Lifestyle topics
The service industry was meant to be the “engine” of our economy. Whatever happened? Where did “service” disappear to? Supermarkets now want to charge you for service but get you to do the work yourself. You pick from the shelves and often bag the goods yourself. One member of staff supervises six or eight …
The theory that learning a foreign language has a protective effect on the brain has been boosted by a new study showing that people with multiple sclerosis (MS) experience less cognitive decline if they are bilingual. When a team at the University of Reading compared the mental abilities of bilingual and monolingual MS patients, they …
True ignorance is not the absence of knowledge, but the refusal to acquire it. Karl Popper, quoted in The Times Believe those who seek the truth; doubt those who find it.” Andre Gide (The Week 21 March 2020)
Question to agony aunt: “When giving negative feedback, is it better to start with the admonition and end with a compliment, or vice versa?”. (Gillian Peall, Macclesfield, Cheshire, UK) First answer: “Definitely give the compliment first. Knowing you have done something right may make the negative feedback more acceptable. Giving the bad news first can …
Continue reading ‘Offer a compliment, or give the bad news first?’ »
The plight of impoverished children anywhere should evoke sympathy, exemplifying as it does the suffering of the innocent and defenseless. Poverty among children in a wealthy country like the United States, however, should provoke. shame and outrage as well. Unlike poor countries (sometimes run by leaders more interested in lining their pockets than anything else), …
IAmericans’ lives are getting shorter. A new study has shown that life expectancy in the US, which rose steadily over the past half-century, has now fallen for three years running. The downward trend is the result of an alarming hike in mortality rates among those between the ages of 25 and 64. Americans in the …
Fifty per cent of the UK’s 10-year-olds owned a smartphone in 2019, according to a report by media regulator Ofcom. The number of young phone owners doubled between the ages of nine and 10, which Ofcom dubbed “the age of digital independence”. In addition, 24% of 3 and 4-year-olds had their own tablet, and 15% …
Continue reading ‘Half of UK 10-year-olds own a smartphone’ »
Question: ”I’m in my late 20s and I’m feeling more and more constrained by rules. From the endless signs that tell me to ‘stand on the right’ on escalators or ‘skateboarding forbidden’ in public places to all those unwritten societal rules such as the expectation that I should settle down, buy a house and have …
Almost 90% of people are biased against women, according to a new index that highlights the “shocking” global backlash to gender equality. The UN Development Programme (UNDP), which produced the findings, is calling on governments to introduce legislation and policies that address engrained prejudice. Despite progress in closing the equality gap, 91% of men and …
“I have recently fallen head over heels in love, but my cynical friends keep telling me that love is nothing but a cocktail of pheromones, dopamine and oxytocin, and that these wear off after a couple of years. The thought scares me, it makes the whole thing seem meaningless. Is love really just brain chemistry?” …
A large proportion of global population of 7.7 billion people is aged 24 or under. In Africa 41% are 15 or under, The Asian and Latin American figures it is 25%. Most of these young people will reach adulthood scarred by recession, civil war, falling living standards and austerity programs. Many current protests center around …
Billionaire Lloyd Blankfein joked as he announced his 2018 retirement as Goldman Sachs CEO that he looked forward to “unrestrained tweeting” in the years ahead. But the Twitter life apparently bored the billionaire, and his twitter account went silent for three months — until last week when Senator Bernie Sanders won the New Hampshire primary. …
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Over the summer the U.S government announced a new plan to end the food stamp program for thousands of low-income people, mostly immigrants.The new rule will tighten work requirements for able-bodied adults with no dependents, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said in a call with reporters. Under current law, able-bodied adults without dependents can receive …
Continue reading ‘688,000 people will no longer receive food stamps’ »
Newsletter note from a neighbor who moved to the US from China: “Hi neighbors, I know lots of you have heard of the recycling crisis in the US since China’s ban on importing foreign garbage in 2017. There are many articles about this issue, such as this one from the guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jun/21/us-plastic-recycling-landfills. It says: “As …
The US is not the only country where widening inequality is a disturbing trend. In the UK a recent Office for National Statistics report estimates that the top 10% of earners now own 45% of Britain’s £14trn total pot, while the bottom 30% own less than 2%. (The Week, 28 December 2019). If I …
“Home ownership is in steep decline, but don’t let it bother you, declared The Economist recently: the British need to get over their property “fetish”. I beg to disagree, says Liam Halligan. The fact that well over half of 25- to 34-year-olds today are locked out of the property market should concern us deeply. Only …
Although most of us gripe about service headaches to family and friends we seldom—studies show it’s as few as one out of four—complain to the company that dropped the ball. And many consumers who do complain to businesses do so ineffectively. A lot of consumers remain silent because it seems like too much trouble to …
Contrary to impressions outside the US America is a very expensive country. Mobile phones, for instance cost on average $100 a month, twice the cost of a similar service in France and Germany. Healthcare costs are huge. I recently spent ten minutes with a foot doctor for correcting an in-growing toenail, billed at $473.00 Pharmaceuticals …
Continue reading ‘Monopolies again, and why they are un-Epicurean’ »
The Japanese may have devised the idea; I refer to their crass ”innovation” Where products have barely the life of a year. Oh, the speed from launch to truncation! Every few months a new model is born – – New colour, new size, or new speed – – And the prospect of spares for a …
Boeing timeline: 29 October 2018: A 737 Max 8 operated by Lion Air crashes after leaving Indonesia, killing all 189 people on board 31 January 2019: Boeing reports an order of 5,011 Max planes from 79 customers 10 March 2019: A 737 Max 8 operated by Ethiopian Airlines crashes, killing all 157 people on board …
Continue reading ‘Boeing again: crashes and lousy management’ »
Dennis Muilenburg, Boeing boss fired last month, will receive equity and pension benefits worth $62m. This was the head of a company whose staff have quietly told the Press that management are incompetent and interested mainly in maintaining profits and share price. 346 Passengers are dead because the company sold planes whose electronics were faulty, …
Yes, I know! You have better things to do than think about them. But…… Some years ago my wife and I were walking down a London street when we encountered a group of photographer on the sidewalk, looking expectantly across the street at a block of flats. “Who are you waiting for?” I asked one …
”If you thought “the thought police” existed only in Orwellian fiction, then you haven’t been following a case in the U.K High Court. Douglas Murray Miller, a former constable, had posted a few ribald tweets on the subject of transgender self-identification. (Sample: “I was assigned mammal at birth, but my orientation is fish. Don’t mis-species me”.) …
Europe has acquired a noxious American habit : the Sports Utility Vehicle. A third of new cars sold in Europe are now SUVs. The parents of school kids in my street in east London all seem to have a Nissan Qashqai or BMW X5 parked outside their house. Once, when small cars filled our roads, …
We may think we’ll be here forever – but Robert Harris reckons our civilisation is probably doomed. “The Roman Republic, Cicero, those people were just as clever,” says the novelist, 62. “The things that their society produced – its oratory, its philosophy, its painting – were as sophisticated as anything we do. But still …
