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The Brave Seeds Library
All Brave Seeds
Classic Novelty...
It's Paris Design Week. It's one of those things that I tend to go to as a bag carrier, rather than a fan. My taste in architecture, art, culture and cutlery looks mostly backwards rather than ahead, towards a futuristic, cutting edge... I don't like reinvention for its own sake. For me, there is a huge difference between design and innovation. In fact the very word design should be legally obliged to be accompanied at all times, by a qualifying adjective. Interior design, gr
John Duffield
6 min read
The Coal-man.
My father was recently telling Vanessa about how, as a pre-war child in middle England, he would see the Coal-man every week, drawing up in a heavy wooden cart, pulled by an enormous Shire horse. Every Tuesday, he delivered sooty brown sacks, full of fist-sized lumps of coal for the fireplaces, and bags of blackened coke, for the cooking stove. She sat listening to him and thought how marvelous it all sounded. A variety of household economies, all arriving at the front door b
John Duffield
7 min read
Avoidance in Better Clothes..
There's a quote going round at the moment. It's one of those intellectualised aphorisms you see plastered all over Facebook and Instagram, generally superimposed over bucolic scenery - a lake at sunrise, or a woman sitting by her imaginary fireside, in expensive knitwear. You've probably seen it. “Nobody apologizes any more. They just disappear and call it moving on. Accountability died somewhere between pride and ego.” And then comes the line that actually does all the heavy
John Duffield
6 min read
The Corner Shop.
I walked past a shop in Paris the other day that appeared to sell almost nothing but mustard. Not mostly mustard. Not mustard alongside the olive oil, vinegar, biscuits and emergency tins of tomatoes. Mustard seemed to be the actual business plan. A few streets later there was a cheese shop devoted, of course, entirely to cheese. All refrigerated and proper. A slaboratory of refrigerated ingots, in various shades of yellow. Then one selling just brushes - brooms and dust-bust
John Duffield
7 min read
Country Mice in Paris..
Some time ago, in these very pages, I did a great deal of confident theorising about mice. You may remember it. If not, it's in my book Postcards from the Platform's Edge - so go order a copy, if you haven't already. There was a tear-down property for sale in L.A. and a Château for purchase in France, and somewhere between the two I set out my thesis: that the Town Mouse looks at the Château and sees lonely isolation, while the Country Mouse looks at the city condo' and sees
John Duffield
5 min read
Meet me at Wagram...
I arranged to meet Vanessa at Wagram. I said it without thinking, the way you'd say "meet me at the chemist" or on the corner, or by the tree. What I actually meant, more precisely, was "Meet me at L'Étoile 1903" - which is an old café-brasserie at the bottom of the Avenue de Wagram, almost in the shadow of the Arc de Triomphe. We both know it well, and the coffee is excellent. "OK, I'll see you at Wagram"... It was only an hour later, sitting, waiting with my excellent coffe
John Duffield
5 min read
One Degree at a Time - Lasting Change
If you have ever felt yourself in the middle of a big shift, you are not alone. Almost everyone I have spoken to lately, including all of us here at Platform 13, has felt some degree of change moving through their lives. Some of it is planned, and some of it arrives uninvited, like an unwanted house guest. The reasons vary, and it isn't really about astrological charts or timing. It is simpler than that: change is always upon us. Much like the waves, changes come and go, cons
Vanessa Grant
5 min read
Just one more... French Pâtisserie
There are few cake-related lies told with greater sincerity than “No thanks, I couldn't possibly...." Particularly when the last chocolate éclair on the plate is in play. The French pâtisserie counter is one of those rare places where adulthood briefly, but totally, fails me. We may have a mortgage, a pension and strongly held opinions about climate change, but put me - a grown-ass man - in front of twelve pretty cakes behind a pane of cough-proof glass, and I become eight ye
John Duffield
4 min read
"Here's what we do know"...
I hear that phrase on the news quite a bit, every time there is a live report from the scene of something dramatic or tragic. "Here's what we do know.".. It's the baseline of established truth. The poured concrete on which further clarification can stand. It might not be much, but it is solid and reliable and certainly good enough for most of us, given the circumstances. No educated guesswork. No stabs in the dark, no taking a shot at anything. Which brings me, as neatly as
John Duffield
5 min read
The Final Re-set.
