Nicholas Craig column

Feb 4 2005 By Nicholas Craig, The Journal

Are you pushed for leisure time? We're used to hearing people say it, but according to Mintel it's a British myth.

The research firm questioned 2,000 people and concluded that we do not live in a cash rich, time poor society after all, but in one that is both cash rich and time rich.

The common perception of us poor old modern Britons - madly rushing around trying to juggle the competing pressures of work and life, with time scarcely to breathe, let alone relax is simply not true. We don't have less time than ever before - we are just more dissatisfied with the time we do have.

We use the internet to save time on research and we don't need to go to the bank or supermarket as everything can be done from our home computer. Cooking is now a hobby, not a necessity; shopping an experience, when the basics have been bought online; holiday booking part of the holiday fun.

The notion of the "long hours culture", in which Britons are apparently slaving their lives away does not stand up to close scrutiny. All the anxious debates about the problem of "work stress" and the need for a better, more flexible work-life balance appear to be unnecessary.

The Office for National Statistics states that over half of British men (56pc) work between 31 and 45 hours per week, which is rather short hours for a full-time job; and that about a third of all full-time employees have some kind of flexible working pattern.

Female respondents to Mintel's survey know exactly what would make their lives better - servants and domestic technology. More help with the home and garden was rated a top time-saving priority by 45pc of women, followed by "one-stop shopping".

So there seems no basis to the myth of Busy Britain. In fact we should perhaps concern ourselves about the couch potato society we seem to have become. Did you know that there is now one TV set for each person in a household?

The North-East has had a long reputation as a "work hard, play hard" region. That is surely more healthy and dynamic than the prospect of a society eating fast food in front of a computer game during a flexi-time day off work.

We appear to have the time to enjoy ourselves - we just have to find less boring ways in which to do it.

Nicholas Craig is a partner at Watson Burton LLP