Carl Honore

A cure for vacationitis?

The aversion to taking a vacation has gone so far that big companies are now looking for ways to force their staff to take a break. A recent report in the New York Times reveals that PricewaterhouseCoopers has taken to closing down its entire US operation twice a year to ensure that its employees down tools. Everything stops at the well-known accounting firm for 10 days over Christmas and five days around the Fourth of July. During the year, the company also sends electronic reminders to staff who are failing to take enough vacation time. Posters depicting idle days away from the desk now hang in its New York office. One high-ranking member of the firm says that “we wanted to create an environment where people could walk away and not worry about missing a meeting, a conference call or 300 e-mails.” Not surprisingly, productivity is up since the new push for vacation.

And if PricewaterhouseCoopers can do it, then….

Chinese takeaway

If you think speed-dating is rushed in the West, just consider the hurry-up approach to romance in China. In the country’s bustling cities, young people are now so busy that they have no time to look for Mr or Ms Right. The solution: group dating. In China, though, ‘group’ does not mean 30 singletons flirting over scorecards in a pub. At a recent event in Zhejiang, 12,658 people turned up looking for love. That’s an awful lot of potential mates to sift through in an evening. No wonder some female participants report that the only phone numbers they come home with are those of other single women looking for a shoulder to cry on.

Slow vacation

We’ve just come back from the ultimate slow holiday – travelling round Holland by barge and bicycle. I can’t think of a better way to see a country. Pedalling through the countryside and villages, stopping to picnic or sightsee or join in a pick-up soccer game. Cycling offers the perfect speed, fast enough to cover lots of ground, slow enough to take in the details. In the evenings you can smell suppers cooking as you glide past the open kitchen windows. Our unorthodox tandem sparked more than one conversation with the locals. Holland is amazingly bike-friendly, with dedicated cycle paths all over the place, even in the cities. The Dutch cycle everywhere. In Amsterdam you see businessmen in smart suits pedalling home from work. Or elegant women in high-heels cycling off to meet friends for lunch. Even bad weather doesn’t put them off. If only the rest of the world would follow suit. Imagine if you could cycle round London without fear of being squashed by a bus or an SUV. No one in Holland wears a cycling helmet, by the way. Apart from the tourists.