Generation Y problems solved #1: I'm overeducated for my job and slowly going stupid
Dear Problem Solver,
I’m afraid that the daily grind of a repetitive and unchallenging 9-5 job is rapidly destroying the brain cells so assiduously cultivated during two decades of relentless education. It’s got so bad that I can no longer justify wearing a beret and striking a pose of erudition. Is there any way I can rectify this decline?
Yours concernedly,
A Millennial
Ah, Millennial. Remember when you knew things? Every day at university you learned something new, and although you were still a lowly ignoramus compared to most other people there, at least you were doing something about it. You were progressing.
Now, except for the lucky ones who are continuing their studies or whose job involves learning new and interesting things, those days are gone. Hour after hour is spent sitting at your desk, doing some sort of admin or market research. The commute is endless, stressful and cold. By the time you get home it’s dark, you’re hungry, and your housemate is drumming loudly in the next room. At the weekend you have to contend with hangovers, weekend papers, and the lure of dicking about on the internet. The last thing you feel like doing is brushing up on your Russian or reading some Adorno. How then, Millennial, to keep your brain alive?
Use your lunch! Here are some things you can do to keep stupidity at bay during your lunchtime, for which all you need is your desk and some earphones:
Read things online: You probably do this already. But do it well. Check out TLS, McSweeney’s, literary magazine Five Dials, the New Yorker, The Quietus, 3AM Magazine, Ready Steady Book, or read classics on Gutenberg or Bartleby. Linguists can keep up with the news on Le Monde or El País.
Do some MOOCs: aka Massive Open Online Courses. Miss lectures and seminars? Coursera and edX offers classes given by professors at universities such as Brown, Columbia, Princeton and Stanford on topics that include film, science, classics, economics and history. You can also watch UCL lectures online.
TED talks: If you can get past the smug self-satisfaction of the unbearable yuppies on there, there are some genuinely interesting talks on running, orgasms, and spaghetti sauce.
Go for a jog: not only will you get oxygen and sunlight into your system, but you can listen to interesting things as you pound the streets. For example…
Listen to podcasts: Some of my favourites are Nigel Warburton’s Philosophy Bites and Bioethics Bites, which offer in-depth but accessible discussions with leading philosophers. Also: short stories in the New Yorker Fiction Podcasts, the BBC Modern Writers Archive, and the Guardian’s increasing podcast selection.
As a bonus, your boss may also assume you’re working through lunch.
Follow Kathryn on Twitter @kathryn42 and check out her blogs – Stuff White Brits Like and London Scrawling.
30 Jan 2013
Snipe Likes: Parquet Courts
If wiry, intelligent New York punk is the vestibule for Parquet Courts’ message, then chugging, skeletal guitars and a rich baritone of a vocal provide the method for this hotly-tipped four piece, formed from the remnants of various bands – Fergus and Geronimo; Teenage Cool Kids. Their debut album Light Up Gold gets a UK release in April; catch them live at The Garage (March 19), The Shacklewell Arms (20) and Sebright Arms (21).
29 Jan 2013
First Sight: Hervé (feat. Austra)
A couple of weeks ago we brought you news of an exciting collaboration between Joshua ‘Hervé’ Harvey, aka ‘The Count’ in The Count & Sinden, and Katie Stelmanis of superior Canadian popsters Austra. The spooky accompanying video is now streaming above.
28 Jan 2013
The under-reported argument against increased airport capacity in London
Friday’s Evening Standard reported Boris Johnson’s preference for a new hub airport at Stansted, after the House of Commons Transport Committee last week described a Thames Estuary airport as ‘not commercially viable.’
The Standard’s story encapsulates the total victory which Mayor Johnson and the airline industry have won over how this issue is framed in the media.
The debate reported most frequently is “where will the new hub be built?”
The debate not reported is “is a new hub necessary?” Yet this is surely the question which must be answered first.
Last week the London Assembly heard evidence on London’s airport capacity from the Aviation Environment Federation, an organisation focussed on the environmental impact of air travel.
They also submitted some written evidence, questioning whether the South East needs more airport capacity at all.
This was a lobbying document. But given that all we ever hear on this topic is lobbying (see pro-expansion examples in the Evening Standard here here here here here and here), the arguments which the AEF make on the other side deserve a comparable hearing.
Boiled down, the AEF’s case against increased capacity is:
Environmental
The UK should be reducing its carbon emissions to 80% of 1990 levels by 2050, in order to give the world a 50% chance of avoiding a temperature rise of 2 degrees. There’s a lot of debate about how to count planes in that national target, because planes cross borders. But while that’s being squabbled over, the planes continue to churn out CO2.
