Have you ever looked at something and thought, “Well, this is completely useless”—only to turn around a moment later, look at something else, and think, “This is absolute brilliance”? We live surrounded by logic that we rarely bother to question. Take our smart devices, for instance. We buy laptops, smart TVs, and phones that can…
Some inventions make life easier. Others simply take up space. And then there are the ones we use every day without really understanding them. Before our conversation even started, I had already used several inventions without thinking about them. My phone. My laptop. My coffee machine. The coffee machine is a good example. It is…
A TGV journey south, one name at a time At 13.37 on a Sunday afternoon, we left Strasbourg for Lyon.I was in coach 15, on the left-hand side, travelling backwards. This mattered more than it probably should have. I like looking out of train windows, and travelling backwards gives the curious sensation that the country…
The Human Bit, by Frank Peters. My mother-in-law lives in the UK. She is in her mid-eighties, not particularly healthy, and has meals delivered by a company called Parsley Box. It is a useful service. The meals arrive at the door, they can be stored, and they are easy to prepare. At her stage of…
When the weather becomes colder and colder, this is the kind of soup I want: rich lentils, slowly cooked beef, smoky bacon and sausage, fresh vegetables — and then, right at the end, that little surprise of vinegar and sweetness. This is not a light summer soup. For me, this belongs to the colder months,…
Created by Fruitloop, celebrated by The Mayor as we enter our end-of-working-week ritual. At Fruitloop University, dancing chickens, volcanic spa treatments, militant coconuts and a broom with helicopter ambitions lead me towards a rather human mystery: why we do the things we do, and why being different matters. There is a moment when the record…
Where the Questions Hide. In this issue, we dive headfirst into a simple, baffling question: Why do we do that? Sometimes we do strange things. We keep the empty ice cream tin just in case. We leave WhatsApp messages unanswered, panic over Sunday night speeches, and let junk drawers collect dust until they refuse to…
Rosie in Sao Paulo, Fruitloop in South Africa, The Mayor in Cleebourg. Monica, who found the fjords of Norway more attractive, sent her regards. From mystery cables and faded receipts to old radios, corks and instruction manuals, one ordinary drawer reveals a surprisingly human reason why we struggle to let things go. There is a…
Sent to you this week by Martin, from Kassel in Germany. Probably one of the ugliest buildings in Kassel hosted an exhibition of Leonardo da Vinci’s machines. Entrance was free—I had to go. I could get a glimpse of his inventive streak at close quarters. These were replicas, not the orignals. But still, the fusion…
