For today’s update I thought I’d share a bit of enlightenment from my favourite news websites in the UK and beyond.
It’s not specifically finance and accounting related but, hey, these are exceptional times.
The first item that caught my eye today was a piece in the Guardian about the changing nature of work in these challenging times.
Aimless time
“Under very different conditions, we could imagine a period of life without work as the most precious of gifts – the chance to live at our own pace and rediscover the pleasures and possibilities of free, aimless time, writes psychoanalyst Josh Cohen.
“But this can only be the case when work ceases to be a matter of survival and when its loss doesn’t plague us with anxiety, depression and sleeplessness,” adds Josh, who is a professor of modern literary theory at Goldsmiths college, London.
“The virus, in other words, is throwing into stark relief an obvious yet suddenly treacherous fact of life today: we depend on work.”
Check out the full article here.
Bubonic plague
My next port of call is the New York Times. Author Annalee Newitz takes a look at how the UK handled the Bubonic plague.
She writes: “Perhaps the greatest chronicler of the Great Plague was Samuel Pepys, a well-connected English administrator and politician who kept a detailed personal diary during London’s darkest years.
“He reported stumbling across corpses in the street, and anxiously reading the weekly death tolls posted in public squares.
Public gatherings
“Charles II issued a formal order in 1666 that ordered a halt to all public gatherings, including funerals.
“Already, theatres had been shut down in London, and licensing curtailed for new pubs. Oxford and Cambridge closed.
Annalee (@Annaleen) is a contributing opinion writer and the author, most recently, of “The Future of Another Timeline.”
You can read the whole piece here
Finally, it’s that favourite subject of the moment…. homeworking. The Financial Times has done a great overview of what it all means.
Home working
It’s entitled “How is world’s great home working experiment going?”
“The coronavirus pandemic has triggered an experiment in mass remote working that is putting strain on resources, human and technological.
“It is taxing the physical and mental wellbeing of staff, and perhaps changing the way people work permanently.
“But it is also prompting ingenious solutions and workarounds to the difficulties of doing business at a distance and the more personal challenges of isolation, boredom and forced integration of home and work life.
Check out the article here.
I’ll be selecting and sharing my favourite articles on a regular basis as we all try to get through this situation the best we can. Stay safe, folks…
