A Duck, a Crown, and Big Human Questions
From Puns to Power: What Ordinary People Teach Us
The call opened the way these lunches often do: with the gentle chaos of geography, time zones, and people checking which “island” they’re currently on. Nathalie had just survived a long flight and was slowly re-entering the English-speaking world (a process that deserves its own recovery plan). Bruce arrived with his calm voice and big thoughts. Frank—“Mr. Mayor,” naturally—was already warming up the room with Christmas energy. And Janita, today’s host (also known as Fruitloop), appeared wearing a Christmas crown that instantly set the tone: slightly ridiculous, completely perfect.
Then came the unexpected guest star: Gaston the duck.
Not metaphorical. Not symbolic. A duck. With presence wearing a Christmas hat too. With attitude. With the kind of silent authority that makes you feel he might actually be running the meeting.
Somewhere between puns, pantomimes, and a brief cultural debate about whether humour survives translation (Frank’s wife says no; the group remains cautiously optimistic), Janita steered the conversation toward the theme of the day: ordinary people—the ones who aren’t famous, aren’t loud, aren’t “extraordinary” on paper, but somehow make life warmer just by being there.
And it landed. Softly. Like Christmas lights on a normal street.
Quiet wisdom, loud ocean
Janita asked Bruce when he first realised that true wisdom often arrives quietly. Bruce, being Bruce, took the scenic route—straight past people and into nature. For him, wisdom first came through the sea: that steady, humbling reminder that humans are not the biggest thing in the room (and, frankly, not the most destructive either). He wondered aloud whether modern urban life has made people less wise, even as it makes them more connected. It was one of those moments where the group didn’t rush to answer, because the question itself was doing good work.
Fitness as a kind of religion
Nathalie’s questions turned toward her father and the role of physical fitness—not as competition, but as balance. She described Sunday mornings of family sport: running, cycling, swimming… not to win, but to feel well. The word she reached for—carefully, thoughtfully—was something close to religion. Not in the strict sense, but in the steady sense: a ritual that keeps you grounded.
And then she said something very honest: it’s hard to point to a single moment that changed everything. It was more a life-shape than a life-event. The group nodded in that quiet way people do when they recognise truth.
Frank, of course, heard “fitness” and immediately translated it into a new business concept: the Marketing Walk™—walking for work, stopping to talk, then walking again, and calling it sport as long as you “walk fast between the two.” Nathalie generously offered: yes, it counts… if you power-walk the bits between meetings.
Mayorhood, responsibility, and the “ham in the sandwich”
Janita asked Frank whether an ordinary citizen’s story had stayed with him longer than expected. He couldn’t choose one (too many confidential conversations, too much trust involved), so he gave the bigger answer: that most people want the same things, but disagree—sometimes violently—about how to get there.
From there, the conversation slid into deeper territory: power, vulnerability, leadership, and what people don’t say in public but will say in private, if they trust you.
Frank described the weight of running a community—not quite social media, but close enough to carry responsibility. He talked about being the “slice of ham in the middle of two slices of bread,” seeing the same situation from multiple angles, holding information carefully, trying to decide when to act and when to leave something alone. It wasn’t dramatic. It was simply human. Which, in this group, is the highest category of truth.
Humble power (and Arsenal)
Bruce answered one of the day’s key prompts: tell us about someone powerful who stayed deeply humble. He spoke about Sir Peter Parker—approachable, grounded, and quietly connected to decisions at the scale of nations (including the Channel Tunnel). Bruce also remembered interviewing an Archbishop of Canterbury who spent most of his time talking about Arsenal Football Club, which delighted everyone because it reminded us of a core rule of life:
Even when someone is very important, they are still, somehow, just a person with opinions about football.
Frank added his own experience of spending time in a monastery-like setting and discovering that even monks watch football. The myth of “holier-than-thou” dissolved gently into something more real: ordinary people, in unusual uniforms, doing ordinary things.
Fruitloops, reality shows, and the one rule we all need
When the conversation shifted into the lighter “Fruitloop questions,” it didn’t become less meaningful—it just got funnier on the way.
- What would a reality show about ordinary people be called? Bruce suggested something along the lines of how to survive living nightmares—which sounds like a TV show and a self-help book and, unfortunately, some people’s Monday mornings.
- What rule would Natalie make to improve ordinary lives? She didn’t go for kimchi (though it received an honourable mention). Instead, she offered the most modern piece of wisdom of the day: leave your screen, open the door, go outside, and be in the world without technology for a while. Not forever. Just long enough to remember you have a body, a street, and a sky.
And just like that, “ordinary people” became less of a category and more of a practice.
A soft ending, not a neat conclusion
The lunch closed with plans for January: eight topics, everyone choosing what interests them, and Janita and Frank doing their usual quiet magic behind the scenes. Everyone wished each other Merry Christmas and a good break—warmly, properly, like people who’ve been meeting long enough to mean it.
Gaston the duck remained, as ever, unreadable.
And maybe that’s the point. Ordinary life doesn’t give tidy conclusions. It gives small moments: a crown on a screen, a Sunday run with your father, a powerful person telling a simple story, a mayor holding a community together with patience and confidentiality.
Maybe wisdom really does arrive quietly.
Sometimes it even waddles in upside down.
