Rachael McKelvey

Any excuse to talk about coffee!
First I have the coffee and then I do the things, except in this last week…a small head injury and few wonky blood pressure readings have meant that I have been at least a week caffeine free and feeling quite feeble and apparently there is some science in that. 

Researchers from the National University of Singapore have found that a cup of tea or coffee a day keeps you stronger into old age, and the sample size wasn’t small, there were 12,000 participants aged 45 to 75 over a period of twenty years and the outcome was that drinking tea or coffee during those middling years was linked to a reduction in physical frailty in old age!  So I am hopeful that doubling down I’m doing in my late thirties will mean I hit my middling strong, the magical power of coffee knows know bounds, it is linked to reduce risk of early death and some diseases (and the jitters). 

The research team added that “further studies are still needed” to “investigate if these effects on physical frailty are mediated by caffeine or other chemical compounds”. Which basically sounds really promising that 2 cups really might be the answers. So yes please, get the kettle on.

Even shop lifting is now stealing to order
This week has seen Ministers have unveiled a new police taskforce to tackle a rise in shop lifting, but why now? In the year to June 2023 there were 365,164 lifting offences reported to the police, that’s over a 1,000 reported offences every single day a day which is up 25% on the previous year and double the rate of 2019.

The British Retail Consortium say the problem is costing £1 billion a year to tackle, with a lot of that money spent on crime prevention methods including security staff, but also single entry and exist systems as well as body cameras for staff, alongside incentives to change merchandising layouts in stores placing the items of higher value closer to the tills, locking away baby formula and fake packets on shelves.

The rise in shoplifting is partly fuelled by the cost-of-living crisis. Local shop keepers are saying they have noticed an increase organised crime gangs who are stealing to order. The chair of John Lewis has also raised concerns about safety of works in the face of “organised gangs” saying it is “not an exaggeration” to describe the trend as an epidemic. She added that it “feels like in the last year we have moved from putting an extra six eggs in the shopping basket you haven’t paid for” to “organised gangs shoplifting to order in a way I find profoundly shocking”.

 

Level up, but not like that!
I wrongly thought the concept of “levelling up” had been scrapped but this week I learnt there is still a Department for Levelling Up and their view of implementing the four day work week in local authorities without adjustment to pay would not be value for money for tax payers and that it feels so passionately that it has threatened consequences on any English council that proceeds to adopt a four-day week.

The squabble has arisen as a result of South Cambridgeshire Council who have extended their four-day work week trial, originally part of wider trial run last year by 4 Day Week Global, following its success in all the obvious places but also in those vacancies that have been harder to fill and retain. The councils deputy leader made a pointed comment this week stating “We…are looking to be innovative exactly as…[the levelling up department] demands. But apparently it’s the wrong sort of innovation”.

Apparently the Government is still supportive of and employees right to request flexible working, and there is new legislation on the way to make this a right from day one of employment but apparently just making things nicer for everyone in such a different working landscape to 20 years ago is just a step too far.

 

Apparently its not good to talk
Ofcoms latest Telecommunications Market Data Update shows just how anti social we’ve all become!

As a nation we are spending less and less time on the phone, with 1528 million less minutes being spent on landlines and 3.34 billion less minutes being spent from mobile phones. A whopping 60% of mobile users prefer to use messing services to contact people rather than voice calls or text, with data volumes up 27% and text messages down by 15.5%. Apparently it is no longer good to talk (IYKYK, welcome along you’re as old as me).

I fall into the “elder millennial” category and I can confirm none of us love to talk, except recently I’ve started much preferring it, but still only with allowed friends and by pre-arrangement over a non text based messaging service so maybe I am proving the point. 

Except there is one thing professionally, if its urgent pick up the phone. I was recently chased for something that was apparently late by email, it was not late I just didn’t know this person needed it. I was chased twice in a 90 minute window and I can honestly say I did not check my emails that day for about 4 hours, because you know what…if its urgent at worst drop me a message on Teams and at best give me a call, that’s when calling is useful. 

The Barbie Movie Effect
Hand straight up I still haven’t seen the film, but you’ve got to have been living under a rock to not know that the Barbie movie came out in July with some absolutely sensational marketing around it, the partnerships, the out of home advertising, the in home advertising, you can’t have missed it and neither did Matell, the toymaker behind the original Barbie doll. 

This week the company reported a16% year on year increase in gross billings for Barbie toys which boosted over all sales by 9% year on year to $1.9 billion, yielding a 27% growth rate in the company’s dolls category which is huge, but how do they keep the momentum? With more franchises of popular toys on the way, that’s how and you can understand why! 

The Barbie movie itself has equally impressive statistics becoming the highest-grossing movie of the year and taking in over $1.4 billion across the world at the box office. Ps: Can’t wait to the Polly Pocket film.

Current watch:  Sue Perkins: Perfectly Legal – Such joy! Sue Perkins goes around South America to experience some of the most utterly bizarre but perfectly legal weird stuff. From getting shot, to joining a death cult and nearly getting hurt at Mexicos national firework festival. It’s very easy to watch, win, and the people she meets along the way are wonderful (apart from the donkey guys, they’re weird and that’s uncomfortable, skip passed it) It’s a little bit mad but it’s quite something and although Sue Perkins doesn’t have to put herself in such extremes to make a good travel show, somehow there isn’t anyone else I’d rather watch do drugs in the desert.

Current read: Cat Lady by Dawn O’Porter – I had a rare opportunity to escape the chaos around me, enjoy a beautiful view & just read, all day so of course I picked fiction, the kind that ruins you and puts you back together over the course of the book. The main character Mia plays the part people expect without flaw, she is a good wife, a diligent and real stepmother, she gives everything in her career but actually it’s not who she is and through a series of events outside her control the life she has carefully crafted to suit that narrative crumbles and she has a choice to continue to live her life for others or risk living it for herself. This book is funny, it’s life affirming, it’s as clever as it is silly, it leans into the fact it takes a village to live a life but that the village you need might not be the village you expect you need. I couldn’t want for a better companion for my day.

Most Impactful Listen: WorkLife with Adam Grant – The Three Big Myths of Mentoring – Well, if this wasn’t just what I needed to hear at just the moment I needed to hear it. Adam Grant specialises in Organisation Psychology and I’ve found a lot of value in this work, this episode of his incredible WorkLife podcast digs into the science behind what makes a good mentor ,and it’s not what people typically think, how to build an effective mentor-mentee relationship and helps unpick some of the stories we tell ourselves around our possibility and potential. The podcast explores the relationship between Sophia Chang, Korean-Canadian hip-hop trailblazer and Michael Ostin head of A&R at Warner Music and what that 36 year relationship has looked like for mentee and mentor. The podcast also explores the benefits of reverse mentoring and the impact this has had at Virgin. I have been blessed with finding the right mentor for the moment in my life and I am forever grateful for their advice and support and this podcast got me thinking about what I am looking for and what I can offer at the next junction.