nervous. Her heart was pounding and she made mistakes. Then she noticed her family around the court: one daughter had come to watch, another walked past, and her husband appeared in his cycling clothes. Somehow, seeing everyone made her even more stressed.

Her opponent had a different relationship with pressure. When she lost a point or made a mistake, she became visibly angry with herself, sometimes loudly enough to make Sylvie’s family nervous.

Sylvie does not play that way.

“If I lose, I accept,” she said. “The best should win.”

There is another difficult match coming in two weeks, this time against Strasbourg and a very strong team. Sylvie is realistic about her chances. In the meantime, she was going back onto the court that same evening to practise with a 21-year-old player. Training is one thing, she explained; an official match is another. There are more breaks in competition, but also more nerves.

Ten years ago, some of her matches lasted three hours, sometimes in the sun. She remembers one recurring problem: she could keep reaching the same level as her opponent, but struggled to finish the point.

“I was younger,” she added.

It was the sort of remark that did not need anything more.

Six Hundred Kilometres and Raclette for Breakfast.

Tennis led naturally to another kind of endurance.

Sylvie’s brother-in-law had recently finished what she described as the SwissPeaks trail, covering roughly 640 kilometres. According to what he told the family, sleep during the first week could be as little as an hour during the day because he struggled to sleep in a room with other people. The second part of the event was harder, taking competitors through the mountains at night, with ice and snow.

Sylvie remembered that around 100 people began and roughly half eventually completed the longer challenge. Her brother-in-law, who is 57, finished 24th.

“It’s very impressive.”

And apparently not enough to make him rest for very long. He was already planning another trail of around 170 kilometres within a week or two. He regularly runs trails in Switzerland and has also competed in places including Austria, Germany and France.

The scale of the exercise is difficult enough to imagine. Then came one detail that made it suddenly human: breakfast.

Every morning, he ate raclette.

“You need to eat a lot,” Sylvie explained. With that much energy being spent throughout the day and night, food becomes part of the work. The organisation behind such an event is enormous too, with security, food and support along the route.

Her brother-in-law, Sylvie thinks, prefers putting his mental and physical energy into sport rather than into something such as learning another language. These trails demand plenty of both.

They also, she pointed out, cost plenty of money.

And from there, somehow, we arrived at queues.

The Wrong Queue.

Mention a supermarket queue to Sylvie and the mystery is immediately recognisable.

You choose the short queue.

It stops.

The customer in front has a problem. An employee needs to check something. Someone needs a refund. Meanwhile, the queue that looked hopelessly long begins moving beautifully.

So you change queues.

Naturally, the queue you have just abandoned immediately becomes faster.

“That happens always.”

Sylvie is convinced this is not a personal curse. Everybody has experienced it. When she and her husband are together, however, she says they seem particularly talented at choosing the wrong one.

When she and her husband are together, however, she says they seem particularly talented at choosing the wrong one.

Her recent queues have included a 30-minute wait for cocktails at an open-air event. There were separate stands for beer, soft drinks and cocktails, and she took her turn waiting for drinks for other people while they swapped around.

Then there was a shopping trip with her daughter two weeks earlier. A queue that had barely existed suddenly stretched from the till almost to the end of a large shop.

Sylvie has a theory about how this happens. You see that nobody is waiting, decide there is still time to continue shopping, and then everyone else apparently makes exactly the same calculation. One person joins the queue, then another, then another.

By the time you return, the queue has become an event.

Queue Surveillance.

Sylvie’s first activity while waiting in a supermarket is not checking her messages.

It is checking the competition.

“You will always have a check if another queue is faster. That’s the first thing.”

She will glance at her phone briefly if there is a message, but cannot become too distracted. There are queues to monitor.

There are also other people’s shopping baskets.

Of course, this must be done discreetly.

You cannot simply stare into somebody’s trolley and openly study what they are buying. You look quietly. Perhaps you appear to be looking somewhere else.

