EDITION 765
13 MAY 2019

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 talk like TED.The 35-year-old ideas conference, which took place in Vancouver last month, has in many ways set the standard for public speaking in the professional world. But what specifically makes a TED talk work? [MORE]
    
2. Brexit Party overtakes the Tories in two opinion polls.The Brexit Party has overtaken the Tories in national polling, with Nigel Farage predicted to win 49 seats in a general election. Labour would become the largest party by a margin of 137 seats, allowing Jeremy Corbyn to lead a minority government. A separate study found that Farage’s party had soared to a level higher than for the two main parties put together. The Times
    
3. The young will pay for surge in public sector pensioners.The number of public sector’s pensioners retiring on incomes of more than £100,000 has more than tripled in the past seven years, according to a charity. The Intergenerational Foundation said the news illustrates a growing divide between the generations. “Younger workers will not receive such generous pensions, yet they are expected to keep paying for these pensions,” said a spokesman. The Guardian
    
4. Tusk says Britain has 30% chance of staying in EU.The chances of the UK staying in the EU are as high as 30%, claims the president of the European Council. Donald Tusk said the British public had only truly debated Brexit after the 2016 referendum and it was likely the result could be reversed in a second referendum. He added: “The referendum was at the worst possible moment, it is the result of a wrong political calculation.” Daily Mail
    
5. Number of GPs falling across the UK.The NHS is experiencing the first sustained fall in the number of GPs in the UK for 50 years, new analysis by health charity the Nuffield Trust shows. There are now around 60 general practitioners per 100,000 people, compared with about 65 in 2014. The drop is the most significant since the late 1960s and comes as demand on GPs increases. BBC
    
6. Social media doesn’t make teens unhappy.Widespread fears over the harmful effects on teenagers of spending hours on social media could be misplaced, according to the biggest study yet on the issue. Oxford University researchers who tracked 12,000 British teens over an eight-year period found that use of sites such as Facebook had a “trivial” impact on how content adolescents were with their lives. The Independent
    
7. Low-stakes friendships can go a very long way.An occasional chat with a neighbour, your hairdresser or bartender may feel like a minor pleasantry, but such experiences can pay enormous dividends. Such experiences can increase your life satisfaction, happiness and help make you more empathetic, according to researchers. Plus, interacting with those outside your typical network exposes you to new ideas, the kind that can lead to new opportunities. How much time does it take to build such casual alliances? About 30 hours. With enough 20-minute chats over time, you’ll get there. LinkedIn
    
8. The Channel Tunnel celebrated its 25th anniversarylast week. The railway line connecting the UK to France has been used by almost 430 million passengers and 86 million vehicles since Queen Elizabeth II and then French president François Mitterrand cut the official ribbon on May 6, 1994. Centuries in the making, the tunnel has become “the most competitive method of transport for traded goods,” according to a report from EY, worth around £119bn each year to the UK and European economies. Daily Express
    
9. English clubs make European football history.Football's Europa League semi-finals might not quite have lived up to the drama that accompanied Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur's progression to the Champions League final earlier in the week, but wins for Arsenal and Chelsea - the latter via a penalty shootout - nonetheless made history. It means that for the first time all four finalists in Europe's two major competitions will come from the same nation. BBC
    
10. The bottom line. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have signalled their readiness to forget royal tradition by naming Meghan’s new son Archie Harrison – and have confounded the bookies in the process. The name Archie, originally short for Archibald, was a 100-1 outsider in the betting. The Palace noted that the baby’s middle name literally means “Harry’s son”. Metro