The View from 22 – learning to switch off, is London the new Venice and Britain’s shale ambitions vs. the EU

Will holidays ever be truly relaxing again? In this week’s View from 22 podcast, Mary Wakefield and Freddy Gray discuss Clarissa Tan’s magazine cover piece on how technology has ruined our holidays. Has our love of the smartphone and tablet destroyed our ability to ‘switch off’? Do we need to control our impulse to use technology? And is this all a bad thing for our brains?

Alec Marsh and our cartoon editor Michael Heath wonder if London is becoming the new Venice — bustling with tourists and barren streets of houses. Michael has been a Londoner since 1935. How has the capital changed since then? Have areas like Primrose Hill lost their quirky charm thanks to the deluge of foreign money? Where do authentic Londoners now feel at home?

Plus, James Forsyth asks whether the EU is holding back Britain’s shale revolution; there is a chance that red tape and the Brussels green lobby might contrive it so that Britain’s shale remains in the ground.