How Productivity Is About Attention Management, Not Time Management

 Read this interesting article that will make you change your idea of how to improve your productivity.

Are we all being watched or listened to?

 Listen to this interesting podcast published in The Guardian.

Leaks just exposed how toxic Facebook and Instagram are to teen girls and, well, everyone

 The company’s own research reveals that Instagram harms teens, that it can’t control anti-vax misinformation, and that there is a secret double standard for VIPs. In short, the problem with Facebook is Facebook.

Read this interensing article in The Guardian by  Siva Vaidhyanathan

Climate crisis: history will judge failure to act, Johnson says at UN

 Boris Johnson has warned the world’s rich countries that “history will judge”, if they fail to act now to tackle the climate crisis, as US climate envoy John Kerry suggested President Biden was poised to commit more funds to the fight.

At the UN general assembly in New York, the prime minister urged other developed countries to increase their contributions, to help meet the target of $100bn (£73bn) in climate financing set more than a decade ago.

“The world will see, and your people will remember, and history will judge,” he said, underlining the importance of achieving an ambitious outcome to the Cop26 climate talks, which the UK is hosting in Glasgow in November.

Read the whole article in The Guardian.

Volcano eruption in La palma, Spain

 

Volcano_El País

What about the possibility of switching to a 4-day working week?

 Read this interesting article published by IDEAS.TED.COM and see the advantages of this possibility:

4-day working week

Paralyzed Patient Can Now Write as Fast as Smartphone By ‘Mindwriting’ With Brain Signals

 Read this amazing piece of news! 

Paralyzed patient can write

Dutch couple move into Europe’s first fully 3D-printed house

 

A Dutch couple have become Europe’s first tenants of a fully 3D printed house in a development that its backers believe will open up a world of choice in the shape and style of the homes of the future.

Elize Lutz, 70, and Harrie Dekkers, 67, retired shopkeepers from Amsterdam, received their digital key – an app allowing them to open the front door of their two-bedroom bungalow at the press of a button – on Thursday.

“It is beautiful,” said Lutz. “It has the feel of a bunker – it feels safe,” added Dekkers.

Inspired by the shape of a boulder, the dimensions of which would be difficult and expensive to construct using traditional methods, the property is the first of five homes planned by the construction firm Saint-Gobain Weber Beamix for a plot of land by the Beatrix canal in the Eindhoven suburb of Bosrijk.

In the last two years properties partly constructed by 3D printing have been built in France and the US, and nascent projects are proliferating around the world.

But those behind the Dutch house, which boasts 94sq meters of living space, are said to have pipped their rivals to the post by being the first legally habitable and commercially rented property where the load-bearing walls have been made using a 3D printer nozzle.

“This is also the first one which is 100% permitted by the local authorities and which is habited by people who actually pay for living in this house,” said Bas Huysmans, chief executive of Weber Benelux, a construction offshoot of its French parent company Saint-Gobain.

The first completed home of Project Milestone, a partnership with Eindhoven University of Technology and the Vesteda housing corporation, was due to be put on the rental market in 2019, but the challenges of the architect’s design, which involved overhanging external walls, caused delays.

The 3D printing method involves a huge robotic arm with a nozzle that squirts out a specially formulated cement, said to have the texture of whipped cream. The cement is “printed” according to an architect’s design, adding layer upon layer to create a wall to increase its strength.

The point at which the nozzle head had to be changed after hours of operation is visible in the pattern of the new bungalow’s walls, as are small errors in the cement printing, perhaps familiar to anyone who has used an ink printer.

But while it is early days, the 3D printing method is seen by many within the construction industry as a way to cut costs and environmental damage by reducing the amount of cement that is used. In the Netherlands, it also provides an alternative at a time when there is a shortage of skilled bricklayers.

The new house consists of 24 concrete elements that were printed layer by layer at a plant in Eindhoven before being transported by lorry to the building site and placed on a foundation to be worked on by Dutch building firm Van Wijnen. A roof and window frames were then fitted, and finishing touches applied.

By the time the fifth of the homes is built – comprising three floors and three bedrooms – it is hoped that construction will be done wholly on-site and that various other installations will also be made using the printer, further reducing costs.

The point at which the nozzle head had to be changed after hours of operation is visible in the pattern of the new bungalow’s walls, as are small errors in the cement printing, perhaps familiar to anyone who has used an ink printer.

