Art by the seaside

The Kent seaside resort of Herne Bay staged the parade of a urinal through the town to celebrate its connection with Marcel Duchamp, who spent a month there in 1913 and credited the place with rekindling his artistic career — a postcard to a friend declared: ‘I am not dead. I am in Herne Bay.’ Some other artists and their favoured English seaside resorts:

— J.M.W. Turner frequently visited Margate for inspiration, after first being sent there as an 11-year-old boy.
— John Constable lived in Brighton between 1824 and 1828.
— Vincent van Gogh taught at a small boarding school in Ramsgate in 1876, from where he wrote to his brother Theo about helping the children to build sandcastles on the beach.
— L.S. Lowry did not spend all his time in Salford. Berwick-upon-Tweed has established a Lowry trail which visits such sights as the holiday house which Lowry once nearly bought.

Wealth and happiness

The government’s new ‘life satisfaction index’ showed a small rise compared with last year, the first year that it was published. The Netherlands-based World Database of Happiness has been publishing an index for much longer. Is there any correlation between happiness and economic growth?

World Database on Happiness/ONS (both year-end figures)

Cause for complaint

The government introduced new fees for people bringing cases to employment tribunals, to reduce the £74 million annual cost to taxpayers. What did employees complain most about in 2011/12?

Number of cases

A total of 321,836 cases were brought, of which 186,331 were accepted.
Source: Ministry of Justice