If you google 'Carnival' endless pictures of women catching a cold turn up. You won't see pictures like this one on the news, but for me this is one of the most fascinating parts of Carnival - Jouvert (a contraction of jour ouvert or 'daybreak') sees a small number of people walking Carnival route the wrong way round at dawn, throwing flour and paint at each other and along the route. I find this magical and inspiring, a real demonstration of the subversive and chaotic, a kind of secret ritual that allows and boundaries the following two days. 

Carnival is The World Turned Upside down, a time when some people pretend to be what they're not, things that are illegal at other times are now permitted, and feasting and revelry are indulged. Carnival is not, despite what it may seem, an advert for Top Shop or an opportunity for a politician to make a terrible arse of himself, it's a reminder that racism still exists and that magic remains possible. In the UK it's a farewell to Summer and a blowout before Autumn. Go out and have a ball.

A good part of my working week is spent in other people’s offices where I've noticed that there are little signs telling people how to use a microwave, what the fridge policy (a fridge policy!) is, reminders not to steal and that in the event of a fire they must leave the building to avoid being burned to death. In one office there were 14 full colour, laminated notices telling people to come to work on time, not to pour boiling water on toddlers, to avoid spreading infectious diseases, the sink policy – yes, really - that time in the kitchen was being monitored, and that staff attendance was under review.

This in an organisation that "doesn't have the money" for a box of tissues.

I'm a big fan of Health and Safety legislation, it really is necessary to tell people that hot water is hot, but Health and Safety is not the issue in an organisation that feels it necessary to watch how long individuals are spending in a kitchen.

The private sector doesn’t seem to have the same issues. People there somehow know how to use a fridge without needing a policy. It's not that people who work in the private sector are any brighter than people who serve the public, far from it. It’s more that initiative is more likely to be nurtured rather than treated with suspicion and organisational vision tends to be wider than what’s happening in a microwave.

Work in the public and voluntary sectors is too often reduced to a Kafkaesque model of not-work where flair and imagination are perceived as suspect and personally threatening. In the private sector innovation, ideas and positive critique are more likely to be welcomed.

I've worked in places where little children bellow and cry too much while stressed workers scream nursery rhymes at them. The staff have obviously gone through training and got appropriate qualifications. The staff ratios are legal and the toilet-cleaning rota is managed very well, everything is fine on paper and that's all that matters. Sickness rates and staff turnover are costing an arm and a leg but the funders are content with the reports sent to them. Funders tell organisations what they expect to hear and then organisations repeat it back to them including, incredibly, sending them ‘case studies’ instead of saying, “No, we will not send you a case study because that would be entirely inappropriate.” Instead, organisations make case studies up.

It's true that many people are put into positions of responsibility that they are not worthy of and they can have a profound effect on the people working under them. It's an irony that those people who don't feel anxious about being competent at their job, who believe they're indispensable to the organisation, are more likely to be so comfortable at work that they feel no need for personal development. Similar problems arise when a leader isn't confident enough to lead but just keeps doing what they're told rather than saying, "Why do we need to be told not to scald children? What's going on here?"

Writing a fridge policy is not a good use of anyone's time. Any organisation that needs a fridge policy has far, far greater problems than manky yoghurt.

A report has come out this morning suggesting that a shorter working week and space for growing plants and food could "provide the answer to every headline problem at the moment."

At a time when every political statement seems to be about Hard Working Tax Payers – and discounts every activity that isn’t work – this seems like Utopian nonsense. But the figures don’t bear that out.

Japan has suffered 20 years of economic decline but has kept unemployment low by having a 4-day week. They’re more interested in social cohesion than getting votes. The 4-day week in normal in Norway. Across the US, both public and private employers continue to experiment with the 4 day week finding that there are savings to be made on agency staff and utilities, that absenteeism plummets, productivity increases, morale improves. Families save money on childcare and spend more time with the kids. Parents are less exhausted and, not having to fit all the housework, social life, and shopping (never mind relaxing) into a few hours, actually enjoy that time with their children. So their kids are happier and more relaxed.

For everyone to move over to a four day week would take a huge cultural shift, but it’s been done before: football matches traditionally begin at 3pm because a five and a half day week was normal in the UK. A two-day weekend only became normal in the 1960's. The summer school holidays are so long because children had to help with the harvest. And of course, a seven-day week, for men, women and children was once brutally normal.

While the economists struggle with the figures, we can think about the ways we work and why.

If it’s about status, if you think you’re better than a person who’s unemployed or works part time, beware. Redundancy, illness and failed businesses happen all the time and the more you look down on people who are not like you the more savage your experience when you join them. If it’s about money then decide what your priorities are: if you or your children really need all that stuff could it be that the stuff is making up for less-than-good relationships? If it’s about identity then make sure you don’t get old or ill. You are so much more than your job title.

Rounded, productive, content people spend time enriching their lives, are interested in a whole range of things from breadmaking and calligraphy to philosophy and singing. Vitally, they work on developing good friendships. You need time to build relationships and while your manager may value you while you keep producing good friends will support you when your manager hands you your P45.

I’ll talk about the psychological benefits of gardening in the next blog: getting your hands dirty really can keep your head clear!