But while it is early days, the 3D printing method is seen by many within the construction industry as a way to cut costs and environmental damage by reducing the amount of cement that is used. In the Netherlands, it also provides an alternative at a time when there is a shortage of skilled bricklayers.

The new house consists of 24 concrete elements that were printed layer by layer at a plant in Eindhoven before being transported by lorry to the building site and placed on a foundation to be worked on by Dutch building firm Van Wijnen. A roof and window frames were then fitted, and finishing touches applied.

By the time the fifth of the homes is built – comprising three floors and three bedrooms – it is hoped that construction will be done wholly on-site and that various other installations will also be made using the printer, further reducing costs.

Lutz and Dekkers, who have lived in four different types of home in the six years since their two grown-up daughters left the family home, are paying €800 (£695) a month to live in the property for six months from 1 August after answering a call for applicants on the internet. “I saw the drawing of this house and it was exactly like a fairytale garden,” said Lutz.

The market rent would normally be twice that being paid by the couple. “Did we earn money with this first house? No,” said Huysmans. “Do we expect to lose money on house number two, three, four and five? No.

“With 3D printing you generate a huge creativity and a huge flexibility in design,” he added. “Why did we do so much effort to print this ‘rock’? Because this shows perfectly that you can make any shape you want to make.”

Yasin Torunoglu, alderman for housing and spatial development for the municipality of Eindhoven, said: “With the 3D-printed home, we’re now setting the tone for the future: the rapid realisation of affordable homes with control over the shape of your own house.”

The Guardian, 30 April 2021

Covid-status certificate scheme could be unlawful discrimination, says EHRC

The same discrimination could be suffered in the Spanish society (as well as in many other countries) as only some people who belong to certain age ranges and the so-called essential workers are receiving the jab at the moment. Imagine a couple of  teachers who want to travel in summer with their children. They wouldn't be able to do it all together, as the young people will have to wait for a long while to get vaccinated! And it goes without saying the criteria that could be applied for candidates to be chosen to get a job...

Read this interesting Guardian article.

Covid-status certificates being considered by ministers to help open up society could amount to unlawful indirect discrimination, the government’s independent equalities watchdog has advised.

As ministers decide whether the documents should be introduced as passports to certain events later this year, the Equality and Human Rights Commission has told the Cabinet Office they risk creating a “two-tier society”.

The watchdog also said employers should not be allowed to hire workers on a “no jab, no job” policy until all young people had been offered a vaccine, and that plans to make them mandatory for care workers helping older people may not be lawful.

According to a submission seen by the Guardian, the EHRC said Covid-status certificates could be a “proportionate” way of easing restrictions, given the toll lockdown has taken on people’s wellbeing and livelihoods.

But it said they risked further excluding groups among whom vaccine take-up is lower – including migrants, those from minority ethnic backgrounds and poorer socio-economic groups – from access to essential services and employment.

“There is a risk of unlawful discrimination if decisions taken in this process disadvantage people with protected characteristics who have not received, or are not able to receive, the vaccine, unless they can be shown to be justified,” it said. “Any mandatory requirement for vaccination or the implementation of Covid-status certification may amount to indirect discrimination, unless the requirement can be objectively justified.”

The warnings emerged as the health secretary, Matt Hancock, gave the clearest indication yet that care workers would be required to have a vaccination or be refused deployment in care homes.

Launching a five-week consultation on the proposal, the government said the initiative could later be extended to the wider health and social care workforce. “Due to the importance of this issue, we intend to change the law quickly,” it added.

Despite care workers being in the highest priority category for jabs, Hancock said only around half of care homes in England had enough people vaccinated. Government scientific advisers believe 80% of staff and 90% of residents need to be vaccinated to provide a minimum level of protection against outbreaks of the virus.

Senior government figures had for months denied that any form of “vaccine passport” for domestic or international use would be introduced as the rollout of jabs got under way in the winter. But at the end of February, Boris Johnson announced a review would be launched into the idea to explore the complex ethical issues behind it. He touted the documents – that would be used to prove someone’s vaccine, test or antibody status – as a possible requirement to enter a pub or a theatre.

Since then, an interim report from the Cabinet Office review has ruled out the documents ever being necessary on public transport or in essential shops – though the government has declined to provide any definition of these. It has expanded access to testing in England this week, by offering everyone two lateral flow tests a week – a measure it would argue means the certificates would not just be available to those who have been vaccinated.