There is etiquette involved too. If Sylvie has a full trolley and somebody behind her is holding only two or three things, she may offer to let them go first. In a very long queue, though, the calculation changes. Moving one person forward achieves very little, and everybody is already waiting.

The same applies to somebody asking to jump ahead because they are in a hurry. It depends on the circumstances. Sylvie does not treat the queue as an absolute moral system. She looks at what is happening.

That practical instinct may come partly from having once stood on the other side of the till.

After her studies, Sylvie’s first job was as a cashier. She remembers customers complaining because advertised promotions had not been applied or prices were wrong. That experience stayed with her, and she still checks her receipt.

Sometimes she spots a small error and decides not to complain.

Partly it is because the amount is not worth delaying everybody. Partly it is because shopping close to home comes with another complication: within ten kilometres, she says, she nearly always knows somebody.

And Sylvie is on the local council.

If she starts complaining at the till, there is a good chance somebody familiar is standing nearby wondering what Sylvie is complaining about today.

“You are all polite and friendly,” she said. “You are on the council, you need to be quiet.”

That may be one of the stranger forms of queue discipline.

Five Minutes at the End of a Very Long Wait.

Not all queues involve groceries.

At Europa-Park in Germany, Sylvie has experienced queues so long that the imbalance begins to feel absurd. You can wait outside in rain, heat or sunshine for an attraction that lasts perhaps five minutes.

That is the part she dislikes: the proportion between the waiting and what waits at the end.

Concerts create an entirely different version of the same problem.

Sylvie’s husband went with a friend to an AC/DC concert in Germany a couple of years ago. Her recollection of what he told her is less about the music than the extraordinary mass of people. They arrived two or three hours before the concert and found themselves standing in a crowd so dense that moving left or right was difficult.

Her husband found it hard, although he was glad he had seen the concert. For people who dislike being tightly surrounded, Sylvie could imagine it becoming deeply uncomfortable.

Even going to the toilet required strategy. Her husband and his friend went together because, in a crowd that size, finding each other again could have been difficult.

Everybody was standing.

“And you pay for that,” Sylvie observed.

There is something beautifully unfair about it. You buy a ticket, travel to the venue, arrive hours early and then pay for the privilege of being squashed among thousands of strangers.

Still, people do it because what waits at the end matters enough.

The Celine Dion Ticket.

That thought brought Sylvie to Celine Dion.

A tennis friend of hers had managed to get six tickets for a Celine Dion performance in France, enough to take family and friends. Sylvie described a ticketing process in which interested buyers first had to register and only selected people received the opportunity to purchase, with six being the maximum.

For her friend, simply being selected felt fortunate.

The conversation wandered into the size of major concerts, the travel required when an artist performs in only a few places, the cost of accommodation and the visitors such performances can bring into a region. Then it wandered further still: the Titanic song, Celine Dion’s French-language music, Canada, Montréal and the particular French spoken there.

“She has a nice voice,” Sylvie said.

It was no longer really a conversation about queues.

Then again, perhaps it still was. Sometimes the queue is part of how much we are prepared to endure for something we genuinely want.

The Nightmare Before the Safari.

From concerts we moved to petrol prices, and from petrol prices, somehow, to South Africa.

Then Sylvie remembered her nightmare.

In the dream, she was travelling in South Africa and had left her official papers unsecured in her room instead of putting them in the safe. The following day, they were gone.

That would have been bad enough.

But the group was supposed to catch a flight for a safari.

Without her documents, Sylvie was the only person who could not go.

Worse still, she had organised the whole thing.

She woke up shocked and enormously relieved that none of it had actually happened.

The safari was not entirely imaginary. A friend of hers had recently flown out on a trip involving Tanzania and Zanzibar, and Sylvie was waiting to hear about the experience. She knew she would see her friend again for one very practical reason: her friend had Sylvie’s luggage.

The conversation moved towards Namibia and Botswana, river cruises and other possible journeys through southern Africa.

