Survivor’s top ten

Each month we’ll be sending you a top ten for surviving work. This month we won’t be messing with your heads and trying to pretend that its been a great few weeks for work. Welfare reforms, chaos, fear and anxiety. So we’ve pulled out what we think you need to be aware of and then softened the blow a bit by doing a few funnies. It reminds us of the 1970s when there was a panda or puppy story at the end of the news on telly every night.This month we have mainly been reading the following.1. It would have been really easy to link to ten or twenty blogs that outlined quite how drastic last week’s welfare cuts will be for those affected. As a reminder here is a list of all the changes that are happening this month.2. In reality we don’t yet know quite how badly hit people will be because so many changes were introduced at the same time and many will be affected by more than one of these. A recent Public Accounts Committee report on one of the changes – housing benefit reform  – highlighted that the Department for Work and Pension couldn’t provide it with an impact assessment for this policy.  The DWP said that they don’t know how households affected by the changes are going to react. And that the raft of other changes being made to thewelfare system will often impact on the same households. To me, this fact means there is even more need for someone to work on an impact assessment. You can see why I’m not in government.3. For some light relief, if you’ve ever wished you were a bit more street,why not Gizoogle  yourself.4. The things that we consider our prized possessions are different but the seriousness with which children collect them seems similar in these most excellent photos.5. It’s been a good week for those fun online games that usually help you work out which Hogwarts house you’d have been in. This one though tells you which of the new seven classes you are. In case you know perfectly well which class you are, or don’t really care, a more helpful one might be this one: It works out how much money people need, so that they can buy things that members of the public think that everyone in the UK should be able to afford.6. The ramifications of the Francis Report into the Mid-Staffs hospital rumble on. This really interesting blog looks at two things: whether the data that is used to look at how hospitals are performing are good enough and whether the things that are looked for tell us enough about how a whole hospital is running.7. In case you’ve ever got to the end of a Mars bar and thought “I’m sure they used to be bigger” I am happy to be able to tell you, you’re right. Companies are trying to maintain prices by reducing the size of our favourite foods. Evidently if they do it a little at a time, we don’t notice.8. “Drugs and alcohol are not my problem – reality is my problem”.Russell Brand talks about what it actually feels like to be an addict  and why treating him and his friends as criminals isn’t going to help anyone.9. And finally two facts for you: firstly that Samsung have named their new phone ’Life Companion‘. I dont know whether to laugh or cry, I think my phone hates me and and I’ve stopped answering it, speaks volumes.10. Secondly sea lions also understand the draw of Boogie Wonderland’s thumping bass. Not exactly pandas but sea lions, man.