The Joy of Six 1135

"For all that countless artists, musicians and writers from the 50s to the 80s saw government as the enemy and thought they were mavericks railing against the system, the flourishing culture of the period was very much a product of the welfare state and its nurturing social infrastructures." Alex Niven says Britain’s harsh welfare system means that now only the rich can afford to make art.

Alastair Campbell argues that the Metropolitan Police's decision to stop responding to mental health call-outs is a very dangerous development.

Mark Boylan condemns the Department for Education's culture of secrecy and expediency over forced academisation.

"Since the birth of written history, we’ve been complaining about being bored - the Roman philosopher Seneca talked about boredom as a form of nausea, and the huge amount of graffiti preserved from those days suggests that teenagers have long been tormented by the same impulses." Luke Ryan maintains that a little boredom is good for children.

"Over the three days, the festival gradually descended into a hellish scene. Much like Woodstock 1999, food and water were in short supply, having a significant hand in people resorting to their base selves. Demonstrating this Hobbesian state of nature that played out, a truck that delivered food was hijacked, looted and burned by a group of attendees." Arun Starkey on the the Bull Island Rock Festival, which has gone down as the worst music festival of all time.

A Clerk of Oxford reveals that, from the Middle Ages until the early 20th century, the period around Whitsun was the principal summer holiday of the year.