Always Finding The Cloud In The Silver Lining...

During the past few years, we have witnessed a revolution in working life. When home working became more common during the Covid pandemic, many assumed this would be a temporary change. Yet according to data released this week by the Office for National Statistics, between September 2022 and January 2023, 16% of the workforce still worked solely from home, while 28% were hybrid workers who split their time between home and the office.

Hurrah, the 'Guardian' has found a success st...

Oh, wait! 

But what the data makes starkly clear is that the working from home revolution has not touched everyone’s lives equally. The ONS survey found that workers on salaries of more than £50,000, people with degrees, Londoners and white people had the highest rates of home or hybrid working – and were less likely to be required to go in every day.

So..? Isn't that a function of the jobs they tend to be concentrated in, more than anything else? 

There are many people working in the service, care and transportation sectors, for instance, who can’t work from home at all.

Well, yes.  

Overall, though, this revolution could change work and our lives outside work for the better – but to do so, it must be accessible to more than just the highest paid, most privileged workers.

How do you plan to allow a black Northern plumber to work from home to balance it out then? 

Is The Answer ''Because They Are Always Up In Arms Over Something'..?

It is, isn't it? But actually, this time, it appears to be beetles.

Hold on, isn’t all fruit vegan? Don’t be a plum. Of course it isn’t. Have you not heard of the female lac bug, who thrives in the forests of India and south-east Asia?

I rarely think of anything else. What’s she got to do with the story? She secretes a resin that is used to make shellac, which helps make lemons shiny.

But surely the lemon juice inside is still wholesomely vegan? Possibly, but lemon rind – which, as you know, is essential for perking up vegan risotto and other cruelty-free meals – isn’t, when it contains shellac.

So...eat something else? Or wash the lemons? 

What does Guardian food writer and anti-poverty campaigner Jack Monroe have to say about this? She noticed that a Pizza Express menu said a glass of Coke would only be vegan if served without lemon. “Wtf,” she tweeted, understandably. The restaurant replied that the wax on its lemons might contain shellac.

So vegans, you bleated about getting any 'contaminants' fully documented on menus and now you see all the things you can't eat, are you satisfied? 

Reader, you know they aren't, don't you?