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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 1. How to get the support you need. The old adage "It's not what you know, it's who you know" is truer than ever in today's organisations. But how do you know whom to know? READ MORE >> 2. MPs and peers do worse than 10-year-olds in Sats. Several politicians visiting a school in London failed to pass an Sats test taken by ten-year-olds. More than a dozen MPs and peers took Sats tests, on the understanding that their individual scores would not be revealed. Fewer than half reached the expected standard in maths; and only half reached the expected level for spelling, punctuation and grammar. The Guardian 3. High street is not dead, just changing. What legacy did two years of Covid lockdowns leave on British high streets? Analysis has found that people are now more interested in service-based offerings than in retail outlets, including places to eat and drink, beauty salons and tattoo parlours. There were 9,300 fewer retail outlets in March 2022 than in March 2020, with department stores and banks falling most markedly as customers went online. In Scotland, the number of beauty service providers and pubs rose and fast-food outlets grew by 12%, while the number of clothing shops fell by 8%. BBC 4. Concern over bank rules. The government is set to announce a major overhaul of financial regulation. Ministers are expected to relax rules on banks introduced after the financial crisis in 2008 when some banks faced collapse. The plans are being described as a second Big Bang - a “reference to the deregulation of financial services by Margaret Thatcher’s government in 1986”, but we “risk forgetting the lessons of the financial crisis when excessive risk taking ended in billions in bailouts and a decade of stagnating productivity”. BBC 5. Poll shows support for Union. A new poll has found that twice as many Northern Irish voters would choose to remain part of the UK rather than a united Ireland in a reunification referendum. The poll is a blow to Sinn Fein with the DUP saying it showed a “strong majority in Northern Ireland support the Union”. Voters in the Republic of Ireland would support unification by a majority of four to one, the Ipsos poll for the Irish Times found, but reunification can only happen if it is backed by a majority in both Northern Ireland and the Republic in two separate border polls. The Telegraph 6. Cancer breakthrough is hailed. A 13-year-old girl’s incurable cancer has been cleared from her body in the first use of a revolutionary form of medicine. After all other treatments for the girl’s leukaemia had failed, medics at Great Ormond Street Hospital used “base editing” to build her a new living drug. Base editing allows scientists to “zoom to a precise part of the genetic code” and then “alter the molecular structure of just one base, converting it into another and changing the genetic instructions”. BBC 7. Pantone’s 2023 colour of the year. Pantone, which has been anointing a Colour of the Year for two decades, just revealed its de rigueur shade for 2023: Viva Magenta 18-750 [see Weekly Wisdom above]. Billed as both “a nuanced crimson” and “a carmine red,” next year’s "it" shade was inspired by cochineal - a dye made from crushed bugs that once inspired vegans to boycott Starbucks. Though Viva Magenta was selected by human trend forecasters, an A.I. tool interpreted the colour and created a “magentaverse.” The “hybrid” shade could "go on to influence product development and purchasing decisions across multiple industries. NPR 8. Is Britain still a Christian country? Not according to the 2021 census. Data released last week shows that the proportion of people in England and Wales who describe themselves as Christian has now fallen below half (46%), down from 59% a decade ago, and 71% in 2001. A similar drop was reported in Scotland earlier this year (from 53% in 2011 to 33% now). King Charles has cast himself as a defender of all faiths. It helps that he is king alongside a Hindu prime minister and a Muslim mayor of London. The Financial Times 9. 19.4m UK viewers tune in to watch England exit World Cup. England's defeat to France in Qatar was watched by an average UK audience of 19.4 million viewers, TV figures showed. A peak five-minute audience of 21.31 million people tuned in to ITV (and +1) to watch the end of the World Cup 2022 quarter-final match on Saturday. England crashed out of the tournament after losing 2-1 to France. The five-minute peak of 21.31 million was the most-watched single channel TV moment of 2022 so far. BBC 10. The bottom line. There were 1.18 million rented homes in England last year in which the lead tenant was middle-aged (between 45 and 64), a rise of 70% since 2011. The number of households where the lead tenant was older than 65 rose almost 40%, to 382,000. The Telegraph |