Johnson faces the prospect of a significant Tory rebellion if he pushes ahead with introducing the certificates and calls for a vote in parliament, with 41 Conservative backbenchers vowing to oppose them. Labour has previously vowed to vote against “vaccine passports” but has been less clear about its stance on a wider certificate scheme used to show someone’s vaccine, test or antibody status. It says it is still waiting for the government to formally present a firm proposal.

Marsha de Cordova, the shadow women and equalities secretary, said: “We share the EHRC’s concerns and hope the government will take note.”

Responding to the government’s call for evidence on Covid-status certificates, the EHRC said that if they were introduced, it should only be for a limited time and subject to regular review, along with “strict parliamentary scrutiny”.

Care home operators are divided over mandatory jabs. Barchester, one of the largest private operators, has already said it will make vaccines a condition of work, starting as soon as 23 April. Its chief executive, Pete Calveley, said: “It is a professional duty for care home staff to accept the vaccine unless there is a medical reason they should not.”

Other operators fear it will drive away staff in an already depleted workforce and that it is unreasonable to only make vaccines compulsory for care workers and not NHS staff.

The government has previously acknowledged the legal difficulty of mandatory vaccines. In February, the prime minister’s official spokesperson said: “Taking a vaccine is not mandatory and it would be discriminatory to force somebody to take one.” Robert Buckland, the justice secretary, has also said he believes making vaccines mandatory for existing staff is likely to require testing in the courts.

Employment lawyers said on Tuesday that the rule could breach the Human Rights Act and amount to indirect discrimination, if refusal was related to religious belief for example, and it was likely to be tested in the upper courts.

“There would have to be a very strong justification that mandating vaccines really does put a dent in the Covid case numbers,” said Ryan Bradshaw, an employment and discrimination lawyer at Leigh Day.

The government wants to make vaccination of carers part of the “fundamental standard” of providing safe care, enshrined in the Social Care Act. Care homes which fail to show their staff are vaccinated could, in the most serious cases, have their registration to operate cancelled.

Unison, a trade union representing health workers, described the plan as “the wrong approach” and called for persuasion – rather than coercion – of care workers, many of whom have cited fears, albeit so far unfounded, that the vaccine could affect pregnancies. Others have cited religious concerns, while practical issues of not being on shift when GPs arrived to deliver doses have also been highlighted.

With the vaccine programme in England now being extended to those in their late 40s and the government not promising to offer all those over the age of 18 a jab until the end of July, the EHRC said employers should not be able to discriminate when looking to hire only those who had been vaccinated. It advised: “The implementation of any policy would need to reflect the status of the vaccine rollout programme and ensure that it does not discriminate against younger people, who are unlikely to be vaccinated until later in the process.”

A government spokesperson said: “Covid-status certification could have an important role to play both domestically and internationally, as a temporary measure. We are fully considering equality and ethical concerns as part of our ongoing review.”

Anything is good to make drivers respect the speed in the city

 And this is their "fun theory"

Amanda Gorman's poem during Joe Binden's swearing-in

The Hill We Climb

 When day comes, we ask ourselves where can we find light in this never-ending shade?

The loss we carry, a sea we must wade.
We’ve braved the belly of the beast.
We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace,
and the norms and notions of what “just” is isn’t always justice.
And yet, the dawn is ours before we knew it.
Somehow we do it.
Somehow we’ve weathered and witnessed a nation that isn’t broken,
but simply unfinished.
We, the successors of a country and a time where a skinny Black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother can dream of becoming president, only to find herself reciting for one.

And yes, we are far from polished, far from pristine,
but that doesn’t mean we are striving to form a union that is perfect.
We are striving to forge our union with purpose.
To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters, and conditions of man.
And so we lift our gazes not to what stands between us, but what stands before us.
We close the divide because we know, to put our future first, we must first put our differences aside.
We lay down our arms so we can reach out our arms to one another.
We seek harm to none and harmony for all.
Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true:
That even as we grieved, we grew.
That even as we hurt, we hoped.
That even as we tired, we tried.
That we’ll forever be tied together, victorious.
Not because we will never again know defeat, but because we will never again sow division.

