The four iconic jobs in 21st-century Britain, according to a thinktank called the Work Foundation, are not scientists, engineers, teachers and nurses but hairdressers, celebrities, management consultants and managers.
This is a superb quote, and blisteringly accurate.
I was thinking a decade or so ago that hairdressing is probably the only career that can survive all but the most drastic social meltdown. It's hands-on so it can't be outsourced or automated, it's semi-skilled so not quite everyone can do it, and it will always be popular as long as there's even a nominal surplus of time and money.
My local town has something like 10 salons among a total shop population of perhaps 75 small stores. They all seem to be doing very well.
The two small bookstores, however - not so much.
Maybe they are a subset of "broker" - where the UK has for centuries reigned supreme.
Douglas Adams is starting to make more and more sense to me...
My local town has something like 10 salons among a total shop population of perhaps 75 small stores. They all seem to be doing very well. The two small bookstores, however - not so much.
It sounds, from this point of view, exactly like a French small town - the one I know best, anyway. When locusts move on, they leave nothing behind
I'd bet lonely people getting a haircut for social contact helps business... Auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus imperium; atque, ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
I remember a recent survey found that hairdressers were one of the occupations most happy in their work - no doubt to do with the element of creativity and the varied social inteaction.
Welcome to ET - I've made the same move from UK to France - see signature.
Of course I spent the time at the French hairdresser recently explaining to him that the French economy wasn't in such a bad shape and the UK's wasn't so great and there were a lot of good things about France in comparison with the UK, it's medical system - not waiting months to see a dermatologist for example - the transport systems, etc.
Things ripple out from here :-) Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner - that I moved to Nice. Blog - Nice Experience
While I am truly sad to say that independent booksellers... are disappearing. When locusts move on, they leave nothing behind
And the way books are sold has an influence on what books are sold. Independent booksellers increase the chances for some worthwhile books that are not getting a big promotional boost, for example. So direct buying and small bookseller buying are not (qualitatively) interchangeable, imo. When locusts move on, they leave nothing behind
Also, Bookselling doesn't necessitate much human input ; your average FNAC sells a lots of books with few employees, whereas haircutting is a labor intensive activity.
What it means is that when inequality rises, and the lower salaries are rising slower than average income, such labor intensive activities are becoming cheaper : the cost of an haircut is based on that of low wage labour. So haircutting is getting an price advantage... and rises. Auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus imperium; atque, ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
Not to speak of the fact that the large bookstores used to employ people who knew about books, but now selling books is at FNAC is just another low-paying, unskilled service job. Can the last politician to go out the revolving door please turn the lights off?
Not that I don't like browsing in real bookshops and a Waterstones etc. can have a larger stock of specialist books, and seats and coffee :-) Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner - that I moved to Nice. Blog - Nice Experience