Improvements in technology, fuel, and bigger planes suggest that you could increase the number of passengers by 60% between 2005 and 2050 without breaking climate targets. But a greater increase than that, and more capacity in the South East would enable a much greater increase than that, could be very bad news for our children’s children’s chances of living in a world with polar bears.
The direct economic benefit is overstated
Says the AEF: “In the past, industry lobbying has focussed on the overall ‘value’ of aviation to the UK economy (both directly and indirectly) or the number of jobs it supports. However, in many cases these figures have been (i) hotly disputed and (ii) falling.”
The indirect economic benefit is unquantified
The great benefit of being an aviation hub is said to be “connectivity.” This is a nebulous concept, and putting a value on it is elusive.
The demand may not even be there
Says the AEF: “The latest forecasts (of passenger demand – see p7 and graph on p8) indicate that despite no new runways having in fact been built, there would be sufficient airport capacity, even in the South East, to cater for all passenger demand until nearly 2030.”
What’s all the hub chat about?
Heathrow desperately wants to be a hub and has a website devoted to telling us so. Boris Johnson wants a new hub (see the Evening Standard, passim). But why? What’s so good about a hub? The case is based on transfer passengers – on moving people through London’s airports on their way from New York to Delhi, not on them getting off and staying here. The AEF argue that the hub model is of no intrinsic benefit to the UK, and quote David Cameron writing in the Evening Standard in 2008 (how times change) for support:
“Forget for a minute that the economic value of transfer passengers is hotly disputed – after all, they often spend only the price of a cup of coffee in the UK. The real issue is the “hub” model itself, which contributed to the bankruptcy of almost every US airline and Sabena in Europe too.”
Always question the frame
The pro-expansion lobby has been successful in framing this debate as being about where the extra capacity should go, not about whether it is needed in the first place.
Perhaps they will be proved right. But that assumption should not be accepted uncritically. The fact that the airline industry wants to fly more planes doesn’t equate to a “capacity crisis”. Of course they want to fly more planes. They’re the airline industry!
It’s up to people outside that industry (looking at you, the press!), to make sure their arguments stack up. At the moment, that isn’t happening.
Take a look at the two sides’ lobbying documents for yourself:
Here’s the AEF’s full written evidence to the London Assembly.
Here’s the counter argument from the Institute of Directors, with a foreword from Boris Johnson.
Image at top: Make Architects’ impression of what a Stansted Hub might look like.
28 Jan 2013
Ghost Carriage Phantoms
I’m not quite sure what to make of the weird, sparse, lo-fi pop of Ghost Carriage Phantoms, but I like it. With shades of London electro-soul band The One, and perhaps a splicing of White Town and TV On The Radio, it’s an odd, discordant and DIY-sounding recording, but with hooks and charm… the album, “The Boy Lives”, is out now on Marketstall Records.
27 Jan 2013
Andrew Gilligan only candidate for £38,000 cycling job
Andrew Gilligan was the only person interviewed for a job as Boris Johnson’s new “cycling commissioner” City Hall said tonight.
He will earn £38,000 a year to work just two days a week. The job was not advertised.
The appointment has led to accusations of “cronyism.”
The two men have been friends and colleagues for many years.
Gilligan’s articles about former Mayor Ken Livingstone formed a large part of Johnson’s election campaigns in both 2008 and 2012.
A spokesperson for the Mayor said today:
“Nobody else was interviewed. The Mayor is entitled to make up to 12 [political] appointments… and Andrew Gilligan is one of these. The Mayor chaired an interview with Andrew Gilligan to ensure he was an appropriate appointment. The interview panel also consisted of his Chief of Staff, Head of Paid Service and the Deputy Mayor for Transport.”
The Scoop broke news of Gilligan’s appointment last week but it was only officially announced today.
Gilligan will join his former editor Veronica Wadley who has also taken a £95k job with Boris as his “volunteering tsar.”
25 Jan 2013
Snipe Likes: Oyama
Sprightly Icelandic quintet Oyama – what the hell do they put in the water over there? It must be all the volcanic particles – are set to play there first ever UK gig at Koko, February 15. You can also catch them at the Brixton Windmill on the 16th, BRNLV Club (run by Snipe’s very own John Rogers) at the Oxford Cellar on the 17th, and finally the Water Rats on the 18th. In the meantime, enjoy the fantastically laid-back, quiet/loud dynamics of Everything Some of the Time, streaming below, taken from their recent I Wanna EP.
