It doesn’t always come naturally, and for some it can be frightening, but you do need to learn how to stand up for yourself in the workplace, if you want to build your career and confidence. It is important if you want to get ahead at work that you are able to present your ideas and argue your corner. This ability is probably as important as having good ideas in the first place. If you can’t do it, your hard…
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With inflation in the UK currently running at around 12% and set to rise, with pay-rises a thing of the past, many people are questioning whether there is any point working at all. Unless you work for the NHS, in a supermarket, or as a driver, your job has little or no value to society. I don’t want to be a Deliveroo driver, I haven’t even got a moped. Advertising used to be great fun. In the 80s and 90s…
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Probably, almost definitely, but what use will it be? Is it any more than a smokescreen covering a slightly enhanced spell-checker? Probably not. Every week a new discovery is reported on AI. “Google fires engineer who contends its AI was sentient.” “Chess robot grabs and breaks finger of 7=year-old opponent.” “DeepMind’s protein-folding AI cracks biology’s biggest problem.” Policymakers have no idea what to make of AI and it’s hard for the rest of us to sort through all the headlines,…
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By far the UK government’s cleverest decision during the pandemic, was to align itself to the NHS. Their enfeebled battle cry was: “Stay home, protect the NHS, save lives.” By hiding behind the skirts of the sainted NHS, any attack on lockdown or its impositions, would be an attack on the heroes and heroines of the NHS, who were fighting to save our lives. Very clever strategy Dom; shame you completely screwed up later. The reason their unwavering support for…
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The US supreme court is helping to destroy our climate. But it was a much smaller decision, closer to home, that was the final straw for me ‘When I began work as an environmental journalist I never imagined we would one day confront what appears to be an ideological commitment to destroying life on Earth.’ It feels like the end game. In the US last week, the third perverse and highly partisan supreme court decision in a few days made…
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A couple of years ago I was admitted to hospital with severe abdominal pains. A polyp was found in my colon, cut out and although cancerous, has completely gone. I have a check-up every six months and all seems good. However, during the scans, a fatty lump, called an adrenal myelolipoma, about 5cm in size was discovered. These are usually benign, but that can only be ascertained if excised, but this is quite a tricky and possibly dangerous operation. My…
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Boris Johnson has just won a vote of confidence with 148 Conservative MPs voting for him and 211 opting to get rid of their major liability and election winner. To recap: ‘Piccaninnies, watermelon smiles, letter-boxes and tank-topped bumboys’. A few phrases with uncertain hyphens, but all unmistakably from the pen or mouth of our prime minister. The conservative MPs had to decide whether this Eton-educated toff, vicious hack and unashamed liar was fit to remain in office. When I lived…
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Massive food producers hold too much power – and the regulators scarcely understand what is happening. Sound familiar? For the past few years, scientists have been frantically sounding an alarm that governments refuse to hear: the global food system is beginning to look like the global financial system in the run-up to 2008. While financial collapse would have been devastating to human welfare, food system collapse doesn’t bear thinking about. Yet the evidence that something is going badly wrong has…
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The idea of office work being the ‘white-collar’ equivalent of clock-watching factory work is over. The pandemic and the digital revolution have shattered the relationship between work and location. After a post-lockdown surge, data is showing the ‘return to work’ has now reached a plateau. Tube travel into central London has steadied between 60 and 67% of pre-covid levels, with a significant rise only on Thursdays, favoured by the ‘three-day hybrids’. Law and finance firms are reporting offices at between…
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P&O have brilliantly demonstrated how not to sack your workforce. You simply cannot wake up in a bad mood and sack your entire workforce of 800 on Zoom. P&O now plan to replace them with Filipino crews who can also be paid well below minimum wage and treated badly. Previously known as The Peninsular and Oriental Steam Packet Company, P&O is now owned by DP World, a “logistics solutions” organisation based in Dubai. P&O Ferries sacked 800 workers last month,…
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