By then, the great queue mystery had been left somewhere behind us.

Or perhaps not.

There had been tennis matches where the final point would not come. Hundreds of kilometres through mountains with almost no sleep. Thirty minutes waiting for a cocktail. Five minutes of amusement after a long theme-park queue. Thousands of people standing for hours before a concert. A friend fortunate enough to get into the queue for Celine Dion tickets. A nightmare about missing a safari after organising the entire journey.

All different forms of waiting, effort and uncertainty.

And Sylvie’s approach is remarkably consistent.

Watch what is happening. Check the other queue. Let somebody through when it makes sense. Accept the point when the better player wins. Do not make a public fuss over something too small to matter.

And, when possible, make sure there is something good to eat afterwards.

At the end of the conversation, tennis returned one last time. Sylvie’s tennis association is planning an evening with mussels and French fries at the end of October. When the possibility of travelling all the way there for dinner came up, Sylvie had an immediate solution:

“Do you want to come?”

A special flight, apparently, could be arranged just to taste it.

After all the queues, the nerves, the crowds and the waiting, that seems a reasonable place to finish.

Peeling Potatoes

Peeling Potatoes Episode 64: Logica Magica.

Friday morning arrived looking slightly damaged.

Fruitloop had the flu. The Mayor felt like a train wreck.

Not FLU, obviously.

FLU is Fruitloop University, a much healthier condition involving dragons, questionable academic standards and, as it turned out, senior political responsibility.

By ten o’clock the bad flu was still hanging around, but Fruitloop University had opened for business. The Mayor was informed that he had to appoint a council.

Four places. Sixteen candidates. No appeals.

The Applicants.

The applications were strong, although perhaps not in the conventional sense.

Ignis the Dragon had abandoned destruction, opened a volcano spa and decided lava was the answer to most things. Sparkles the Unicorn preferred glitter, optimism and rainbows; nobody had ever seen her have a bad day. Andrew the Alien had travelled the universe but still couldn’t understand why humans open the fridge when they already know what is inside. Miranda the Mermaid knew everything happening beneath the sea and wanted meetings held underwater.

George the Garden Gnome knew everybody’s secrets. Sources confidential. Vlad the Vampire had impeccable manners and preferred staff meetings at two in the morning, while Gargle the Zombie never gave up, mostly because he forgot what he was doing.

Then came the supplementary applications: a ghost specialising in invisible operations, a Viking with leadership skills and boats, a robot claiming superior logic, the Coconut Warrior King, the Sock King, the Chicken King, a witch with “technically” excellent problem-solving abilities, a broom applying for aviation because it wanted to become a helicopter, and the Talking Toaster.

The toaster had experience in heated situations.

Naturally.

The Mayor had four chairs. He chose Ignis, then the robot, promptly named Robbie. Miranda came next, followed by the witch, who became Samantha after a brief excursion into Bewitched.

A dragon, a robot, a mermaid and a witch.

Fruitloop University had seen worse.

The Council.

Now they needed jobs.

Miranda became Chief Mysterious Officer.

“What does she do?”

“She thinks outside the aquarium.”

That seemed sufficient.

Samantha became Chief Analyst. She could solve problems, apparently, although her previous employer remained careful about the details. Robbie became Head of Operations: Samantha could analyse things; Robbie could apply logic and get them done.

She could solve problems, apparently, although her previous employer remained careful about the details.

Whether Samantha could cast a spell on Robbie remained unresolved. Fruitloop wondered what would happen if they fell in love.

The Mayor considered the offspring.

“Magical logic.”

There was a pause.

Logica Magica.

Fruitloop University had acquired a motto.

Ignis became Chief Firefighter. He had entrepreneurial experience, could improvise and tended to finish things. Also, if negotiations failed, he was still a dragon.

Sparkles did not make the council, and the Mayor felt bad about it. She would have brought colour and optimism. She had been around for years. Couldn’t there be a fifth member?

