Corporate structures - they're a mystery sometimes to the ordinary person, aren't they. But very often there's a good reason for the seemingly crazy way that decisions are made, and suggestions and ideas get passed around the hierarchy to make sure that employees at every level get the chance to "stick their oar in" - and it's what "workplace democracy" is all about, when you come to think about it!
a typical corporate structure
Corporate decision-making sounds labyrinthine, doesn't it, and sometimes it takes somebody with Ruskin's level of business experience to untangle, and to describe, a typical decision-making system in his pithy, no-nonsense way.
But don't go away with the idea that "corporate" always equals "labyrinthine". Very often, especially when it's a question of "corporate hospitality", it's pretty much all straightforward and no-nonsense.
And this is how my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois and I understand "corporateness" during our phone call today with our 49-year-old elder daughter Alison, who lives in Headley, Hampshire with husband Ed, their 2 daughters Josie (17) and Rosalind (16), and their son Isaac (13).
flashback to January 2020 at the Reading Soccer Stadium, watching
Chelsea Women play Reading Women, are: (left to right)
our son-in-law Ed, Josie, Isaac, our daughter Alison, and Rosalind
"Why are Lois and you talking to your daughter Alison on the phone today?", I hear you cry. [Not me - I don't care! - Ed]
Well, seeing as how you're asking (!), it's because yesterday, Alison's husband, hotshot lawyer Ed (49) took their daughters Josie and Rosalind to the Taylor Swift concert at London's Wembley Stadium.
Their reviews? "It was magical!" - Josie, "I loved it!" - Rosalind. And Rosalind tells Lois and me today on the phone a little bit about it. The crowd's cheering and the singing-along were really loud, says Rosalind, but so was the music from the stage, so you could still hear Taylor. And one of her songs was followed by 4 whole minutes of applause - Rosalind was timing it on her watch.
What madness !!! Still, that's the modern world for you, isn't it, and Lois and I are so pleased that they enjoyed it so much, to put it mildly.
flashback to yesterday: Ed, Josie and Rosalind prepare
to see the concert, the group pictured here in the company of
a cardboard cut-out of pop-star Taylor Swift, who was due
to be "headlining" the concert (and did so)
Due to Ed's business connections, the three had access, during the concert, to a corporate box, where there was a bar, plus a buffet and a dance floor plus a "merch" stand, which sounds nice.
And as well as the support acts Raye and Paramour, there were also two surprise guests for one night only, firstly Florence (Welch) ["Who she?" - Ed. "Oh come on, even Lois and I have heard of her! - Colin] of British band Florence and the Machine.
Florence [Welch] (left) of 'Florence and the Machine', performing here
with "headliner" Taylor Swift at London's Wembley Stadium yesterday
The other surprise guest was 'frequent collaborator' Jack Antonoff, Rosalind says [Who he? - Ed. You're on your own with that one! - Colin]. Antonoff apparently sang 2 songs with Taylor: "Death by a Thousand Cuts"(2019) and "Getaway Car" (2017).
The concert was the end of the European leg of Taylor's Eras Tour. There'll be further concerts, however, in 5 or so additional cities in the US and Canada in the autumn. So watch this space! [I can't think what for! - Ed]
the photo that our granddaughter Rosalind took
from her seat at the concert: stage and performers on
the extreme left, big screen on the right - what madness !!!!
And I'm sure that Lois and I would have been singing Taylor songs this morning during our walk over Poolbrook Common, if only we knew even just one or two, but sadly "they all sound the same to us". Call us 'old dinosaurs' if you like haha!
we start and finish our morning walk on Poolbrook Common
today without being able to think of a single Taylor Swift song
- oh dear!
Could Lois and I ever be right for a Taylor Swift concert - just in the audience, I mean, not on stage? As far as I'm concerned, the best I can hope for is if the legendary "magic ponytail of Worcestershire" finds me as it flies through the air over Malvern, where we live, and maybe bestows one of its 'boons of youth' on
me - a long shot maybe, but who's to say!
Lois and I did it once [I'm glad to hear it! - Ed]. Could we pull it off again? [What you do in private is your business! - Ed]
I'm sure you're thinking what I'm thinking. That time, back in the 2005, just before we retired, when Lois and I dressed up for that "1980's Revival" New Year Dance at her then workplace, that Cheltenham care home for retired vicars. Remember? [Yes, but I'm trying desperately hard to forget it! - Ed]
flashback to 2005: Lois and I (both 59) dress up
1980's style for the New Year Dance at the
Cheltenham care home for retired vicars,
where Lois used to work
And we always thought that Soft Cell song "Say Hello Wave Goodbye" was inspired by us, remember that?
Happy days !!!
Could we do it just one more time now, for Taylor? [That ship sailed a long time ago! - Ed]
21:00 We wind down for bed with an old Arena documentary about possibly the world's most famous crime writer Agatha Christie.
A fascinating story - Christie's lonely childhood in Torquay, Devon, the youngest of 3 children, writing stories to amuse herself and to stave off boredom. It was a world of "rules" and "propriety" and living life by "timetables", doing everything at the proper time, a world which she livened up in her own mind by imagining murders and other horrors. Still a child, she had to get over her American father's early death, after which she had recurring nightmares about her mother dying too, which would have left her all alone in the world.
the young Agatha, pictured here with her American father, who died
when she was 11, an event which, she said, "marked the end of my childhood"
She wrote her first novel, "The Mysterious Affair at Styles" more or less in her own head, while walking over the wastes of Dartmoor, the atmospherically bleak backdrop for Conan Doyle's "Hound of the Baskervilles". And Lois and I didn't know that Torquay was where a lot of Belgian refugees ended up, after fleeing their country for England when the Germans invaded in 1914 - these refugees were probably the inspiration for one of her best-known characters, Belgian detective Hercule Poirot.
It's well-known that Christie worked as a nurse during World War I, and that this work was what gave her such a thorough knowledge of poisons, knowledge which she put to good use in dozens of her murder mysteries, to put it mildly!
And it's interesting that she maintained her fascination for poisons all her life, even when she was dying, in 1976, aged 85.
The two women, the friend and Agatha, were talking about everyday things, and suddenly Agatha said, out of the blue,
"You know, my dear, I've always wondered how you managed to get your decanters and wine-glasses so sparkling and clean." And the friend said,
"Well, easy!"......
Christie was always famously matter-of-fact about her talents, and she always resisted attempts by interviewers, critics or journalists to probe her any further about them.
This interviewer asked Christie if she had ever met a real criminal.
Fascinating stuff, isn't it !!!! Rest in peace, Agatha !!!!
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzz!!!!!
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