The Productive Pessimist

This morning, LinkedIn was being very Monday, very LinkedIn, not very demure, not very mindful. A woman, whose profile suggested she works in recruitment, responded, quite aggressively, to a disabled man asking why companies were still  engaging in discrimination against disabled individuals with: "Because disability is a liability, it costs money, and businesses can't expect to run up their costs to an infinite degree whilst tiptoeing around every single need people could ever possibly have." This isn't an isolated thought.  It's not often said out loud in the UK - but it always has been elsewhere in the world, and it very much is being shouted from the rooftops of the USA. And it's not just recruiters and executive leadership; it's ordinary people, meaning that, even with the most inclusive, welcoming, accommodating leadership, disabled people will still be encountering hostile environments courtesy of the able-bodied people they have to work with  on th...

As soon as air travel began to become more affordable, Britain's small museums, and other smaller tourism attractions were in trouble. The problem was that, being British, those organisations didn't consider that they were  in trouble. Their entry fees were still a lot  cheaper than a plane ticket, and flying abroad was so much hassle , wasn't it? And besides, they were British.  You could have a conversation  with the lovely, British volunteers working in lovely, cosy, local British museums, you could enjoy the bracing British seaside, or the beautiful British countryside, whilst exploring quaint, quirky tourist businesses, and - the really cool  payoff - keeping your money in the local economy! And, for a while, the British public agreed with all of this. They pottered, they provided endless 2ps, 1ps, and 5ps, they brought quirky knick-knacks that would sit on a windowsill for a few weeks, then be moved to the mantlepiece, before finally being scuttled off to ...