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the times | Saturday May 28 2022 27
News
A councillor blamed his colleagues’
“laziness” on the working from home
culture after an attempt to reduce
office space at a local authority.
Ian Selby told South Kesteven
district council in Grantham, Lin-
colnshire: “Working from home is a
culture that breeds laziness.”
Echoing Boris Johnson’s com-
plaints about working from home
this month, Selby said workers could
not be as productive at home,
because they spent “an awful lot of
time” making cups of tea and coffee,
or organising snacks, before “slowly
walking back to your laptop and
forgetting what you’re doing”.
BBC News reported that one
opposing councillor accused Selby of
making “lazy assumptions”.
The council approved the recom-
mendation to create flexible office
space at a local vacant cinema, which
would be £300,000 a year cheaper
than current offices.WFH breeds
laziness, says
councillor
CLIVE BARDAHyemi Shin’s shifting sets. Far left: SeokJong Baek and Elina Garanca
their eyes were caught by the
Libourne, which had been ferrying
much-needed coal to Bordeaux but
returned with its more luxurious car-
go. They tracked down the wreck and
their curiosity was rewarded. Myste-
riously, the ship’s listed cargo had not
included the vast majority of the alco-
hol. Stranger still, no one claimed in-
surance on the lost drink. However, a
payout was made for the gherkins.
“We found Benedictine, pints of
champagne, bigger champagne bot-
tles, sauternes and big bottles of bor-
deaux premier cru,” says Ian Hudson,
a member of the team. There are also
spirits including brandy. Experts in
Benedictine have confirmed that the
herbal liqueur will be spoilt.
In keeping with the law, the team
have not salvaged any of the wine but
it could be extremely valuable. Simi-
lar vintages of fine wines found in
Swedish waters recently fetched up to
£9,000, and there are many reasons
why punters would pay for it.
“It’s perfectly possible some or
many are good, and maybe excel-
lent,” says Anthony Hanson, a master
of wine who works with Christie’s. “If
from excellent, ripe vintages, theymay have matured slowly in the cold
and aged well.” It might not all be so
tasty. If they come from a bad vintage
they are likely to have aged very bad-
ly. Hudson says that such bottles have
earned the nickname of “millionaire’s
vinegar”. The only way to find out is
to raise them up. Standing in the way
is government policy, which is
aligned with the 2001 Unesco Con-
vention on the Protection of Under-
water Cultural Heritage. The govern-
ment follows this despite not being a
signatory to the convention.
The wreck is not a war grave, and
with the area having been trawled for
years, there is little left of the boat it-
self other than a few scraps of metal
and a boiler. The team insist that the
salvage can be achieved only with
commercial backing, but the Depart-
ment for Digital, Culture, Media and
Sport is resolute in sticking to the Un-
esco convention.
The man who sank the Libourne
was eventually brought to justice.
After the Second World War, Von
Ruckteschell was convicted of war
crimes after firing on merchant ves-
sels even if they had surrendered. He
50 miles died in prison in Germany.
RouteLiverpool
(destination)Sunk by U-boat
Sep 29, 1918Penzance The ChannelLiverpoolBordeaux
Sep 24, 1918BrestDaniel Jayson’s team wants to raise
bottled treasure, above, from the
Libourne. U-boats sank more than
5,000 ships in the First World WarALAMYDebbie White