Your Local Information Microportal

1. How to say no to pointless meetings. The corporate world loves meetings. For employees whose schedules are chock full of them, the sentiment is more complicated: Every hour dedicated to discussing work is time spent not actually doing it. While breaking the cycle of too-many meetings can feel daunting - especially if you’re not the boss - it is possible. 

2. The Queen’s Speech. This year’s speech contained details of almost 40 proposed bills. These included a Public Order Bill, to grant the police more powers to stop protesters blocking roads and other infrastructure; a Media Bill, to privatise Channel 4; a Genetic Technology Bill, to enable more gene editing of plants and animals; and a Transport Bill, to create a state-run agency to simplify and improve UK railway services. The Government plans to give councils the power to force landlords to rent out empty shops. It also said that it would overhaul the Human Rights Act – to give more democratic oversight to the “expansion of the rights culture” – and introduce a Brexit Freedoms Bill, to make it easier to amend and repeal retained EU laws. The Guardian

3. No plans for an emergency budget. The National Institute of Economic and Social Research says rising food and energy bills could cause a further 250,000 households to “slide into destitution” next year, taking the total number in extreme poverty to 1.5 million. The think tank has called for a boost to benefits of £25 a week, and a one-off payment of £250 for the poorest households. A No. 10 source said there were no plans for an emergency budget. Rather than making big changes to tax and spending plans, ministers were considering various ways they might ease the cost of living by tweaking regulations – they might, for instance, require vehicle owners to only get MoTs every other year. BBC

4. The most popular day of the week. The middle child of the workweek is finally getting its chance to shine. Wednesday has overcome the indignity of its “hump day” phase and turned into the most popular day of the hybrid workweek — 46% of office workers were at their desks on Wednesdays in March, The Wall Street Journal reports. You might alternatively know it as Wellness Day, Whiskey Wednesday or Woof Day (for dog owners), as employers and neighbouring businesses roll out all the stops for workers who’ve left their homes. Mondays, by comparison, drew an attendance rate of just 35%. When is the best day to work in the office? Let us know in our latest poll.

5. The benefits of a brisk walk. A lifetime of brisk walking can knock years off a person’s biological age, a study has found. Researchers at the University of Leicester examined genetic and other data on 400,000 adults, with an average age of 57, included in the UK Biobank. Around half reported walking at an average pace, classed as three to four miles per hour; one in 15 walked at a slow pace (less than 3mph); and four in ten said they were brisk walkers (more than 4mph). The researchers found that faster walkers, regardless of how much they exercised, had longer telomeres – the “caps” at the end of chromosomes that protect them; these shrink over time and are regarded as a strong marker for biological age. The difference in telomere length between the fastest and slowest walkers was said to be equivalent to 16 years of age-related difference. Daily Mail

6. Our next meeting is at Tesco. What if your desk was next to the baked beans and tinned tomatoes? That could be the reality as Tesco has announced a deal with flexible office operator IWG. Starting at its New Malden location in London, the supermarket chain will offer 30 co-working spaces, a meeting room and 12 private desks. It's part of a boom in non-traditional working spaces, with property firm JLL estimating that by 2030 as much as 30% of the UK office market could be flexible working spaces. These new offices join other community spaces that have sprung up on high streets around the country to replace stores that closed during the pandemic. Metro

7. The rise of the silent meeting. Many organisations know that employees sometimes fear speaking up in meetings, while others may just prefer to stay quiet. Research shows that the same two people can monopolise the entire hour of a six-person meeting – making it impossible to have fruitful discussions that span a wide variety of viewpoints. This is why the "silent meeting" has become so popular. It requires participants to stay silent for a certain amount of time, allowing them to add questions and comments to a document for later discussion. It, in essence, allows everyone to be heard. Editor

8. Oil giant overtakes Apple. Apple has lost its position as the world’s most valuable company after it was usurped by Saudi Arabian oil and gas producer Aramco. The oil giant traded near its highest level on record yesterday, reaching a market capitalisation of about $2.4 trillion (£1.9 trillion), while the iPhone maker fell 4.4% in New York to $147.53, for a valuation of $2.3 trillion. 'Even if the move proves short-lived and Apple retakes the top spot again”, the role reversal “underscores the power of major forces coursing through the global economy”. The Telegraph

9. Jubilee pudding announced. A lemon and Swiss roll amaretti trifle will be the official pudding of the Queen's Platinum Jubilee celebrations. The dessert – made with layers of lemon curd and custard, St Clement’s jelly, a mandarin coulis, and amaretti biscuits – was inspired by the lemon posset served at the Queen’s 1947 wedding to Prince Philip. Jemma Melvin, who made the dish, won the nationwide competition to craft a new pudding to commemorate the Queen’s 70-year reign. Some 5,000 people, aged between eight and 108, entered the baking challenge. BBC

10. The bottom line. Should smacking be illegal in the UK? NSPCC revealed that more than two-thirds of adults in England say that physically disciplining a child, for instance by smacking them, is wrong. 64% would like England to follow Scotland, and more recently Wales, in making smacking children a crime; by removing the defence of “reasonable punishment”. Daily Mail