Hacks at The Telegraph will be looking forward to ridding themselves of the January blues with a full week of HR-run “wellbeing” activities – Guido can only imagine the zeal with which they’ll take on the “smoothie bike challenge” where you get to “blend your own smoothie whilst on a spin bike“. Stiff-boned, hungover reporters will get to enter the world of zen with 45-minute “pilates taster sessions” followed by a swift return to the desk for online-only “virtual meditation“. A staff member gets in touch to say the virtual element is “ironic given The Telegraph‘s zealous ban on editorial staff working from home”…

Last year the offices were blessed with two “puppy meet and greet” classes in which staff get to stroke puppies for their mental health. A Telegraph employee tells Guido their “feckless HR department pays lip service to wellbeing for 51 weeks of the year, only to bombard us with frankly insane ideas during ‘wellbeing week’. Unlike them, some of us are busy working“. Guido wonders if this sort of thing will continue under new management…