Imagine if hundreds of thousands of people were wandering our streets dragging a badly broken, untreated leg behind them for years on end or bearing a ghastly wound that was prescribed sticking plasters. We’d expect the person with the untreated leg to be permanently crippled and the person with the wound to get infections, be further damaged and perhaps to die. We’d also be shocked and outraged that such a huge number of people were being treated with contempt and cruelty by the NHS.

That’s the situation we’re in with mental illness.

• Mental illness now accounts for nearly half of all ill health suffered by people in Britain.
  


• A quarter of mentally ill people are receiving treatment. 
  


• One third of families have a member who is currently suffering from a mental illness. 
  


• It accounts for nearly half of absenteeism at work and mental illness accounts for nearly half of people on incapacity benefits.
  


• Two-fifths of patients suffering from anxiety or depression can recover if they are treated.
  


• Proper treatment would cost the NHS little or nothing because it would produce savings in other healthcare areas.
  


• The cost to the NHS of not treating mental illness is at least £10 billion. 
  


• There are 700,000 children in Britain with behavioural problems, anxiety or depression.
  

These are just some of the findings of the LSE research into UK mental health which actually makes good reading. It’s about time that people in power spoke robustly about ‘broken spirits’ and ‘troubled souls’, because this is precisely the issue. Organic mental illness caused by a head injury or chemical imbalance is quite rare, whereas the expectation that you can function like a machine for 80 years has a huge impact on mental wellbeing.  Anxiety and depression are perfectly reasonable responses to being expected to do just that, and increasingly high-pressure circumstances only add to the problem. Poverty is a causal link to many illnesses, including mental illness (no one’s getting richer) while the stress that far too many families are under causes children to go mad, and who can blame them?

An enormous amount of the time I spend with clients is spent in discovering what they actually value. People arrive saying they’re not doing as well as they want to at work, can’t sleep or drink too much and very quickly discover that they’re being bullied at work, hate everyone around them or feel destroyed by disappointment. Soon, from feeling defensive or personally disgusted with themselves, they move to feeling terribly sad and helpless in the face of apparently overwhelming circumstances.

Then they realise that they have more options than they knew. It is perfectly acceptable to go off sick. You are allowed to rest if you’re exhausted, just as you would be if you’d been in a car accident. You are allowed to go onto sickness benefits – it doesn’t make you a scrounging work-dodger: the existence of sickness benefits recognises and respects that if the State pays the interest on your mortgage or your rent for a period of time you are more likely to return to productivity.

Sometimes, people come to understand that there is more to life than productivity, and that there’s a difference between productivity and contribution. Churning out endless bits of paper is, for instance, far less useful and satisfying than giving meaningful support to an elderly neighbour or unhappy child or the local cats home.

A good number of clients relearn that, as Lord Layard has suggested, who we are requires just as much care and attention as how much tax we can pay. That’s now moving from a philosophical premise to a vital economic reality.

Right on cue for the beginning of the Jubilee celebrations, it’s raining. So much energy has been expended in creating this huge national event that we could have a volcanic eruption and it would still go ahead. The school over the road from me have been jumping up and down and shouting joyfully all week in their celebration of Monarchy. Are they being taught history, identity, team spirit, or being indoctrinated? Perhaps a bit of both? Where does one end and the other begin?

Whether you’re a Royalist or a Republican you’ll recognize the value of a shared public celebration, as well as the value of dissent. Despite what the media might tell us it’s entirely possible to hold a nuanced, moderate view that appreciates parts of both beliefs. It’s important that we learn this skill so that we don’t contradict ourselves – while it’s not unusual for huge numbers of people to hold incongruous beliefs when it’s done unthinkingly it can have sobering consequences: how many low paid workers will be whooping it up under the bunting for 4 days but griping about lost revenue when unions close a few streets for half a days march against low wages?

People in power encourage our tendency for simplistic thinking. Here’s a particularly loathsome phrase: “Hard Working Tax Payers.” Not just working, but working HARD. This week, HR Magasines poll suggested that (at least) 1 in 10 workers were ‘dormant’. If you’re content in work you almost can’t help but be productive but if you’re a taxpayer, the focus isn’t on productivity it’s on working HARD. In the days of heavy industry this might have had some meaning, these days it’s more likely to mean that you’ve not been properly trained, your boss is stressed and taking it out on you and the commuting is killing you. But you can feel secure that simply by being employed you are a Very Hard Working Tax Payer, inherently superior to those dole scroungers (who may, because of the Byzantine nature of the benefits system, low wages and a lack of full time jobs, have an income as good as yours. NB this is not unemployed people's fault.)

It’s was wonderful to wander down the Golborne and Portobello Road today, flags flying, tea flowing, cupcakes galore, the Sally Army tooting away and, as you can see from the photo, the WI baking and volunteering for England. It's good to share in genuine appreciation of 60 years hard work of a now elderly woman who volunteered to pay tax in 1992, when she feels like it. She didn’t, for instance pay £20 million inheritance tax when her mother died. We've got bunting up, will be going over to the street party later and will shed a tear as we sing Gawd Save The Queen, and I’ll remember to ask myself “Cui Bono?” "Who Benefits" from our slipping back to something that looks and sounds very like a fictionalized version of the 1950’s?

Enjoy your long weekend.