The end of rush hour

By Robert Colvile

In May last year, a man in a cage appeared at Liverpool Street Station in London. It was, of course, a publicity stunt – but not, as you might have expected, for Amnesty International. The “prisoner” worked for a law firm, which was promoting itself as a place where the wage slaves funnelling into the City could break free from the culture of targets, long hours and snatched lunches at the desk.

At the time the story appeared, I felt a certain kinship with the man in the cage. I was working as a senior editor at BuzzFeed UK, where we’d just switched to putting out our long reads on Saturdays, with some success. I’d like to say this was driven by analysis of the audience data. But actually, it was because by Friday night, I was so frazzled that the words would start swimming before my eyes. So I ended up finishing the pieces off on Saturdays. And if it meant less time with my wife and baby – well, they’d understand.