Apparently, this is the year of the Great Reset. I keep hearing it. The dotty interpreters of Tarot cards and astrologers I tend to fall asleep to, seem terribly excited about this particular lap around the sun, with various celestial bodies changing signs, cycles ending, cosmic nodes re-aligning and energies shifting with the annual planetary diaspora. These are all apparently conspiring to encourage us to reconsider our relationships, careers, purpose and whether or not we
John Duffield
8 min read
Serial Discontent
It is too hot. I know this because I have just returned from the Boulangerie, where everyone was queueing calmly, in the one-time weirdness of being in complete agreement. They were of one mind, chat-jacking each other's stories of "le chaleur" and when in the name of God's holy doughnuts, it will end. Today, the mercury will nudge 39 degrees Celsius - or 102.2 on the Farenheit scale - if you happen to live in a country that has put a man on the moon. Silly that we still use
John Duffield
5 min read
Winging It.
Somewhere around fifty million years ago - give or take the casual margin of error with which only part-time Paleontologists and sloppy, tropical architects appear comfortable - a small semi-feathered dinosaur looked down at its short little arms and thought... Absolutely nothing at all. It didn't ponder for a second, and ask "are those arms still useful?" Nor was there a debate around them falling off to make room for wings, to serve the higher purpose of flight. It did not
John Duffield
6 min read
Nostalgia - What lives down Memory Lane
Nostalgia. It's a beautiful soft, sepia-coloured word, isn't it? Comforting, cushioned and universally understood, although in terms of nuance, it punches way above its weight. Unlike terms that refer directly to longing, or regret, nostalgia isn't really about wanting to return to the past, or somehow have the past return to us, but much more subtly, it suggests a profound and meaningful gratitude that the past actually happened at all. Nostalgia has inherently soft edges. I
John Duffield
4 min read
When concern becomes control
Somewhere, right now, a figure is sat at a kitchen table before dawn. The house is silent, the coffee beside them is a warm version of hot, and the only light is thrown by the open window of a glowing laptop. The rest of the house is fast asleep... I imagine them being tired. Not because they manage their time poorly, or enjoy working silly hours, but because this piece of personal sacrifice, was the only way to protect something else. Perhaps they promised the afternoon to h
John Duffield
6 min read
"La Crémerie" - It's all about the cold..
There was a particular little shop that used to exist on almost every French street corner, and although most of them have quietly disappeared, their ghosts remain if you are lucky enough to spot one. You will be walking through some entirely ordinary town or village, when your eye drifts upwards and catches an old façade, it's painted signage faded and faint, but sure enough - perhaps above a mobile phone shop, an estate agent or some other high street blandness, you will se
John Duffield
5 min read
When Food Leaves Home
An exhausted pizzaiolo, weeps softly in the dim light of a kitchen corner. Floury head, in floury hands. The culinary heritage that was boyhood, manhood and his very lifeblood, just died on the table... ...Rest in Pizza. Gone now, but ever-remembered - the classic beauty of what he called pizza - the disciplined, ascetic stretch of dough, frugally flavoured with a thick slap of tomato salsa, hand-torn mozzarella; perhaps a lean slice of local ham and a leaf or two of basil
John Duffield
5 min read
Chauffeur - All about the heat.
There is a recognisable sort of chap standing beside a very clean car outside a top hotel. He wears two principal things - a peaked cap, and an expression of professional, unbothered serenity. He opens the door. He inclines his head. He says "Sir" and "Madam" with the respectful deference of a fellow who has said it many times. And when you have spread yourself across the leather interiors, he glides you smoothly across town without, it seems, doing anything so vulgar as maki
John Duffield
4 min read
Closure... the knock that never comes.
Closure. It's one of those words that sounds like it should solve something. Firm, clinical, faintly medical - the sort of word a doctor might use, or an estate agent. Somewhere between stitches and stitch-ups...It has the satisfying sound of a door shutting properly, seat belt fastened, an attaché case - closed and clicked. We reach for it constantly and perhaps a bit unconsciously. "I just need some closure..." "She never got closure..." "It gave me the closure I was lookin
John Duffield
5 min read
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