No one said that getting to be in snapping distance of the world’s largest car maker was going to be easy, but let’s get some perspective people: one of Toyota’s senior car engineers died from working too many hours, a Japanese labour bureau has found – or karoshi as it is called. That’s right, the Japanese work ethic is so strong that as long ago as 1987 they invented a name for death-by-overtime. The 45-year-old man was developing a hybrid version of Toyota’s successful Camry line at the time of his death, averaging more than 80 hours of of overtime per month (kerchiing!) In a statement, Toyota offered its condolences and said it would monitor the health of its employees. That sounds too much like hard work to me!

The new boss of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission has come out and said the bleeding obvious, but a truth people daren’t speak of. No, not that; she’s pointed out that the radical extension of maternity leave could hinder women’s chances of getting their dream job. New mums will soon be given a fully-paid year off work, which will make employers think twice about offering positions or promotions to those who look broody – whether they want children or not. Nicola Brewer feels the new laws compound any assumption that only women raise children, so far from moving things forward, the new ruling could be two steps back.  British fathers have the most unequal rights in Europe, entitled to only two weeks of leave compared with 52 for mothers. At the moment, nine months of maternity leave is paid, but this will rise to a year by the end of the current Parliament. Research from Sweden that has found that fathers who take up to two years off work after the birth of a child are 30% less likely to get divorced. Mamma mia!

The Entrepreneur behind Yo Sushi, Simon Woodroffe, has said that children must be exposed to more danger to help them to cope with the daily risk-taking required in the modern business world, and the  “safety-first” culture in schools is robbing Britain of the next generation of entrepreneurs just when the country needs them most. He said that he was in despair when he heard that schools were no longer taking pupils canoeing or camping in case they injured themselves.  “My greatest fear is our children will grow up expecting to be looked after their whole lives, and expect corporate reasonableness for their entire working life. There would be no way we could compete with India and China with that attitude.” Woodroffe, 56, is patron of the Go4It awards for schools that encourage sensible risktaking and rivalry among pupils, in response to concerns of employers over the “cotton-wool kids” culture. At last year’s Go4It awards one of the winning schools was not allowed to attend because the locals authority deemed the journey to London too risky for the pupils. I am not making that up!