Forty years ago today, on 5 September 1986, I left Varennes-sur-Allier, my village in rural France, with two suitcases and a plan that was only ever meant to last six months. Learn English, then get a job on a cruise…
Two messages landed this week that couldn’t have been more different, and both taught me something. The first: a company got in touch on LinkedIn with genuinely serious IP. Grade one licences, the kind that gets buyers who usually take…
Got headhunted this week. First time in a long time anyone’s tried to pull me somewhere else, and I won’t pretend it wasn’t flattering. When you’ve spent years building your own thing, you stop expecting the phone to ring like…
I turned 65 this week. My present was Covid, four days on the sofa instead of celebrating. Someone else picked up an unplanned windfall this week too. Unlike mine, theirs is worth having. The US Supreme Court struck down the…
My Airbnb host in Nuremberg just cancelled my booking for Toy Fair 2027. Booked a year out, gone, no explanation. Try finding anything similar for the same price now. You can’t. Old town, two minutes from the U-Bahn straight to…
Another theft at one of our shops last week. This time my wife Jovelyn did something I still can’t quite believe. She ran after the thief and got our goods back. Thank you, Jovelyn, not everyone would. Running retail shops…
Took a little time off last week and went to Hua Hin. Lots of beach walks early morning with Sarra, chasing seabirds and not catching a single one. But participating is just as fun. Seabirds chased: 34. Seabirds caught: 0.…
Prague International Toy Fair has been postponed to 2027. Again. I’ve lost count of how many times this show has been rescheduled. At some point a postponement isn’t news, it’s just confirmation of what everyone already suspected. Toy Sourcing International…
A magpie built her nest from twigs she’d gathered everywhere: a jay’s discarded ribbon, a squirrel’s forgotten thread, a sparrow’s clever weave copied stitch for stitch. She never invented a single pattern. She simply watched the forest, took what worked,…
Ça fait quarante ans que je vis hors de France. Parti en 1986, jamais vraiment revenu. Alors quand on me parle de « protection sociale des Français de l’étranger », j’écoute. Et ce que j’entends depuis des années sur la…