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Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab resigned in practice if not entirely in spirit yesterday after a report into accusations of bullying found that he had been abrasive and intimidating towards staff at multiple government departments. Cary Cooper conducted a landmark study of workplace bullying in the UK, so I asked him what he thought about how this investigation had played out. From delays to denials, even after the findings were out, his analysis is damning.
Here he warns that the way this scandal has been handled would never have been allowed to happen in the private sector and that it
will discourage future whistleblowers from coming forward.
Our most read article this week addresses that very particular blind panic one experiences on holiday when trying to take out cash or pay by card. Confronted with a screen asking whether we’d like to pay in the local currency or our own, who among us has ever felt entirely certain which button to press? I know I am not one of those people, if they do indeed exist. But the truth is, picking the wrong currency can cost you dearly. So as summer approaches, let’s just all get on the same page about this one. The answer is … pay in the local currency. Always. Pay. In. The. Local. Currency. Write it down. Tattoo it on your inner arm. And read about why here.
“I’ve never seen such an accurate artistic depiction of how a woman’s tights sit on the crotch!” I declared slightly too loudly to my companion as we wandered starry eyed out of the glorious exhibition of painter Alice Neel’s work currently on in London’s Barbican Centre a few Saturdays ago. The tights in question are purple and sort of warped at an odd angle. You can see them for yourself in this article about Neel. I think the point is that, to anyone who
hasn’t endured a day spent hoisting up a pair of ageing hosiery, the painting probably looks badly done. But to those of us who have, it’s incredibly accurate and resonant. That’s a theme that is everywhere in Neel’s work:
representing people, experiences (and I guess crotches) that weren’t seen on gallery walls in her time. Barnaby Haran argues that she is truly a great artist who was not appreciated while she was alive but is perhaps now on the cusp of the posthumous recognition she deserves.
It’s Shakespeare’s birthday tomorrow and this year, we invite you to uncover the environmental ideas that permeate his work. Did you ever notice that Pericles deals with pan-European fishing disputes? That The Winter’s Tale dabbles in debates about the fur trade? And that The Tempest’s Caliban might be described as the original Swampie? There are also unexpected mathematical motifs to be found in his plays for anyone who knows where to look for them.
Also this week, how to avoid tick-borne encephalitis, what the arrival of soil did to our planet and why you really should have learned how to properly pronounce Bannau Brycheiniog ages ago.
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