Bring on the 4-day week: good news for families

Until now. Suddenly the leisure age is upon us - by default. Flexi-fever is taking hold. In the past week I've heard three fathers talk about a move to part-time work - something their partners have been nagging them about for years. Now they have the perfect excuse. The company needs them to take the financial hit.

Meanwhile, the Queen's Speech yesterday contained legislation to extend family-friendly working rights to the 4.5 million parents of children up to age 16. And I've even heard whispers that some people are working out how to scale back their working week in order to keep their earnings within the new tax thresholds. What's the point in working an extra day if it pushes a bit of your salary into the highest tax bracket? You more or less save money by going down to four days.

This is a big turnaround. Until the recession, planning to work less did not make you look good. Now it's the duty of every loyal employee to offer to sacrifice part of their working week - along with part of their pay packet. The move might even be more financially viable for some families: reduced travel and childcare costs. Some of us are already used to this. Welcome, everyone, to the mummy track.

It's a bittersweet development. Part of me hopes this will be the recession's one positive legacy: to remove the stigma of part-time and flexible work for good. It will no longer be seen as the soft option, the graveyard of ambition, something that men don't do. I have a naïve dream of a world where people are judged on output and results rather than on the number of hours they have perched their bottom on a chair. The recession might edge us closer to that dream.

Another part of me is cynical, however. Aren't people being conned into earning less money for the same work? And isn't this exactly what has happened to millions of working mothers - and only served to maintain the gender pay gap? If and when that gap closes simply because now men are earning less in the downturn, we can hardly call it progress.

Despite my scepticism, though, we are going to have to see the rise of flexi-work as good news - because we have no other choice. Better half a salary than no salary at all. (The mummy-track mantra.) In a recession the "work smarter" ethic is no longer a luxury for parents and carers. It's going to be a necessity for all of us. But at least Mrs Davidson's age of leisure is finally dawning. Anyone know of any hobbies which are exciting but cheap?

Anna's no devil in Prada

Just because she is successful, female and works in fashion, Anna Wintour gets labelled a bitch. And now all New York is rejoicing in the rumour that she's on her way out. But can Nuclear Wintour actually be that bad? She's certainly no pushover, demanding that her minions eschew "matchy-matchy" clothing combinations as well as eye contact with her. (Come on, wouldn't we all like to demand this of our colleagues?) Most hilariously of all, as one of her writers confessed to Oprah as he embarked on another extreme diet, "Miss Anna don't like fat people." But no real person could possibly live up to the fiction of The Devil Wears Prada. I've heard that the lady herself is not frosty at all, just assertive and direct. In a man, that's called being the boss.

Try taking the plunge in T5

Say what you like about Terminal 5 — and I still find it a bit unwieldy to navigate as a high-heeled pedestrian — but it offers the ultimate recessional sanctuary: the swimwear section in Departures. Set slightly apart from the overpriced woolly jumpers by Marc Jacobs and Paul & Joe, there is a riotous, spotlit cruisewear collection which administers an instant injection of Rio. It has minuscule white swimsuits designed by Elizabeth Hurley, Missoni pool-side kaftans and leopard-print bikinis. All totally impractical, unaffordable and reminiscent of a life that none of us may ever live to know — but the height of timely escapism. I recommend five minutes just inhaling the air and stroking Liz's tankinis. Most invigorating.