Hello lovely email friends. I encountered a spider, and my goodness it was a biggie. The largest I’ve seen in the northern hemisphere, just standing there in my front room. It was wider than any glass I own and I didn’t fancy my chances with any other kitchenware. So I’m ashamed to say I used the vacuum cleaner. Not the fancy but ineffective bagless one that would force me to witness the horror of my crime, but the old-style, smiley one; its eyes judging me.
I don’t see many spiders because I have a housecat (incidentally it’s Millie’s birthday on Sunday and she thinks you should get her fish—I know this because she always thinks we all should get her fish). But particularly when you eat only plants, such casual arachnicide is perplexing. There’s almost no other creature that would’ve prompted me to inflict the same fate. Yet, I’m hard-wired to feel no compassion for spiders. Humans, it seems, can hold grudges for millennia.
🧨 COP26: what’s the point of this year’s UN climate summit in Glasgow? In a year plagued by catastrophic floods, wildfires and heatwaves, the need to act on climate change has never been more urgent. So what will the negotiators in Glasgow be debating?
🧠 It’s a New Era for Mental Health at Work: In a follow-up study of a 2019 Mental Health at Work Report, this new report offer a rare comparison of the state of mental health, stigma, and work culture before and during the pandemic. In summary: it’s time for employers to do more than just talk a good game. See also: The Great Resignation Is Accelerating: a lasting effect of this pandemic will be a revolution in worker expectations. See also, also: Here’s what a 4-day workweek is really like.
🔍 Bergerac at 40: Previously unreleased photos: If you were wondering what I did during the first lockdown, I re-watched Bergerac. Yes, Bergerac: the iconic detective series set on the island of Jersey. John Nettles played a maverick detective and recovering alcoholic adept at solving complex crimes. On the 40th anniversary of the show’s first episode, a collection of previously unseen photographs has been released by the BBC Archive. [Thanks, MS!]
💭 How memories persist where bodies, and even brains, do not: animals whose brains have been drastically remodelled still recall their kin, traumas and skills. How? Psychiatrist Thomas R Verny has been exploring the concept of cellular memory: how memory can be stored outside the brain, in all the body’s cells.
🥊 Good Leaders Know You Can’t Fight Reality: Acceptance is often misunderstood as approval or being against change, but it is neither. Acceptance is about acknowledging the facts and letting go of the time, effort, and energy wasted in the fight against reality. This article pitches three kinds of acceptance that leaders should focus on: accepting results, accepting circumstances, and accepting their failings and those of others.
🏝 How to make the most of loneliness: Artists and writers have long been drawn to solitude, but why and what can we learn from them? This article draws from artists including Tracey Emin to examine the merits of alone time. [Thanks, JL!] See also: Confidence is Overrated.
📦 The digital death of collecting: virtualising is killing stuff, which is in tern killing the act of collecting things. A collection isn’t just about amassing objects; collections are made up of things that we own, that don’t go away unless we decide they should. Collections form a part of ourselves. Yet, even though algorithms promise personalised experience, such feeds are by their nature impersonal: done to us as opposed to made by us.
😳 A good job for robots, found – dealing with our embarrassing problems: This article reports that research into the use of robots, rather than people, as assistants when buying a potentially embarrassing product may reduce people’s feelings of embarrassment. In simple times, the killer application of robotics might be as a haemorrhoid-cream dispensary. See also: The overpromise of technology and McKinsey’s Top technology trends, keeping in mind about the haemorrhoid cream.