Time out
When did British workers start being ‘furloughed’? The word furlough is first recorded in the English language in 1625, believed to be derived from the Dutch verloffe, meaning a leave of absence of a sailor from the navy. It seems to have come back into parlance in Britain thanks to it being used in the US prison system to describe temporary leave for an inmate. It was the title of a 2018 American film in which a female prisoner is allowed out of jail for the weekend to visit her dying mother. The film was later renamed Time Out, perhaps because not everyone knew what ‘furlough’ meant. But to no avail — the film, which is reported to have cost $3 million to make, grossed just $8,472 at the US box office.
Taking stock
How much food have we been stockpiling? According to the British Retail Consortium UK shoppers have bought an extra £1 billion of food from supermarkets over the past three weeks.
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