Being thrown into working from home for a prolonged period may be disconcerting for many property people, but it is music to the ears of our pets. They have finally got their moment to shine.
To achieve their dreams of appearing on video conferencing calls, walking over keyboards – and being petted all day long. In EG’s virtual “office”, daily team meetings are now frequented by our newest news hound Ken the Pug and sniffer-out of fishy tales, our very own fat cat, Lady.
But we are not alone with our animal recruits. The property Twitterati joined in sharing their feline fellows and canine colleagues – from Liz Peace’s cats to Ross Bailey’s (very cute) French bulldogs. Diary is only saddened that Better Buildings Partnerships’ chief executive Sarah Ratcliffe couldn’t get her cats to pose for the camera or convince her ducks to get in a row for their close-up. But something tells Diary we might have time to get that shot yet though!
Keep tweeting us with your unusual but loveable new WFH colleagues at @estatesgazette using #propertypets.
Apologies in advance
As you work from home during this lockdown, pets aren’t the only things that will help you through it – as well as fauna, you need some flora. Thankfully, online marketplace OnBuy.com has been in touch to let us know the “10 Trendiest Air Purifying Plants for Your Home Office”. Not, you will note, the 10 most effective – the 10 trendiest. Style over substance, clearly OnBuy knows Diary well. Its flawless methodology of checking how much each plant gets Googled results in aloe vera as the clear winner, with more than 600,000 searches a month, and interest surging since the outbreak of Covid-19.
“This succulent is a known air purifier, as well as having antioxidant and antibacterial properties,” we are told. The popularity of chrysanthemums, in second, is partly attributed to Mother’s Day, while ficus, peace lily (which apparently is the most effective) and spider plant complete the top five. Get those green fingers to work – assuming you can find somebody who will deliver.
Apologies in advance
For what you are about to read, Diary is truly sorry – we can only hope your home office is well-supplied. The most eye-catching subject title in our inbox this week – perhaps even of any week – was: “Toilet roll shortage: 70% willing to poo in the shower, will you?”
Apparently, “desperate times are calling for desperate measures”, according to waste disposal company BusinessWaste.co.uk, which tells us: “As millions of people across the UK face the reality of running out of toilet paper, thanks to the panic-buying selfishness of some shoppers, up to two-thirds of people said they’d consider doing something disgusting as an alternative.”
Spokesman Mark Hall adds: “70% of people said that they would poo in the shower if it came to it. These are the lengths people would go to when they can’t get hold of toilet paper. The hoarders should be ashamed!”
Sadly, unlike OnBuy, BusinessWaste doesn’t share its survey data – indeed, something tells us that we aren’t supposed to take these findings too seriously. “Please remember humour is important,” notes the first line of the e-mail. And that is a philosophy that Diary can definitely get behind.
