By Sylvie, France. From polishing shoes on Saturdays to reminding grown daughters to clean their rooms, some household rules disappear. Others simply change shape. When I was a child, Saturday meant cleaning. We lived on a farm, so shoes in the house were not a big problem. There was dirt anyway. But every Saturday, the…
By Manfred and Martin, both in Germany. The Swimming Club investigates one of everyday life’s stranger mysteries: why ten people waiting for the same thing can produce perfect order, quiet fury, or an entirely new system of civilisation. A queue ought to be one of the simplest human inventions. Somebody is first. Somebody is last….
A Brida Table starts with a question, but nobody knows where the conversation will end. A small international group meets in English, with a host who keeps the conversation open and gives everyone room to bring something of their own life to the table. No lesson to complete. No right answer to find. Just people…
The Human Bit, by Frank Peters It began with a sales email. Someone had apparently visited the Brida website and noticed the language services we offered. Only we don’t really offer language services. Not in the way the email imagined them. The message was personal enough to look personal, but not quite personal enough to…
Staring from the surface of the moon as the spaceship leaves without me. It was supposed to be a standard, productive Monday. We had just come off a lovely weekend—the kind filled with places to go, things to do, and people to see. I had my to-do list ready. The Mayor had his. We had…
HUSBAND: “You seem happier.” ME: “Thanks, I uploaded our whole argument into ChatGPT and it said I was right.” My husband is currently sitting on the couch watching rugby while I cook, clean, organise the house, and deal with everything that needs dealing with. And this man’s biggest responsibility today is apparently keeping the couch…
By Ismar, in Brazil. I have always believed there is a line between being interested in another person and entering a part of their life that does not belong to you. Then I started dancing, met new people and discovered that sometimes curiosity opens a door rather than crosses a boundary. When I was a…
By our editor, Janita Le Grange. It is a simple question, but if I’m being completely honest, I ask it of myself at least half a dozen times a day. Take WhatsApp, for instance. I will open a message, read it carefully, compose a brilliant, thoughtful response entirely in my head, and then walk away….
By Fruitloop and The Mayor, and it’s ok if you don’t understand. We don’t either. Or? At Fruitloop University’s magical supermarket, a dragon, an alien, a mermaid and a nervous garden gnome discover that the difficult part is rarely finding the answer. It is having the nerve to ask the question. There are supermarkets, and…
The mystery began with a button. It sat beside the lift, perfectly ordinary, slightly scratched, with a small red light in the middle. Nobody pressed it. People pressed the buttons above and below. Once, a child reached towards it and his mother quietly moved his hand away. There was no warning. No sign. Nothing to…
