Working 9 to 5
Novelist and critic Ian Sansom considers the changing concept of the average working week in an age of zero hours contracts.
Novelist and critic Ian Sansom believes that the idea of the average is one of the key terms and principles of the modern age, encompassing human productivity, relationships, politics and art. So, how did average become a byword for mediocrity?
In the third essay of the series, he explores the changing concept of the average working week in an age of zero hours contracts. Is the idea of an average working week now as redundant and old-fashioned as the idea of the tea-drinking, bowler-hatted man on the Clapham omnibus, with his 2.4 children living comfortably in suburbia, in a nation of cheeky-chappie shopkeepers?
Producer: Stan Ferguson.
Last on
More episodes
Broadcast
- Wed 30 Sep 2015 22:45主播大秀 Radio 3
Death in Trieste
A 1760s murder still informs ideas about aesthetics, a certain sort of sex, and death.
Watch: My Deaf World
Five compelling experiences of what it is like to be deaf in 21st-century Britain.
The Book that Changed Me
Five figures from the arts and science introduce books that changed their lives and work.
Download The Essay
Download all the episodes from the series and listen at your leisure.
Podcast
-
![]()
The Essay
Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond.
