Rules for gossip in the workplace

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Hello from London,

How much political fallout will result from student protests over Gaza that have erupted on so many campuses in America? At the weekend several colleges cleared encampments and police arrested hundreds of protesters. But demonstrations won’t fizzle immediately. Many students, I suspect, are having far too much fun to give up now.?

College presidents know they risk losing their jobs if they enrage politicians or donors—either by clamping down too harshly on students’ rights to speak freely, or by doing too little to prevent intimidation and disruption. Politicians, in turn, know this issue could blow up. Younger voters, for example, may use this episode as a reason to shun Democrats. As our Lexington columnist has observed, the campus is coming for Joe Biden, who risks being seen as the candidate of chaos and war.

Others, including those running companies, also have to think about popular upheaval. Yesterday we published a survival guide for CEOs on how to cope in a time of populism. Those who run American firms are scrambling to prepare for the possible second coming of Donald Trump. Some bosses see advantages in courting politicians, but cosying up to governments is no guarantee of success. If you want to check on the odds of Mr Trump’s election, then bookmark our regularly updated Biden-Trump poll tracker.

Don’t forget the war in Ukraine. As important as increased flows of Western weapons will be for defending the democracy against Russian aggression, the Ukrainians also need more soldiers to fight. The expansion of conscription, now under way, threatens to be unpopular even if it’s necessary. Read our new story on how fearful young Ukrainians dodge conscription.?

Meanwhile, do you want to read something about rumour and innuendo? Well, don’t tell anyone else, but Bartleby, our columnist who writes on office life, has the latest word on gossip. Researchers suggest that people spend 52 minutes a day on average talking about other people—and that, far from being idle scuttlebutt, it probably brings some benefits.?

The latest edition of Dateline, our history quiz, is published. The trickiest question, I think, is over a snippet from our archive on the opening of the Suez Canal.

And if you want an additional diversion, I recommend two offerings. One is an article about the new genre of “romantasy”—the literary love-child of fantasy and romance. If you thought dragons couldn’t be erotic, think again. These books are overwhelmingly written and read by women, and are the publishing phenomenon of the moment. Another concerns the burgeoning sport of paddleboarding that combines fitness, wellness and smugness.?

Finally, look out—on our app, now, and on our website soon—for our new video offerings. We’ll be publishing a new, short, video each day. Today for example you’ll find Alice Fulwood, our Wall Street correspondent, explaining how it is economically rational for women to aspire to be thin—and why that is a tragedy. You can also watch Lane Greene, who writes on language, on which tongues are the trickiest to learn, and why.?

Thank you for all your kind comments, praise and suggestions in response to my request last week for ideas on what we could be doing differently. Sadly, it’s not in my power to cut the subscription price, but I promise to mull all the other thoughts. Eric Grossman made a suggestion that I particularly like, proposing that we do much more with political cartoons to make them easier to find, by bundling them together.

My question for you, for next week, concerns the student protests. I can’t believe the protests will grow to be as big as the anti-Vietnam War demonstrations of a previous generation—after all, the threat of conscription is not looming these days for Western students. But how significant will the protests over Gaza prove to be? Write to me at [email protected].

Adam Roberts, Digital editor

Recommended reads

Pssst! Want to read something about rumour and innuendo?

Gossip is everywhere. On one estimate, from Megan Robbins and Alexander Karan of University of California, Riverside, people spend 52 minutes a day on average talking about other people. Gossip pervades the workplace. You hear it in conversations among colleagues; you know who to go to for the latest round of it. You can tell when gossip is imminent: voices suddenly lower and there may well be some theatrical looking around to check that the target is not in earshot. Sometimes it is offered up explicitly, like a vol-au-vent at a drinks party: “Do you want to hear a bit of gossip?” And yes, you almost certainly do.

How to handle populists: a CEO’s survival guide

This year Western bosses must work their way through a lengthy list of obsequious phone calls. Around 80 countries, home to some 4bn people, are holding elections in 2024 (not always freely, as in Russia in March). Some chief executives may already have drafted their compliments for Narendra Modi, who is almost certain to keep his job as prime minister of India, where citizens are now casting ballots in a weeks-long festival of democracy. After Mexico’s election in June most corporate leaders expect to be congratulating president-elect Claudia Sheinbaum, the anointed successor of the incumbent, Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

Ukraine’s draft dodgers are living in fear

The idea was madness, opening a bar in the throes of war. Russian warships dominated Odessa’s horizon and the streets were barricaded with tank traps. Normal people were preserving whatever they had. But for a group of former philosophy students, it was the moment dreams were made and they poured everything into the project. By early summer 2022 they had refashioned a beauty salon into a new cultural hotspot, selling erotic photography and moonshine vodka. They mused about becoming partisans to fight the Russians should they ever appear.

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