No.

The university could only afford four.

Nothing personal, Sparkles.

The Envelopes.

Once the council had been appointed, Fruitloop produced the envelopes. There was one for Ignis, Robbie, Miranda and Samantha, and one for the Mayor.

Inside each was a button.

No instructions. No explanation. Only a small note:

Press when you are ready.

Nobody knew what would happen.

Fruitloop asked who should go first.

“Ignis.”

Of course Ignis. He was the firefighter. If the button opened a hole in the universe, produced twelve angry chickens or incinerated the council chamber, he had the best chance of dealing with it.

Robbie and Samantha were more dangerous. They might never press theirs at all. They would analyse, calculate, reanalyse, exchange notes, discover another variable and possibly organise a meeting about the button. At which point Ignis would probably press it simply to stop them.

Miranda was different. The Chief Mysterious Officer was hardly going to surrender a perfectly good mystery without a fight.

Then Fruitloop revealed the rules. Pressing the button would produce one of two things: a completely useless superpower, or freedom from cooking, cleaning, laundry and dishes forever.

Fifty-fifty.

Who presses first now?

Still Ignis.

Something useless, the Mayor reasoned, might only be useless because nobody had needed it yet.

Fruitloop moved on before anybody could examine that thought too closely.

Press.

The Mayor pressed his button and gained the ability to locate the exact chair he had last sat on, but only after somebody else had taken it.

A spectacular achievement.

Robbie could calculate the exact number of biscuits in a packet without opening it, which had possibilities during certain meetings. Miranda gained the ability to make any puddle slightly deeper. South African potholes immediately came to mind.

Samantha could turn any broom into a bigger broom.

“Growth potential,” said the Mayor.

Ignis got the housework. Or rather, he got rid of it. His house would now clean itself forever.

Fruitloop stared at the collection of superpowers. The Mayor did the same.

And then Samantha’s enlarged broom found a purpose.

Give it to Gargle. Send Gargle to Ignis’s house. He never gives up.

Fruitloop suggested the ghost instead. Invisible cleaning.

The unsuccessful candidates were creeping back into the organisation.

This was becoming untidy.

In a surprisingly organised sort of way.

The Eyes.

Somewhere during all this, the Mayor remembered an interview question from his hotel years. Human Resources used to hate it.

Go to a concert. Look at the performer’s eyes. What do you see?

There can be lights, noise, jumping, smiling, chaos, thousands of people and a singer apparently throwing everything into the moment. But look closely at the eyes and they can be crystal clear.

Focused.

Underneath the performance there is a programme: timing, cues, choreography, decisions. The audience sees the show. Somebody still has to know what happens next.

The HR manager used to roll her eyes whenever the question appeared.

The Mayor kept asking it.

One More Button.

Fruitloop had one final question.

Forget the useless superpowers. Forget the self-cleaning house. If the Mayor could have a button that did anything, what would he want it to do?

He didn’t think for very long.

“Help me decide that I always have the best team supporting the venture.”

Not the cleverest team. Not the safest. Not even necessarily the people he liked most.

Sparkles had already proved that.

Just the right combination of people.

That answer changed the morning slightly.

Fruitloop had created the exercise without knowing whom the Mayor would choose. Ignis might have been predictable, but the others were not. The questions had to survive whatever choices he made. So did the game.

Only near the end did the Mayor realise what had happened. Sixteen candidates had wandered into Fruitloop University as dragons, mermaids, kings, zombies, household appliances and one broom with unresolved aviation ambitions. Some were rejected. Some were promoted. Some were renamed. One got a bigger broom.

Yet somewhere between choosing four chairs, assigning jobs and deciding who should risk pressing a mysterious button, the nonsense had begun to reveal something rather less silly.

Who do you trust when nobody knows what happens next? Do you choose optimism, expertise, logic, curiosity, action or something you cannot quite define? How much analysis is useful before somebody simply has to press the button? And what happens to the people who do not get a chair?