Scripture tells us to envision that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree and no one shall make them afraid.
If we’re to live up to our own time, then victory won’t lie in the blade, but in all the bridges we’ve made.
That is the promise to glade, the hill we climb, if only we dare.
It’s because being American is more than a pride we inherit.
It’s the past we step into and how we repair it.
We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation rather than share it.
Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy.
This effort very nearly succeeded.
But while democracy can be periodically delayed,
it can never be permanently defeated.
In this truth, in this faith, we trust,
for while we have our eyes on the future, history has its eyes on us.
This is the era of just redemption.
We feared it at its inception.
We did not feel prepared to be the heirs of such a terrifying hour,
but within it, we found the power to author a new chapter, to offer hope and laughter to ourselves.
So while once we asked, ‘How could we possibly prevail over catastrophe?’ now we assert, ‘How could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?’

We will not march back to what was, but move to what shall be:
A country that is bruised but whole, benevolent but bold, fierce and free.
We will not be turned around or interrupted by intimidation because we know our inaction and inertia will be the inheritance of the next generation.
Our blunders become their burdens.
But one thing is certain:
If we merge mercy with might, and might with right, then love becomes our legacy and change, our children’s birthright.

So let us leave behind a country better than the one we were left.
With every breath from my bronze-pounded chest, we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one.
We will rise from the golden hills of the west.
We will rise from the wind-swept north-east where our forefathers first realized revolution.
We will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the midwestern states.
We will rise from the sun-baked south.
We will rebuild, reconcile, and recover.
In every known nook of our nation, in every corner called our country,
our people, diverse and beautiful, will emerge, battered and beautiful.
When day comes, we step out of the shade, aflame and unafraid.
The new dawn blooms as we free it.
For there is always light,
if only we’re brave enough to see it.
If only we’re brave enough to be it.

Amanda Gorman

22-year-old American poet

In pictures: Storm Filomena hits Spain as Greeks bask in heatwave

Spain is racing to respond to Storm Filomena, which brought heavy snow and unusually cold temperatures over the weekend.

Read this BBC News article about the effects of the storm in Spain. To begin with, face-to-face classes have been cancelled in Madrid until next Monday; one of the many side effects.

Click here: BBC News

Gitanjali Rao: Time magazine names teenage inventor its first ‘kid of the year’

 The 15-year-old scientist has used technology to address contaminated drinking water, opioid addiction and cyberbullying

A 15-year-old scientist and inventor has been named as Time magazine’s first “kid of the year”.

Gitanjali Rao, from Denver, Colorado, has invented new technologies across a range of fields, including a device that can identify lead in drinking water, and an app and Chrome extension that uses artificial intelligence to detect cyberbullying.

She said she hoped she could inspire others to dream up ideas to “solve the world’s problems”.

Gitanjali was chosen from a field of 5,000 US-based nominees, which was whittled down to five finalists by a committee of young people alongside comedian and TV presenter Trevor Noah.

She and the other four finalists will be honoured in a TV special next Friday.

In an interview with actor and humanitarian Angelina Jolie, Gitanjali said: “I don’t look like your typical scientist. Everything I see on TV is that it’s an older, usually white, man as a scientist.

“My goal has really shifted, not only from creating my own devices to solve the world’s problems, but inspiring others to do the same as well.

“Because, from personal experience, it’s not easy when you don’t see anyone else like you.

“So I really want to put out that message: If I can do it, you can do it, and anyone can do it.”

Time began awarding its man of the year honour in 1927, later updating it to person of the year, but this is the first time it has named a kid of the year. Time, which also produces the child-friendly Time For Kids, teamed up with children’s TV channel Nickelodeon for the new award.

Last year, climate activist Greta Thunberg became the youngest ever person of the year when she was given the honour at age 16.

The Guardian, 4th Dec 2020

Alexa, Siri... Elsa? Children drive boom in smart speakers

 Voice assistants such as Alexa and Siri will become common in children’s bedrooms, according to a new report from Internet Matters, the online safety body, which says it is critical for parents to spend more time understanding new technology.

The pandemic has accelerated the adoption of new technology at home by “three or four years”, the researchers said, and families in the UK will become much more reliant on voice-enabled devices over the next five years.

The report’s author, Lynne Hall, professor of computer science at the University of Sunderland, said we would even see the emergence of a range of celebrity voice assistants.

“You’d have Elsa from Frozen,” Hall said. “You can imagine that with every Disney film that came out there would be a new voice skin.” Amazon has already launched a novelty Samuel L Jackson voice for its Alexa devices, although it does not enable all voice commands.

The “Living The Future” report, based on interviews and surveys of parents and academics, says that 42% of families have been using tech together more often over the last three months – playing online games together (34%), watching tutorials (51%), streaming videos (41%) or online shopping (36%).

