EDITION 735
15 OCTOBER 2018

As another week slips by, here are 10 things which caught my attention and may have escaped yours. This newsletter is sent to 50,000+ subscribers each Monday. Please share on social media and forward to your colleagues and friends so they can subscribe, learn and engage. I'd be very grateful if you did.

1. How to recognise when you’re being too stubborn. Being stubborn isn’t always a bad thing. But if you’re standing your ground for the wrong reasons (like if you hate to be wrong), you’ll do more damage than good. Since it’s hard to recognise stubbornness in yourself, look out for these signs that you’re being inflexible: [MORE]
    
2. The etymology of a Pig in a Poke. David Davis the former Brexit Secretary, warned that failure to get agreement on a final trade deal would leave Britain paying £39bn to Brussels for “a pig in a poke”. The idiom pig in a poke refers to a confidence trick originating in the Late Middle Ages, when meat was scarce, but cats and dogs were not. The scheme entailed the sale of a suckling pig in a poke. The bag, or poke, sold unopened, would actually contain a cat or dog, which was substantially less valuable as a source of meat. Editor
    
3. 40% cannot afford to buy a home. Around 40% of young adults in the UK cannot afford to buy the cheapest homes in their area, even if they can manage to put up a 10% deposit, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) says. The IFS says house prices in England have risen 173% in 20 years but the average salary for 25- to 34-year-olds has only risen 19% in the same time. The Independent
    
4. People know 5,000 faces, study finds. Psychologists at the University of York have concluded that the average person knows about 5,000 different faces – though some can recognise as few as 1,000 and others as many as 10,000. Known faces include celebrities and family members. The team say theirs was the first experiment to try to establish how many faces we recognise. The Guardian
    
5. One third of under-25s don’t drink alcohol. A survey of almost 10,000 people aged 16 to 24 suggests that almost one third of young Britons do not drink alcohol, while the proportion who have never tried it at all has almost doubled in the past 10 years to 17%. The researchers say the decline in drinking is one of the most rapid social trends of recent years and reaches across the UK. The Times
    
6. The average wage may not double for a century. The average wage of workers in Britain will take almost a century to double as the country counts the cost of economic stagnation, experts are warning. According to a new report from the Resolution Foundation think tank, if recent levels of pay growth continue, it will be 2099 by the time real earnings double - much later than was forecast prior to the 2008 financial crisis. Metro
    
7. First suicide prevention minister appointed. For the first time, the UK has a minister for suicide prevention. Jackie Doyle-Price will co-ordinate a national effort to end the stigma which stops people with suicidal thoughts from seeking help. Theresa May made the announcement to mark World Mental Health Day. Some 4,500 people take their own lives in England every year. BBC
    
8. World’s longest flight to resume at 19 hours. The world has a new longest scheduled flight after Singapore Airlines restarted its 19-hour, 9,000-mile Singapore to New York service, five years after it was deemed too expensive. Last year, Qatar Airlines introduced a non-stop 17.5-hour Auckland to Doha service. In August Qantas began a Perth to London flight at 17 hours. The Independent
    
9. What is flexitarianism? Scientists are urging consumers to cut down on the amount of meat they eat amid growing fears about the environmental effects of global food production. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, an estimated 14.5% of human-induced global greenhouse gas emissions are produced by livestock. The Guardian
    
10. The bottom line. The annual cost of fraud to the NHS amounts to £1.29bn, according to the annual report from the health service’s anti-corruption watchdog, the NHS Counter Fraud Authority. The money would be enough to pay for 40,000 nurses or buy 5,000 ambulances. Fraud by dentists adds up to £126m, while the figure is £79m for opticians. Daily Mail