The Joy of Six 1103

"The welfare state is not a safety net that catches us when we fall on difficult times; it’s a thin, measly sheet of the cheapest single-ply tissue which you plunge straight through before hitting the ground with a nasty thump." Amy Taylor on what happens in Britain today if you are suddenly unable to work.

Pam Jarvis reads Spare: "I didn’t predict that I would be left with such an aching sadness for Harry, his brother and his mother and to some extent his father; normal, flawed human beings trapped and tormented within a crumbling, cruelly dysfunctional gilded cage."

Robert Hutton says Simon Case and Lord Geidt failed in their duty to keep Boris Johnson in check and should go.

"Psychiatrists often won’t attribute a patient’s deterioration to drug effects but conclude the patient’s illness has worsened - although any mechanism for this 'illness' will likely be left mysterious. Perhaps the case will be deemed 'treatment-resistant'. Perversely, the inevitable response to such ‘resistance’ will be to administer heavier-duty drugs." Neil Broatch:argues that psychiatric medication can create a vicious circle.

Benjie Goodhart investigates mass sociogenic illness, which left 12,000 children in Japan needing a doctor.

"Bunyan’s inspiring story is one of courage and strength, demonstrating that living authentically is always the best decision you can make. Bunyan has inspired plenty of twenty-first-century artists since the rerelease of Just Another Diamond Day, a sublime record that still deserves to be heard by more listeners." Aimee Ferrier celebrates the renaissance of Vashti Bunyan.