Only 7% of parents said they wanted to return to the workplace full time, which is likely to further fuel a boom in home tech controlled by voice assistants, the report said.

“The home is becoming less and less private and we need to think about what data is being shared,” said Carolyn Bunting, the chief executive of Internet Matters. “We need to make sure we’re not sleepwalking into a world where we’re just giving away all of this information without thinking about where it’s going, who’s holding it or how it’s being used.”

Although voice assistants usually process commands using voice recognition, Apple, Amazon and Google have all used call-centre staff to check recordings and some have heard children sharing the home address and phone number, according to a Bloomberg report last year.

Hall said her research showed that children were encountering voice assistants almost from the day they are born. “Women are buying a voice assistant for their child’s bedroom when they’ve had the baby,” she said. “If you’ve got your hands full, it’s much easier to say, ‘Alexa, ring my partner’.”

Children do not see voice assistants as their friends, Hall said. “They don’t anthropomorphise. It’s very much a tool. But voice assistants are starting to learn how little children speak. Children try to teach the voice assistant if it doesn’t understand – they give it more information.”

Since parents play a vital role in children’s acquisition of language, there are unanswered questions about how hearing a mother or father giving orders to voice assistants might affect their development.

Australian academics Yolande Strengers and Jenny Kennedy have voiced concerns in their book The Smart Wife that the devices reinforce gender stereotypes since they are usually voiced by young women, take orders and are linked to domestic responsibilities.

There are potential safety benefits to using voice assistants, Bunting said, since children using them for information will usually accept the first answer.

Bunting called for better regulation. The government’s online harms bill, obliging social media companies to prevent children seeing harmful content, is likely to be published this winter, “but they are struggling with these softer issues,” she said.

She said that tech firms also needed to design an internet for children: “It’s wrong that in the Covid pandemic we saw six or seven-year-olds up to secondary school age children being thrust into Houseparty and Whatsapp video chats. None of those services are designed for little people. We need safe playgrounds for children online.”

The Guardian

James Tapper

Sun 18 Oct 2020

Michael Jordan condemns George Floyd death and 'ingrained racism' of US

Michael Jordan has released a statement on the death of George Floyd, condemning “ingrained racism” in the United States.

“I am deeply saddened, truly pained and plain angry,” wrote Jordan in a statement posted by the Charlotte Hornets, the NBA team he owns. “I stand with those who are calling out the ingrained racism and violence toward people of color in our country. We have had enough.”

Jordan has often been criticized for his reluctance to speak up on political matters, especially when compared to the activism of other NBA stars such as LeBron James and Guardian columnist Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. During a 1990 Senate race in his home state of North Carolina, Jordan refused to endorse Democrat Harvey Gantt, an African American who was running against the incumbent Republican Jesse Helms, a notorious racist.

Jordan, who at the time had already won the first of his five NBA MVP awards, explained away his refusal to take a stance by saying: “Republicans buy sneakers, too.”

Jordan has since insisted the comment was made in jest.

The six-time NBA champion, widely considered the greatest basketball player of all time, said on Sunday that Americans needed to work together to find answers to the country’s problems.

“I don’t have answers, but our collective voices show strength and the inability to be divided by others. We must listen to each other, show compassion and empathy and never turn out backs on senseless brutality,” he wrote.

Curfews were in place in more than a dozen US cities on Sunday and Jordan urged people to protest peacefully. “We need to continue peaceful expressions against injustice and demand accountability,” he wrote.

Jordan finished his statement by expressing his sympathy to the family of Floyd and others. “My heart goes out to the family of George Floyd and to the countless others whose lives have been brutally and senselessly taken through acts of racism and injustice,” he wrote.

The former Chicago Bulls star has been in the news lately due to the popularity of The Last Dance, a documentary telling the story of his final championship season.

The Guardian, 1 June 2020

My urge to splurge is over and won’t be returning soon

Shuttered shops existed to sell stuff for a rushed, commuting office life that millions of people may never lead again

Last weekend I was lolling on the sofa reading the papers in the afternoon sun when I was struck by an awful thought.

I realised I am so dull that, even though I have spent more than a month in Covid captivity, I miss remarkably little of the life I led before.

It turns out I can live easily without Friday nights in a restaurant or Saturdays in a bar. I always thought I loved going out to the cinema but apparently I am just as happy at home with Netflix. The hundreds of pounds I spend each year on the gym also look increasingly pointless. I can get by with a bike ride involving hills and the odd lope around the block.

