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?
| UK happiness (out of 10) | |
| 7.13 |
2004 |
| 7.12 |
2005 |
| 7.15 |
2006 |
| 7.15 |
2007 |
| 6.98 |
2008 |
| 7.38 |
2009 |
| 7.37 |
2010 |
| 7.15 |
2011 |
| 7.26 |
2012 |
| UK economic growth (%) | |
| 1.9% | 2004 |
| 4.4% | 2005 |
| 1.8% | 2006 |
| 3.7% | 2007 |
| -4.3% | 2008 |
| -2.5% | 2009 |
| 1.8% | 2010 |
| 1.1% | 2011 |
| 0% | 2012 |
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
| Working hours | 94,697 |
| Unauthorised pay deductions | 51,185 |
| Unfair dismissal | 46,326 |
| Breach of contract | 32,075 |
| Equal pay | 28,801 |
| Redundancy pay | 14,661 |
A total of 321,836 cases were brought, of which 186,331 were accepted.
Source: Ministry of Justice
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