"Working from home is simply a euphemism for sloth, apathy, staring out of the window and random surfing of the internet"

I beg to differ, Mr. Boris Johnston, Mayor of London! (It's hard to take ANYTHING he says very seriously, isn't it?)

He goes on to say:

"The office is the natural habitat of Homosapiens. It is the place we like to go during the day, just as baboons choose to congregate on some special kop or crag. Like baboons, we go there to groom and to socialise. We find that we need the tension and the jokes, not to mention the acrimony and the rivalry and the tears, and frankly no amount of electronic interchange is a substitute for that ability to gossip and plot,"

No I DON'T need tension, acrimony, rivalry and tears. It hinders me.

Dear Boris also argues that working at home is "supremely dispiriting" and deprives people of a vital stimulus of competition. "Your mental flywheel is hardly turning, and why should it? There is no-one to impress, no one to intrigue against, no one to worry about and that is the real problem with working from home," he said.

"The beauty of an office is that it creates terrors of one kind or another, while at home you are obliged to cudgel your own flanks, to create your own fear - and, in the stupor of your domestic surroundings, you fail to make the leap of imagination."

BOLLOCKS!

Am I allowed to say 'Bollocks' on my own site? I think I'll give myself permission. And here's a rather tasteful picture to go with it, by Martin Lye of Bromley.

I was moved to refer to BJ's (an unlucky accident, those initials?) oh-so-amusing outburst because it's Saturday and I'm just about to start work proof-reading a 56-page magazine. The job came in at 5.45 p.m. last night, marked 'urgent.'

The trouble with working from home is NOT getting started or being distracted (for me, at any rate) - it's actually being able to STOP.

So, take that, Mr. Johnson!