Angeldubba

  Today, some pungent   advice to the Irish Health Minister   from a well-known communications expert: halve your media appearances.   A nation chuckled – the politician in question is in a first-time ministry, obviously keen as mustard to make his mark, but during the Covid nightmare has made some increasingly bizarre interventions, including last week’s when he suggested that the tortured vaccine rollout in Ireland be turned on its head by prioritizing the 30s age group. This reversed the previous wisdom that older age cohorts should get the vaccines first. Ah dear. The minister was “spoken to” by the Taoiseach, our prime minister. “Ah, Stephen, could I see you in my office for a few minutes?”    Setting aside the political embarrassment, the advice to be less visible brought up one of the conundrums of the online-all-the-time era: when do people get sick of you? Kim Kardashian’s legions of fans seem to want her all the time. I learnt yesterday that even ...

  Apparently the accountants of London are not keen on returning to the office, according to the Financial Times . But maybe they should be doing everything they can to hang on to those jobs, which could be susceptible to automation. One of the very firms whose workers wish to cling to home-working post-pandemic, PwC, found that nearly 40 percent of workers it surveyed globally believe the job they do will be obsolete within five years. Four in 10 people saying “my job is gone”! That’s pretty terrifying, isn’t it? And six in 10 believe automation is putting their jobs at risk. What strikes me is how soon this gloomy forecast is expected to come true. Isn’t it more normal to put off the day of reckoning? We all know we’re going to die, but even when the clock has ticked to a point where each year brings a greater likelihood, it remains an impossible event. So why are people all over the world – 32,500 workers in 19 countries – shrugging their shoulders and saying “I’m gone”. All the...