It is also well-established that exposure to new and different experiences - sounds, smells, environments, ideas, people – is a key source of creative spark. These external stimuli are fuel for our imaginations and the imagined, made real, is what we typically mean by creativity. To give one example, walking has been found in studies to be positive for creativity, by freeing our minds from its office constraints and exposing our senses to different stimuli.23 So too are random conversations and chance meetings, serendipity being the cradle of creativity. Research shows that face-to-face meetings, like serendipity, also foster ideas and innovation, as does music and other of the creative arts.24 The key point here is that home-working can starve us of many of these creative raw ingredients - the chance conversation, the new person or idea or environment. Home-working means serendipity is supplanted by scheduling, face-to-face by Zoom-to-Zoom. What creativity is gained in improved tunnelling is lost in the darkness of the tunnel itself. I imagine some people will have used lockdown to write that creative novel they always knew was in them. I doubt many will become modern-day classics. For me personally, a large part of my job pre-Covid was spent meeting as wide a range of people as possible in as wide a range of settings as possible - companies, charities, community and faith groups, from all walks of life and right around the UK. It also meant me bringing into the Bank people from very different backgrounds – musicians, sport-stars, poets, authors, philosophers.

12 Milasi S, I González-Vázquez and E Fernandez-Macias (2020) ‘Telework in the EU before and after the COVID-19: where we were, where we head to’. JRC Science for Policy Brief. Mongey, S, L Pilossoph and A Weinberg (2020), “Which Workers Bear the Burden of Social Distancing Policies?”, Covid Economics, Issue 12. CEPR Press Morikawa, M (2020). ‘Productivity of working from home’ Covid Economics, Issue 49, CEPR Press Newport, C. (2014) ‘Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World’ Piatkus 11  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches and @BoE_PressOffice  11  ONS (2020a) ‘Coronavirus and homeworking in the UK labour market: 2019’. Available at https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/articles/c oronavirusandhomeworkingintheuklabourmarket/2019#overview-of-homeworking ONS (2020b) ‘Coronavirus and the economic impacts on the UK: 8 October 2020’. Available at https://www.ons.gov.uk/businessindustryandtrade/business/businessservices/bulletins/coronavirusandtheeco nomicimpactsontheuk/8october2020 Opezzo, M and Schwartz, D (2014) ‘Give Your Ideas Some Legs: The Positive Effect of Walking on Creative Thinking’ Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning Memory and Cognition, vol. 40, no.4 RSA (2020) ‘Can Good Work Solve the Productivity Puzzle? Collected Essays’. Available at https://www.thersa.org/globalassets/reports/2020/can-good-work-solve-the-productivity-puzzle.pdf TUC (2019) ‘Annual commuting time is up 21 hours compared to a decade ago, finds TUC’ available at https://www.tuc.org.uk/news/annual-commuting-time-21-hours-compared-decade-ago-finds-tuc  12  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches and @BoE_PressOffice  12