Perhaps most importantly, what are you actually trying to build when you choose a team?

Fruitloop University had begun the morning as nonsense.

By lunchtime, the nonsense had acquired structure.

Logica Magica.

Perhaps the motto stays.

Although somebody should probably check with Robbie first. Samantha will want to analyse it. Miranda will say nothing.

And Ignis?

He’ll press the button.

In The Next Issue

Hidden in Plain Sight

If you are married or have kids, you have undoubtedly heard the frantic call: “I can’t find it!” or “I don’t know where it is!”

So you patiently get up, walk over to the cupboard or the fridge, reach past nothing at all, and pull out the exact item they were looking for. It wasn’t actually hidden—it was sitting right there, directly before their very eyes.

There is a funny trend circulating on social media where a wife leaves her glasses on the kitchen counter. Her husband walks in, puts them on, and suddenly sees what was “invisible” a second ago: piles of unwashed dishes, stray socks, and shoes scattered across the floor. He quickly takes them off, the mess disappears into thin air, and he slowly backs out of the room.

Maybe wives really do have a special sense for seeing the things their families miss. Or maybe things simply stay hidden in plain sight until you put on the right pair of glasses.

The same goes for the way we live. We pack clutter away into a single drawer—hidden from the naked eye, yet crystal clear in our memory. We use brilliant inventions every single day without ever asking where they came from or who thought of them. Our days are full of quiet, unsolved mysteries simply because we never bother to investigate, second-guess our own rules, or look closely at the places where we hide things from ourselves.

Join us next week in Issue 30 for some marvelous discoveries of the extraordinary things hidden right in plain sight.

Hold onto your glasses—you might just see your world a little differently!

Join us next week:

Monday
Ralf – 8:00
Atlantic Corridor – 15:00

Tuesday
Fabrice – 17:00

Wednesday
Swimming club – 7:30
Sylvie – 15:00

Thursday
Lunch with Janita & Frank – 11:30
Babette – 13:00

Partner page

Inside this issue

Sacred Rules, Broken Routines, and Search Histories.

Local Boars, Road Trips, and “Okay” Holidays.

Heists, Inventions, and the Trust Machine.

Painful object divorces.

Back to 1995.

No more friction.

The good old days were not necessarily good.

What becomes a luxury?

The famous drawers.

The rules I learned without being told.

When a rule becomes automatic.

Leaving home changed the rule.

Another person’s logic.

There is no restaurant.

Then you go for a walk.

The point is not the 12 kilometres.

“Why not make one in South Africa?”

What counts as normal?

Where does commitment come from?

The end of the food chain.

The ordinary things.

Chapter One: The Morning After.

Chapter Two: The Ghost and the Specialist.

Chapter Three: The Ghost Painter.

Chapter Four: Dead Ends and Hunches.

Chapter Five: Gold Rings and Chief Orders.

Chapter Six: Rooftops and Real Monet.

Chapter Seven: The Enormous Closet and the Extra Crate.

South African road trip – Hartbeespoortdam and a Thabazimbi festival.

Both sides of the fence.

What happens when the system stops?

Trust is not faith.

The human infrastructure.

The Hotel Needed Help.

Porridge, Dates and a Better Dinner.

Sometimes the Best Picture Is the One You Miss.

The Party Bus and the Boat.

Not the Last Time.

And the award goes to…

You notice it when it disappears.

Tomorrow morning, nobody has shoes.

Please protect the coffee.

From three television channels to everything.

Ding-dong. Ouch.

Please explain the cassette to the year 3026.

Six Hundred Kilometres and Raclette for Breakfast.

The Wrong Queue.

Queue Surveillance.

Five Minutes at the End of a Very Long Wait.

The Celine Dion Ticket.

The Nightmare Before the Safari.

The Applicants.

The Council.

The Envelopes.

Press.

The Eyes.

One More Button.

Join us next week:

See what the next issue brings.