25 Jan 2013
Plantagenet 3 - The Darkening Green
Despite choosing a name that makes them sound like an ear-splitting techno ensemble well appreciated on the Brixton squat rave circuit, boy/girl duo Plantagenet 3 actually make gentle and minimal, not-quite-post-rock type instrumental music, bringing to mind Spaghetti Westerns and Joe Meek, with added drum machine. Today’s MPfree is their first release since 2011’s Modern Myths and Fairy Tales album.
24 Jan 2013
Analyse this: Drynuaryds vs Retoxers - as we enter the final stretch, what to make of January's booze politics?
There are three sorts of people wandering aimless and numb through the freezing January streets:
1. Drynuaryds. People who, having overindulged in December, use the following month to forswear alcohol and get drunk instead on the smugness which results from unaccustomed sobriety.
2. Retoxers. People who, having overindulged in December, use the following month to consolidate their gains.
3. People who have a healthy relationship with alcohol.
Only the first two groups need concern us here, the third being so resistant to humorous or insightful analysis that no one has even bothered to assign it a snappy pop culture portmanteau.
What then to make of classes 1 and 2? What does their existence Say About Us All? Here are some theories.
Drynuaryds are just drinkers playing a trick on themselves to make their booze taste more sweet
The concept of a “dry January” only makes sense when book-ended by a booze-sodden December and a drink-soaked Feb. By choosing to live for a month upon an island of temperance, the Drynuaryds are committing by implication to 11 months drifting in a sticky sea of booze. Come the first of February, they will once more dive willingly, desperately, into the frothing waves at their feet. The month off isn’t a meaningful break. They’re just coming up for air.
Retoxers are just drinkers playing a trick on themselves to make their booze taste more sweet
The great attraction of retoxing is the glamour of transgression. In December, a drink was just a drink. In January, by some magic of the calendar, a drink becomes a protest against the prevailing culture of restraint. In January, it becomes illicit to continue drinking at the rate you were drinking before. This is another trick that drinkers, the most self-deceiving of the secular sinners, play upon their other selves. They have their booze and drink it too.
The old rituals of Christianity are becoming the new rituals of the pissed
That Drynuary functions as a Lent for the drunken is a well-established observation. We may go further and assert that Christian rituals are in the process of becoming mere waypoints in the annual drinking calendar. Christmas is now observed chiefly as a time for drinking with the family. The concept of Lent, moved to January and given a silly name, is a time for being sober with friends. What does Easter really mean to you: the resurrection of Jesus Christ, or an extra two days to get over your hangover?
This realisation allows us to predict what will happen to all the churches once the last of the worshippers have gone: they will become Wetherspoons.
Any health benefits of Drynuary are secondary to the bragging benefits
If Drynuaryds are being honest, they aren’t interested in the health benefits. If they were interested in the health benefits, they’d commit to a moderate but permanent reduction in their alcohol intake rather than a temporary but total abstention.
The greatest attraction of Drynuary is being able to tell everyone that you’re observing Drynuary. An invite to the pub can be turned down with the offhand smugness available only to those committed to an abstract idea. Only one response is more irritating – to accept, order a coke and start talking about your dramtically improved libido and all the free time and money you now have to spend improving your crochet.
This won’t last. February’s near; they’ll soon come crawling back.
See also:
Analyse this: Why is the idea of a cat cafe so popular with Londoners?
23 Jan 2013
First Sight: Peter Broderick
This video from occassional Efterklang touring-band member and M. Ward and Dolorean collaborator Peter Broderick, features a weather beaten man toiling with a spot of mundane manual labour – an apt narrative from director Bernhard Wittich, given the song’s chain-gang rhythms. Proposed Solution to the Mystery of the Soul is taken from Broderick’s highly original 2012 collection of ‘vocal and lyrical experiments’, These Walls of Mine, available through Erased Tapes.
22 Jan 2013
Snipe Highlights
Some popular articles from past years
- Hope and despair in Woolwich town centre
- Diary of the shy Londoner
- The best church names in London, and where they come from
- Margaret Thatcher statue rejected by public
- Could red kites be London's next big nature success story?
- Nice Interactive timeline lets you follow Londoners' historic fight against racism
- The five best places in London to have an epiphany
- 9 poems about London: one for each of your moods
- Number of people using Thames cable car plunges
- Silencing the Brick Lane curry touts could be fatal for the city's self-esteem
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