Crowned with Love
Jul. 1st, 2014 12:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
todayiamadaisyBack at university for a second subject. Executive Leadership this time. I don't think I'm going to enjoy this. The lecturer annoys me and, oh dear, the text book. It's a really odd combination of academic studies combined with management self-help. We are all leaders, apparently, even those of us who are also followers. Get your head round that.
I don't enjoy role plays, but I did like the suggested role play in the introductory chapter. It is the 1980s, it says. One person in the group is Steve Jobs and the others are the board members of Apple who sacked him. Remember that Jobs was famed for his quick temper and ego. I'm not quite sure what recreating that would teach anyone about modern leadership, but I'm sure the person playing Jobs would have fun.
Speaking of books:
June books read
* High Rising - Angela Thirkell (1933)
High Rising is another in a long line of books written in the 1930s about people having simply wonderful lives in an English village. The lead character is a poor novelist. She has a son at Eton, two houses and a maid. That sort of poor. Anyway, apart from all that wretched poverty, a good time was had by all, except by the gold digger who was trying to muscle in on the lead character's rich neighbour. Imagine Cold Comfort Farm with the sharp edges taken off by Alexander McCall Smith (who wrote the introduction to the re-released version I had, so I mustn't be the only person who thought this book sounded like him), and you'll have a good idea of what it's like.
I liked this book a lot, and I'd have liked it a lot more if it wasn't for the period's fondness for ethnic slurs. It got to the point where I had to brace myself whenever the (Irish) gold digger or the heroine's (Jewish) publisher appeared, because I knew the heroine was going to say something awful. And she always did.
* Gironimo! Riding the very terrible 1914 Tour of Italy - Tim Moore (2014)
This is the true story of a man in his mid-forties who decided, in 2012, to re-trace the 1914 Giro d'Italia in period style. That is, he cycles up a lot of mountains wearing a heavy woollen jumper on a bike that has wooden rims and two gears that can only be changed by removing the back wheel and turning it round. The 1914 Giro was apparently famous for its awfulness: 81 cyclists started and only eight finished. Not surprising, given that the stages averaged 400km and took about 18 hours to do. Some of the cyclists then had to find their own accommodation for the night. They carried bags of raw eggs to eat during the day, and the performance-enhancing drug of choice was strychnine.
I always like Tim Moore's stuff. This one is more of the same, and then it sort of peters out. He spends so much of the book fixing the bike and travelling down the leg of Italy that there's only a couple of chapters left to cover the trip back up. Still, mostly entertaining. I think my favourite Olde Tyme cycling anecdote herein is the tragic tale of a competitor in the 1913 Tour de France, who broke some spokes on a mountain descent. No help from his tour car back then, oh no. They weren't allowed any outside assistance. He had to walk down the mountain, find a blacksmith and FORGE HIS OWN SPOKES. And then he was penalised for having outside assistance anyway, because he let the blacksmith's assistant operate the bellows. They really knew how to enforce rules back then.
* Idylls of the Queen: A Tale of Queen Guenevere - Phyllis Ann Karr (1982)
There's a bit in Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur where a knight called Sir Patrise dies while eating dinner (at a regular old table, not the Round one). Look at me, sounding like I've read it. I haven't. What I have read is Idylls of the Queen, which starts by quoting that bit, and turns it into a rather good mystery novel, with Sir Kay and Sir Mordred as the sleuths. The subtitle says it's a tale of Queen Guenevere, but it's really a tale of the Orkney brothers. Guenevere's only in it briefly, as she's falsely accused of the crime, and Kay only has two weeks to either solve the crime or find Sir Lancelot to be her champion. Fortunately, he can do both those things at once, by going out to visit all the surrounding castles. Basically, if you like cosy murders and/or Arthurian quests, this is the book for you. I enjoyed it.
It has an author's note to say that Gawain is meant to be pronounced with the emphasis on the first syllable. GAH-win. I did not know that. All this time I thought he was guh-WAYNE.
I don't enjoy role plays, but I did like the suggested role play in the introductory chapter. It is the 1980s, it says. One person in the group is Steve Jobs and the others are the board members of Apple who sacked him. Remember that Jobs was famed for his quick temper and ego. I'm not quite sure what recreating that would teach anyone about modern leadership, but I'm sure the person playing Jobs would have fun.
Speaking of books:
June books read
* High Rising - Angela Thirkell (1933)
High Rising is another in a long line of books written in the 1930s about people having simply wonderful lives in an English village. The lead character is a poor novelist. She has a son at Eton, two houses and a maid. That sort of poor. Anyway, apart from all that wretched poverty, a good time was had by all, except by the gold digger who was trying to muscle in on the lead character's rich neighbour. Imagine Cold Comfort Farm with the sharp edges taken off by Alexander McCall Smith (who wrote the introduction to the re-released version I had, so I mustn't be the only person who thought this book sounded like him), and you'll have a good idea of what it's like.
I liked this book a lot, and I'd have liked it a lot more if it wasn't for the period's fondness for ethnic slurs. It got to the point where I had to brace myself whenever the (Irish) gold digger or the heroine's (Jewish) publisher appeared, because I knew the heroine was going to say something awful. And she always did.
* Gironimo! Riding the very terrible 1914 Tour of Italy - Tim Moore (2014)
This is the true story of a man in his mid-forties who decided, in 2012, to re-trace the 1914 Giro d'Italia in period style. That is, he cycles up a lot of mountains wearing a heavy woollen jumper on a bike that has wooden rims and two gears that can only be changed by removing the back wheel and turning it round. The 1914 Giro was apparently famous for its awfulness: 81 cyclists started and only eight finished. Not surprising, given that the stages averaged 400km and took about 18 hours to do. Some of the cyclists then had to find their own accommodation for the night. They carried bags of raw eggs to eat during the day, and the performance-enhancing drug of choice was strychnine.
I always like Tim Moore's stuff. This one is more of the same, and then it sort of peters out. He spends so much of the book fixing the bike and travelling down the leg of Italy that there's only a couple of chapters left to cover the trip back up. Still, mostly entertaining. I think my favourite Olde Tyme cycling anecdote herein is the tragic tale of a competitor in the 1913 Tour de France, who broke some spokes on a mountain descent. No help from his tour car back then, oh no. They weren't allowed any outside assistance. He had to walk down the mountain, find a blacksmith and FORGE HIS OWN SPOKES. And then he was penalised for having outside assistance anyway, because he let the blacksmith's assistant operate the bellows. They really knew how to enforce rules back then.
* Idylls of the Queen: A Tale of Queen Guenevere - Phyllis Ann Karr (1982)
There's a bit in Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur where a knight called Sir Patrise dies while eating dinner (at a regular old table, not the Round one). Look at me, sounding like I've read it. I haven't. What I have read is Idylls of the Queen, which starts by quoting that bit, and turns it into a rather good mystery novel, with Sir Kay and Sir Mordred as the sleuths. The subtitle says it's a tale of Queen Guenevere, but it's really a tale of the Orkney brothers. Guenevere's only in it briefly, as she's falsely accused of the crime, and Kay only has two weeks to either solve the crime or find Sir Lancelot to be her champion. Fortunately, he can do both those things at once, by going out to visit all the surrounding castles. Basically, if you like cosy murders and/or Arthurian quests, this is the book for you. I enjoyed it.
It has an author's note to say that Gawain is meant to be pronounced with the emphasis on the first syllable. GAH-win. I did not know that. All this time I thought he was guh-WAYNE.