It was while I was on one of those lopes, down the local high street, that a more profound realisation dawned. Shop after shuttered shop existed to sell stuff for a rushed, commuting office life that I – and millions like me – may never lead again.

Assuming I manage to keep my job, there seems a high chance I will be asked to spend more time slobbing about at home. So I won’t need so many visits to my favourite dry-cleaner to freshen a batch of blouses, or the nice shoe repair man to fix a rickety heel. I doubt I will spend as much on hair and general upkeep either, or the all too occasional frock.

I probably won’t be alone. The mass coronavirus experiment in home working is already prompting the bosses of big employers such as Barclays bank and the Mondelez food group to wonder aloud if their reams of big city offices might be a thing of the past.

Frugality

The question is, now that people like me have had a taste of frugality, how long will it last once a semblance of normality returns? Will there be a pent-up splurge of excess? Or will we look back and wonder what made so many of us spend what the British ecological economist, Professor Tim Jackson, has called money we don’t have, on things we don’t need, to create impressions that won’t last, on people we don’t care about?

The Irish Times, May 3 2020

Life after homelessness: 'A kind stranger gave me a bed, a key, new clothes and a job'

Susan Sutton, 60, wrote to the Guardian to tell us how she spent a year sleeping rough, before the compassion of a man in a burger restaurant changed everything.

I met my first husband in London while working in a pub in West Kensington. I had just turned 18 when we got married at Fulham register office. We moved in with his mum in Hackney, but the relationship hit the rocks when another member of his family arrived on the scene. I don’t know if it was jealousy or something else, but when we were left alone one evening this man took a cut-throat razor from his pocket, held it to my throat and ordered me to leave. I had been married for only six weeks, but I left – even though I had nowhere to go.

My first night on the street was terrifying. It was winter and it was cold and noisy; I was all alone, not knowing where to turn for help. I realised quickly that the only help I was going to receive was from myself. Back then, platform tickets at Victoria station were only 2p. I figured out that the Dover train would stay in the station from roughly 12.15am to 6.30am. I bedded down on that train with a valid ticket to get me out of any trouble.

I mostly kept to myself on the street. I was self-reliant. I stored my clothes in luggage lockers at Victoria and cleaned up in the station’s loos. The only time I depended on others was when I was absolutely penniless. There used to be a cafe at Victoria called the No 9 and I would work with a group of four other homeless people to steal meals. I am not proud of this, but we had to survive.

Life was tough on the streets. I spent a year sleeping rough among drug addicts, alcoholics and sex workers. Most of them, despite their problems, were decent people and they would often help in whatever ways they could. When I couldn’t get my head down, I would wander the streets or see out the night in the 24-hour cafes. It was in one of these cafes that my life turned around.

I had taken sanctuary in a Wimpy in Leicester Square and was cradling a bowl of soup that had to last all night. A man was staring right at me. I tried not to make eye contact with him, but it didn’t stop him from coming over. He started talking to me and opened up about his life and family. His name was David. We must have sat there for hours. Finally, he offered me a bed for the night. I was reluctant – it wasn’t the first time that a male stranger had propositioned me with this offer - but for some reason I trusted him.

I was right. I had a full night’s sleep on a real bed. When I woke up the next morning, this kind stranger had left me a key, some money and a note, suggesting I buy new clothes. When he returned, he had found me a live-in job at the Hotel InterContinental on Park Lane, where he worked. The speed at which my life was changing felt surreal. It was an amazing feeling to have someone see beyond the scruffy stranger on the street and actually notice me and believe in me.

David and I became very close friends. Eventually, I left the hotel and took a job as a housekeeper. A few weeks afterwards, I discovered that David had been killed in a hit-and-run as he got off the bus on Park Lane. For him to lose his life like that was so cruel. He was gentle, kind and never expected anything from me; he didn’t deserve to have his life taken away like that. I think about him all the time and where I would be now if it wasn’t for his kindness.

The Guardian, Tue 17 Dec 2019

How bookshops are helping with isolation

In uncertain times, few spaces feel more comforting than a bookshop. And, over the past few years, as the world has felt increasingly tumultuous, indie bookshops – once in danger from online retailers and big chains – have experienced something of a resurgence, providing a place of solace and sense of community.

