EDITION 932
15 AUGUST 2022

There is no escaping it: too much news is bad for you. It should come with a government health warning: “This intellectual diet is fine taken in small doses, and preferably in weekly instalments, via a well-balanced newsletter, such as 10 things from William Montgomery."

So, as another week slips by, here are 10 things which caught my attention and may have escaped yours. Please feel free to share on social media and forward to your colleagues and friends so they can also subscribe, learn and engage. I would be very grateful if you did.

William Montgomery
Editor and CEO of TEN

1. How to get the pay rise you want. As prices spiral, wages are struggling to keep up. Asking for a pay rise can be tough. We all feel undervalued sometimes, but before you go in with all guns blazing, take the time to work out how your salary really ranks. That way, you will be cool, calm and collected in the meeting – and armed with the facts you need to make your case. READ MORE >>

2. The cost-of-living crisis. Rising energy and food costs, driven largely by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, prompted a bleak forecast from the Bank of England last week. It warned that Britain was set to fall into a year-long recession this autumn, during which households would suffer the biggest squeeze on living standards since comparable records began. Unveiling a half-percentage-point interest rate rise to 1.75% – the biggest hike in 27 years – the Bank predicted that inflation would hit a 42-year high of 13.3% in October, up from 9.4% today. Daily Express

3. Water leaks double during heatwave. The number of leaks detected by some water suppliers has more than doubled since the start of the heatwave, as the drought continues to hit UK supplies. Firms have said the earth drying out has caused damage to underground pipes, putting additional strain on an already creaking water system. And the Environment Agency has warned that the country's infrastructure needs upgrading, or Britain faces the prospect of water shortages in the next 25 years. Meanwhile water companies have paid £3 billion in dividends this year to shareholders and have debts of more than £60 billion, with interest bills alone ballooning by nearly £1 billion last year. The Daily Mail

4. Working from home does damage your mental health. Working days that bleed into the evening. Endless Zoom meetings and passive-aggressive emails. Noisy neighbours, children, chores and walking the dog. The delights of working from home will no doubt be familiar to many in post-lockdown Britain. Prior to the pandemic, only one in eight of us were home-workers, and in many cases this was only some of the time. In what has been the biggest gear shift in employment for decades, today just under half of Britain’s working population – about 13.4 million – have swapped the office to work from their living rooms, kitchens and home studies. The Daily Mail

5. Wave goodbye to Sunday anxiety. If your Sundays are filled with dread about the coming week, you could be feeling Sunday anxiety. There could be many reasons to feel this way, but you don’t have to waste an entire day off worrying about the future. Here’s how: [1] Finish all your tasks before the weekend. [2] Plan events you can look forward to in the coming week. [3] Jot down your worries as this can help you resolve the issues. Editor

6. Your dream remote work location. As the ability to work remotely has become more commonplace, many are choosing to take their office further afield, whether a different city or an entirely different continent. The summer has also seen many extend their holidays, adding on remote workdays to make the most of a new location. Where would you like to set up your home office? Choose from our list of the 10 best cities for remote work in the world, or simply choose your own location and tell us why. Share your dream work destination in our latest poll. VOTE HERE >>

7. Thinking can be as tiring as manual work. Experts believe they have discovered why a long, hard day of thinking can feel as exhausting as a day of manual labour. A new study has found that people feel tired after intense mental work because it causes potentially toxic by-products to build up in the prefrontal cortex part of the brain. This self-poisoning process makes continuing to think very difficult, and manifests as fatigue, tiredness and difficulty in making decisions, as the body and mind both need a break to excrete the toxins. Current Biology

8. 'Challenging’ books removed by unis. Universities are removing books from reading lists to protect students from “challenging” content. The 2017 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Underground Railroad, by Colson Whitehead, has been “removed permanently” from a course reading list at Essex University because of concerns about graphic depictions of slavery. The play Miss Julie, by August Strindberg, has been withdrawn by Sussex University because it includes discussion of suicide. The Times

9. Coke’s newest flavour? Dreams. There’s cherry Coke, there’s vanilla Coke, and now there’s Dreamworld Coke. Coca-Cola’s newest limited-time flavor launches Aug. 15 and takes “inspiration from the Technicolor world of dreams.” It’s the latest Coca-Cola product to come with a QR code that leads customers to an augmented reality “music experience” that includes digital avatars and could be Coke’s way of testing the waters of the metaverse. Coke has previously launched similarly outlandish products like space-flavoured Starlight and pixel-flavoured Byte, which both offered online experiences. CNN

10. The bottom line. The UK's highest earners, many of which are concentrated in the City of London, have seen inflation-beating pay rises in 2022, while wages for the lowest-paid workers have "flatlined". That's according to research from the Centre for Economics and Business Research, which highlighted that the top 10% of earners saw annual pay growth of around 10% in recent months. However, the UK's lowest earners saw their pay increase by just 1%. iNews