WITH much of the population having to work from home these days due to the current coronavirus crisis, I am struck by the ease at which most people have adapted to such practices.
I well remember when I first started working from home over 25 years ago, there was no wi-fi then and Ethernet connections were the order of the day. I had to have an ISDN line installed which allowed me to connect to the computer mainframe at my head office in London and facilitated a business telephone and separate fax line. There were also many health and safety instructions to comply with, including the requirement to have a fire extinguisher at my work station, a swivel chair with a fixed and reclining back and a desk which had to be at a certain height. There had to be a measured amount of free space around my desk and there had to be a certain amount of natural light.
I am quite sure these measures were for my comfort and safety and I just hope that when the lockdown finally ends and the working population do return to their offices that they do not suffer from bad backs due to poor posture, eyesight issues and burn-out caused by working too many hours when unregulated by the office environment.
Christopher H Jones, Giffnock.
Active solutions
THE sports media continue to we dominated by football and all the questions about getting it restarted. Pressure is no doubt coming from big-money tv channels, but surely being realistic there is no chance of football restarting anytime soon sadly.
Instead of focusing our energy on thus futile football focus can we not put our energies for the sake of our health and wellbeing into getting those sports that can comply with social distancing like golf (Scotland’s national sport), tennis, badminton, cycling, athletics, bowls and the like?
We seem to have an attitude that says if we can’t play or watch fitba’ then there can be no sport when clearly there can be with the right social distancing rules applied.
Can we for once put football on the back burner and get the nation back to other sports for the good of everyone.
Ian McNair, Cellardyke.
Drink stockpiles
YOUR recent article on alcohol sales ("Alcohol sales up by a third since lockdown", The Herald, April 29) was intriguing. Your source warns about the dangers, implying that increased sales translate into increased consumption. Following through on that logic, the nation must have experienced record levels of diarrhea in the past few weeks, given the surge in sales of toilet paper.
I personally know several people who have been stockpiling alcohol, the logic being that if the worst comes to the worst the Government will take steps to supply food, but it is not going to do this for booze.
Gerry Gill, Glasgow G12.
Killer verse
FOLLOWING on from Lydia Robb’s observation that Poem of the Day sits cheek by jowl with the death announcements (Letters, April 30):
“The curfew tolls the knell of parting day. The line of cars wind slowly o’er the lea.
“The pedestrian homeward plods his weary way. And leaves the world quite unexpectedly”.
Updated from Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, published in 1751 (Apologies to Thomas Gray, 1716 - 1771).
R Russell Smith, Kilbirnie.
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