So, it feels especially painful that during this global pandemic, bookshops – at least physically – have become increasingly out of bounds. As Covid-19 spreads around the world, many countries are entering periods of total lockdown, with all but essential services closed and people ordered to stay inside. Even where official lockdowns are not in place, social distancing and avoiding unnecessary contact is urged. Many people are choosing to self-quarantine because they are at high-risk or want to help stop the spread.

All this means bookshops are rapidly closing their stores – some because they have been told to, others through choice to protect the health of their customers and staff. Those that have been able to keep their doors open have seen a significant drop in footfall. Yet, with people stuck at home and in need of distraction and escape, books suddenly feel more vital than ever – and booksellers by their very nature are resilient and creative folk. So they are coming up with new ways to serve their customers and communities, from ramping up their delivery service and dropping off orders by bicycle, to recreating their community spaces on social media, recommending the perfect books for those stuck in self isolation and running virtual events.

Comfort reading

For Mike Gustafson, owner of Literati Bookstore, an award-winning shop in Ann Arbor, Michigan, shutting the doors was both an easy and a difficult decision to make. “I was on the phone with our manager about limiting our hours when my wife walked into my office and bluntly stated, ‘We need to close.’ We made the decision to close 15 minutes later. And we could be closed for many months.”

Like many shops, they moved quickly to prioritising online ordering – hoping that their customers would understand. “We usually get around 5 or 10 orders a day. In less than a week we’ve had over 800,” says Gustafson. “Everything happened so fast. However, our community has rallied behind us. They have placed many orders, left overwhelmingly kind comments and boosted our morale on social media pages. I fully grasp that during times like these, books are not high on the hierarchy of survival needs. And yet, for so many, books offer a unique kind of comfort, and perhaps are really needed right now.”

While they work their way through the spate of online orders, they’re also exploring digital book clubs and online writing courses. “We are taking a look at creating a community online, so neighbours can still interact with neighbours about ideas, new voices, art and books.”

On social media, movements like IndieBound are connecting readers to bookshops, and showing people how they can support their local store, from ordering books online and buying gift cards to signing up for newsletters and pre-ordering new releases.

In the UK, Books Are My Bag have led a huge drive to promote the initiatives of indie bookstores, using the hashtag #ChooseBookshops. These include Norwich’s The Book Hive, offering curated self-isolation packs and Bath’s Mr B’s Emporium – which has called itself ‘Non-Contact Open’, rather than ‘Closed’ – featuring a collection of Staying Home?-themed lists of books on their website for those looking for inspiration.

Books on wheels

While Amazon has announced plans to temporarily de-prioritise book orders in favour of household supplies, independent bookstores are stepping up their delivery strategy. Many booksellers are getting an extra workout as they dash around town on their bikes – one staff member at Abingdon’s Mostly Books covered 75km in a week delivering literary packages. South London bookshop Kirkdale has roped in a literary agent to help dispatch orders while Glasgow’s indie LGBTQIA+ bookshop Category Is Books is delivering by skateboard, too (though perhaps the prize for most novel delivery method goes to the Kiruna bookshop in Sweden, which is dispatching books by kick-sled).

“Booksellers are among the most resilient, warm and resourceful of people, and bookshops have been swift to adapt to the obstacles of social distancing and self-isolation to provide incredible services for their customers,” says Meryl Halls, managing director of the Booksellers Association of the UK and Ireland. But she says it’s vital to remember that, while many bookshops are demonstrating pragmatism and optimism, they still desperately need the support of the public, the publishing industry and their governments to weather this new landscape.

Dieter Dausien, owner of Buchladen am Freiheitsplatz in Hanau, Germany understands why his shop has, like all other non-essential retail businesses, been told to shut down – but it doesn’t make it any easier. “The worst thing is the uncertainty as to how long the closures will last,” he says. “We deliver books to customers at home, or leave ordered books in front of our door for customers to collect, making sure there is no human contact. But it’s a much greater effort to prepare books for shipping than to sell in store.”

When French bookstores closed after the government ordered the shut-down of all non-essential businesses, publishers stepped in to help by delaying release dates and postponing payment deadlines.

In Italy, the country now worst hit by the Coronavirus, things are understandably tough. All bookstores are closed as part of the national lockdown. Home deliveries can also only be made by a regulated courier – not the booksellers themselves – and costs for this are high and difficult for smaller shops. Yet bookstores have not given up, using social networks and online tools to keep in touch with customers. In Milan, La Scatola Lilla organises a live Instagram broadcast each day, with guests discussing books and giving reading advice.