Column

By Frank Peters. Two trees share the light.Neither asks the other oneto move out of the way.

Lazy is such an ugly word. I prefer to call it selective participation. Some days I feel lazy, but not because I’ve given up on life—it’s simply because our weather decided to skip the fine print and throw us straight into a boiling hot summer. We are still in for a serious treat over the…

The Human Bit, by Frank Peters Nine letters. That was all. PINEAPPLE. I’ve been publishing a magazine for over six months now, and writing its name has never presented much of a challenge. Nine letters on a keyboard. A fraction of a second, perhaps a little longer if I’m having a bad day. Then, on…

The Human Bit, by Frank Peters. Fabrice had too many quinces. I had none. Shortly afterwards I had 102. I had never processed a quince in my life, so I did what millions of people now do when confronted with something they don’t know. I asked AI. Foody is my ChatGPT project folder for food….

By Janita Le Grange. “The harder you try to hide something, the more visible it becomes.” Thinking about this week’s issue of The Pineapple, I realized that “hidden in plain sight” takes on a whole new meaning inside a busy house. It’s the butter sitting quietly right behind the ketchup in the fridge. It’s the…

The Human Bit, by Frank Peters It is a wonderful question. Especially when it appears on page 19 of a 32-page form. The form belongs to my mother-in-law. She is 85. It is the British government’s AA1 claim form for Attendance Allowance, intended for people of State Pension age or over. Question 37 asks whether…

This morning I put a pineapple on my phone. Not an actual pineapple. That would have been inconvenient. A QR code, dressed up with the Pineapple logo and sitting on my home screen. The idea is simple. I meet somebody. We talk. Somewhere along the way they ask what I do, and I tell them…

By Janita Le Grange. 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…

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…

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…