Productivity gains of nearly 3 per cent helped to make an overall pay-back period of just

Productivity gains of nearly 3 per cent helped to make an overall pay-back period of just over one year.The experiment was extended to the 12-strong facilities management department. The result of talks was that staff agreed to squeeze their personal workspace area, although each still kept their own desk – unlike the Swedes, who now have mobile workdesks.In return, however, PPP employees gained a variety of work settings, including “break-out areas ” consisting of cafe-style tables and chairs plus sofas, more meeting rooms and a quiet room for concentrated work – without a telephone. It did, however, stimulate employees at healthcare insurers PPP’s head office in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, to think and talk about new styles of office working.
The slide show was part of the consultation exercise mounted by management faced with the problem of getting 77 information technology and systems staff into a space designed for 63. Gently press the button on the fruit and a computer workstation will descend from the ceiling,” gushes the spiel.

This is not fantasy, but a real office, owned by Digital Equipment Corporation in Sweden. Photographs of it shocked British workers who saw them recently They felt it was a bit over the top. Beneath the window (of the quiet room), aspirant golfers can sink a putt, or make a hole in one, on a mini golf- course. “A central feature is a large indoor tree growing from the garden, with limbs spreading across the ceiling and pieces of fruit hanging from them.

On the bridge of the ship are round tables for informal meetings. Cross the blue water-run ramps, on one side of the office, to the bridge of a ship and, on the other, to a quiet room. Welcome to the “Natural Office”. On the flooring a central green island is encircled by a sandy beach with blue water at its edges. C4 will be screening a documentary, ‘Girl on a Motorbike’ for Short Stories on 6 Jul. “I’m not scared any more”, she says, “it’s really no more dangerous than riding a bike in London.”DANIEL SYNGEThe Motordrome Wall of Death: Kent Custom, Romney Marsh, Kent, 7-9 Jul; 1000 Bikes, Snetterton, Norfolk, 15-16 Jul. What was initially “a once in a lifetime opportunity” has become an hourly chore as The Wall of Death’s neon sign draws the evening crowds.

But changes in public taste have forced most of them off the road.At this year’s Chelsea Bridge show, Cham is by now on her fourth brush with the wall. You’re so dizzy you can’t walk straight,” Sarah Kells, the first volunteer, warns her as she descends the stairs to the pit.Not to be confused with the pedestrian fairground version, The Motordrome Company’s Wall of Death, built in 1932, has toured the country’s motorcycle events for the last eight years, reviving an archaic yet heart-stopping act.Once a regular feature of the fairgrounds in the 1930s, rival Wall of Death riders would roam the country offering spectators stunts more outrageous than the other. Though she is convinced she has “a 60 per cent chance of falling off”, she is still looking forward to the experience “The worst bit is trying to walk off the bike and sit down. Rolling yet another cigarette she looks down at the ringmaster who could so easily become her executioner. “I got such a buzz, I can’t wait to do it again,” she insists.It is now the turn of graphic designer Manda Friend whose only preparation has been “dodging London tourist buses” on her Suzuki 550. Among them is Lucy Elliott, 20, who has only just passed her motorcycle proficiency test, but as her mother says, “eats, breathes and sleeps bikes”.

Mrs Elliott has come to support her daughter – what else can a responsible caring parent do? “I wouldn’t dare stop her from doing it,” she says – “she’d be so upset it would be ridiculous.” After a hair-raising spin on the front of the bike there is indeed a glow on Lucy’s face that confirms her mother’s predicament. Stunt riders Allan J Ford and his partner, Ned Kelly, are hoping the ad will end their search for a “tank rider” to renew the long-lost tradition of female stunt riders in the show.
The ideal girl according to Ned, who has broken his collarbone and ribs and most of his fingers in eight years of wall-riding, is “familiar with motorcycles and confident with a crowd, but above all both light and pretty”.As many as 11 leather-clad hopefuls turn up for the audition under the imposing glare of the Battersea Power Station. There is no backing out now – she is the star attraction of The Wall of Death Show. How does a 28-year-old accounts clerk from south London get into such a fix? Easy – she saw The Motordrome Wall of Death’s advertisement in the monthly motorcycle magazine Backstreet Heroes calling for “suitable female victims who feel brave enough to ride the wall” to come forward. One kick and the 596cc Indian roars into life and a strong smell of petrol rises to the top of the tent.