On Longevity and the System.

I read somewhere once that people who spend a lot of time sitting down have shorter lives. It claimed to be based on research, but I suspect it was something trotted out by a hard-bitten mill owner from Rochdale to frighten his workers who he delighted in watching operating cotton looms from a standing position all day.

Or it could have been Mrs Thatcher, but I doubt it. She was the one who consigned all those lacking the questionable character traits to become entrepreneurs to a miserable life in the nouveau sweat shops called call centres. And call centre workers do, after all, endure their misery sitting down.

There was a man in my home town once who had a call centre. He made his millions very quickly while his workers spent much of the day trying not to wet themselves because they were allowed only two toilet breaks per nine hour shift.

You’ve got to love rampant capitalism and the entrepreneurial spirit, haven’t you? Be it Victorian or Thatcherite, it doesn’t change very much.