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The purpose of this viewpoint article is to describe the experience of recovery houses and peer work from the perspective of a service user (Ben). The current profile and visibility of recovery houses on mental health wards is low. Indeed, since Ben’s first diagnosis in 2003 and during the last 17 months as a peer worker the importance of recovery houses has not even been mentioned once by staff or service users. It should be noted that this article expresses the view of the first author (Ben) and not the co-author (Matthew).

This is also a service user narrative by Ben. He was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in 2003 and spent two years in and out of the mental health unit where he is now a peer worker. Ben had a relapse in 2013 for about six months and then attended Ron Coleman’s and Karen Taylor’s Recovery Champions course and their recovery house on the Isle of Lewis, Scotland, where he first heard of the recovery approach and which improved Ben’s mental health. Ron and Karen’s organisation is called Working to Recovery. Ben is currently a peer worker on the same unit where he was once a patient and working with the Director of Patient Experience, Matthew Sisto. This article is based on lived experience as a service user and peer worker.

This article makes a case for and a case against the proposal to incorporate recovery houses more into the fabric of NHS mental health care as well as a possible alternative to psychiatric units. The main argument in this article is to suggest making recovery houses more mainstream, more of them and more accessible to those currently in traditional mental health units. Currently there are no formal mechanisms of discharge from hospital to recovery houses. Not one person on the wards where I was a patient since 2003 or peer worker in the last 17 months has been discharged to a recovery house. Recovery houses are a therapeutic alternative or complement to traditional psychiatric care. They could also have other potential benefits, such as decreasing bed blocking on psychiatric wards (service users who are well and waiting for accommodation), reducing risk of relapse and remedying the loneliness and isolation that is often faced by service users on discharge to the community (changing from being around a lot of people on the ward to no one and isolation at home). Recovery houses are in short supply and in need of scaling up (more of them). There is the need to increase the referral and accessibility of recovery houses for service users on mental health wards. Currently recovery houses offer short-term support, only a matter of weeks or months. They would be better if they offered longer periods and also ongoing support. Recovery houses would also benefit people with mental illness, their carers and others if they incorporated elements of peer support.

Recovery houses and peer support are relatively new approaches in the mental health journeys of people with mental illness. This article is important because it makes a case for/ case against and addresses the feasibility of incorporating the recovery approach and recovery houses into the quite antiquated and slow to change fabric of the conventional NHS. It considers traditional and alternative pathways of care and steps for change to make recovery houses more mainstream and accessible to NHS psychiatric patients (and even perhaps to replace conventional psychiatric care in the long run).

Describes a competition based on the hit television series The Apprentice that UK firm Octopus Investments used to recruit new members of its sales team.

Explains what gave rise to the assessment day, the form it took and the results it has achieved.

Details how candidates took part in speed interviews (like speed‐dating), telephone‐call role plays and pitching sessions to give them a feeling of realistic everyday working scenarios. After each stage candidates moved through to the next task or were given feedback on what they did well and what they could improve.

Reveals that the assessment day helped the company to cut the amount of time spent interviewing candidates while giving them more time to demonstrate the skills the company is looking for.

Highlights how the assessment day offered candidates the chance to learn first‐hand about working for Octopus by mixing informally with current employees.

Describes a range of HR policies that have helped Octopus twice to be named among the Sunday Times Best Small Companies to Work For.

The purpose of this paper is to determine and assess generational differences in Chinese women's perception of appearance and appearance products that can be explained by the political, economic, and social policies of China over the past 40 years.

This is an exploratory research using focus groups and a survey. Three age cohorts of Chinese women, those who came of age during the Cultural Revolution, those who came of age during the early and mid years of China's economic reforms, and those born after the implementation of China's one‐child policy and the market economy, are assessed as to their perception of appearance and use of appearance‐related products. Six cohort differences that could be attributable to these socio‐economic‐political events are found.

Significant differences between the age cohorts are found on four of six appearance‐related factors – sources of fashion information, happiness in purchasing new apparel, confidence in appearance, and preference for purchasing luxury goods.

Although the study identifies cultural and generational constructs of Chinese women's perception of appearance and use of appearance products, due to its exploratory nature the findings are not generalizable to the larger Chinese community. In addition, to provide a more complete understanding of the generational differences, future research needs to take into account additional demographic information such as education and income.

No previous study has attempted to determine the impact of China's economic, social, and political policies on generational cohorts of Chinese women as to their perception of appearance and use of appearance products. Fashion marketers will benefit, as understanding these powerful determinants of purchasing behaviour are paramount to successfully planning, developing and marketing of apparel products.

This paper reports on the successful introduction of a sophisticated online catalogue system at the library of the Scott Polar Research Institute, Cambridge, using the Muscat program package. The system provides to both end‐users and library staff a choice between boolean searching on keywords and access using relevance feedback based on free text in English, mixed with UDC classification numbers. The system is implemented on an IBM 3084 computer. Significant benefits from the application of relevance feedback are reported with 10,000 records on file.

This paper seeks to present a rationale for a learning and assessment activity involving students in the construction of inspirational parables for diversity management within a university business studies programme. The paper reviews processes from teacher and student perspectives, describes initial outcomes and foreshadows further exploration and research.

In small groups, students prepared a booklet that included their inspirational parables on ethnic minority migrant women in the workplace, justifications for the parables and a bibliography of related diversity management literature. A group presentation on the booklet was also required. Assessment criteria related to parable content, references, booklet and oral presentation and represented 30 percent of the overall course assessment.

Students' informal feedback and the teacher's observations indicate an overall positive response, with students highlighting surprise at their own creativity and the time they readily invested in the task, the enjoyment it gave them and their view that the task merited more weighting. Issues arising from the teacher's observations include group and self‐assessment options, time allocation and the possible influence on students of the teacher's ethnicity.

While there is increasing interest in the use of stories for teaching and learning purposes, most attention has focused on teacher rather than student story telling. Story writing by students to help them develop and demonstrate understandings, has received much less attention and there are few precedents for the parable story form being used for these two purposes in a university education context.