Section:GDN 12 PaGe:2 Edition Date:190829 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 28/8/2019 17:22 cYanmaGentaYellowbla
- The Guardian
Thursday 29 August 2019
The latest wellness trend to
assail us? “Gong baths.” For
those unfamiliar with the term,
a gong bath aims to provide
spiritual nourishment via long,
calming notes played on a large metallic percussive
instrument. Yes, it is just a gong – from an orchestra,
maybe, or that excessively styled Cotswolds B&B you
stayed at – and people are reportedly chilling out by
lying down next to one while it is being bonged.
Workers need
rights, not
gong baths
The sonorous resonance is said
to induce a state of mental escape
that you would normally attain only
when breaking for kombucha after
a full set of ashtanga salutations
with Gwyneth. And you will not
be surprised to learn that large
corporations have rushed to
embrace gong baths. Some top fi rms
are reportedly booking sessions with
gong masters in their endless p ursuit
of workplace wellness.
This appropriation of a musical
instrument is yet another example
of businesses attempting to disguise
the fact that the pressures of modern
work – particularly in high-pressure
sectors such as tech, fi nance and
the media – are increasingly toxic
and may even be killing us. Many
modern workplaces, with their
lures of perks and prestige, are
increasingly resembling the Fyre
festival : they look spectacular in
the pictures but prove wretched
to endure.
Jeff rey Pfeff er, the author of
Dying for a Paycheck, says that the
stress, anxiety and depression being
generated by modern work practices
are responsible for $200bn (£160bn)
in healthcare costs in the US alone ;
work is directly responsible for the
deaths of 120,000 workers there
each year, he suggests. And heart
attacks peak on Monday mornings
as cortisol levels explode in
response to demanding work and
noxious bosses.It has been suggested that since
the arrival of email on smartphones
the average working day has
expanded from seven and a half
hours to nine and a half hours a day,
raising stress levels. But rather than
deal with never-ending electronic
demands, employers often seek
to distract from the problem with
faddish wellness trends. Workers at
one big tech company told me they
were invited to take a “mindful
minute ” at the start of every
meeting – the implication being
that 60 serene seconds would
make amends for the deleterious
melee of the rest of the day.
There is probably nothing
bad about seeking escape in the
shimmering omm of a gong,
but the suggestion that it could
undo the mental damage
of modern offi ce work is an
insult. With every mindful
minute, every gong bath, we
move away from an honest
conversation about how we
need to change work. Is the
answer to the electronically
elongated working day
that we trade down to a
four-day week? Should we
switch to a six-hour day?
These are meaningful
debates that need to be
had – but we are unlikely
to start them over the
bonging of a gong.
Bruce DaisleyThe shape of
success: plan
like Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran has announced his sort-
of-retirement at the tender age of
28. On stage in Ipswich on Monday
night, the last gig of his two-year
Divide world tour, Sheeran said he
would be taking an 18-month break
from touring.
This seems to have been his plan
all along. In 2012, when Sheeran
was well on track to become the
megastar that he is today, he told the
Guardian’s Alexis Petridis that he
wanted to release two more albums,
each named after a mathematical
symbol, then one of duets with
big-name stars. And lo! It has come
to pass. Even this recent quasi-
retirement gels with what Sheeran
said seven years ago, that, after all
that success, he would “calm it
down a bit”.
I t’s easy to see this kind of
granular prescience as a sign of
destiny. We are less inclined to
attribute it to a work ethic because
of what that says about ours – but
what if the secret to success really is
making a plan , and sticking to it?
Taylor Swift recently released
excerpts from her teenage diaries
– in which she happily writes, at age
14, about getting “a standing ovationAge: Brand new.
Appearance: Finally, a family friendly way to
get drunk in public.
A new canned cocktail? How delightful. Well,
technically the passion star martini isn’t new.
It’s just an old Marks & Spencer favourite in
new packaging.
Really? Are you familiar with their porn star
martini?
I’ve heard about them, but never tried one
myself. Me neither. I, too, like to maintain a
superfi cial veneer of chastity while drinking
premixed cocktails that retail at two quid.
So why has the name been changed? Because
there were complaints. One read: “Porn stars
are idolised as people who have sexual success
and are paid for doing so. Therefore, hearing
this name on a can of an alcoholic cocktail is
linking alcohol with sexual success.”
So people who see a canned cocktail in a
middlebrow supermarket might involuntarily
fi nd themselves pursuing a career in the
murky world of porn? That seems to be the
assumption, yes.
But isn’t there a long tradition of giving
cocktails risque names? Yes, but it’s fi ne. We
can fi gure out alternative names for those, too.
So sex on the beach would become ...
Sandwiches on a bench.
And between the sheets ... On top of the sheets
with the lights on in separate beds.
The slippery nipple? The moisturised forearm.
See? That sounds delicious. It’s easy.
Why was the porn star martini called that in
the fi rst place? According to its creator Douglas
Ankrah: “I thought it was something a porn
star would drink.”
To block out the memories of having
their humanity stripped from them in an
exploitative sex industry? Let’s assume yes.
Doesn’t kowtowing to prudish complaints
make M&S look cowardly? Yes, I’m afraid it
does. But it presents its competitors with a
great opportunity to prove that they won’t be
silenced by Victorian-era stuff ed shirts.
How? By going full sexy, that’s how. Tesco can
rename its mojito the nice big boobs, or Aldi
can bring out a can of gin and tonic called the
alarmingly swollen crotch.
And has the secretary for tinned cocktails
been consulted? Oh, you mean Diane
Abbott, the Labour MP who was embroiled
in controversy after being photographed
drinking a single M&S mojito on the train?
Yes, her. No, but she’s probably fi ne with it.
Do say: “I don’t want to have to explain to my
small children what a porn star is.”
Don’t say: “But I do want them to watch me get
hammered on tinned booze in public.”No 4,038
The passion
star martini
Pass notes Shortcuts
Groping on public transport is a
problem the world over, but the
scale of it in Japan, where it is known
as “chikan” , is infamous. According
to Tokyo’s metropolitan police
department, 1,750 cases of groping
or molestation were reported in
2017, with more than 50% of sexual
harassment cases occurring on
trains. Some reports suggest that
more than 75% of all Japanese
women have been groped.
No wonder women there are
looking for a deterrent. A stamp
that brands gropers with invisible
ink , which police can then reveal
with UV light, is the latest measure
to try to fi x the problem. Others
have included women-only train
carriages – which are still occupied
by men in protest, despite having
been introduced over two decades
ago – and an app that enables
victims to play a voice shouting
“Stop it!” at ear-piercing volume
or bring up a full-screen message
reading: “There is a molester. Please
help,” to other passengers.
That app, which as of earlier this
year had been downloaded 237,000
times, I imagine to be the digital
equivalent of my friend announcing
loudly on the bus: “ Could you
please remove your hand fromIs there a tech
solution to
groping?
rends. Workers at
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