- “Time’s up!” Betty Boothroyd
- What world record could you set at your job?
- National Trust Scones
- Unwritten rules of the group chat
- Women losing financial confidence
“Time’s Up!” Betty Boothroyd
What a women, the first and only women speaker of the House of Commons, a formidable politician and a Tiller Girl. Never married, despite many offers and no children and her legacy is no poorer for that.
Boothroyd had worked as a political secretary in both the UK and the States, on her fifth attempt to get elected she won the West Bromwich by-election in 1973, she was an assistant Whip, an MEP, she was on the select committee and the House of Commons Commission, she became Deputy Speaker and on to be Speaker.
And you want to know how I know about Betty Boothroyd? She was on Live and Kicking in 1997, she was so passionate about getting young people into Politics she did Saturday morning kids TV.
Her legacy is immense, she never stopped, her professional life so very big, she embodied everything to be proud of, she challenged boundaries, she believed in education for all at any age. She will be missed, but thank you Betty Boothroyd.
What world record could you set at your job?
This week Boeing engineers in St. Louis officially broke the Guinness World Record for the farthest flight by a paper aircraft by 11 meters from the original record from 2022, by throwing a paper plane a whopping 88 meters! We have all probably done those (hideous) team building exercises where you have to create the best paper plane and then your team also has to be able to produce like 10 of them in like 4 minutes or something (stupid) like that and for most of us that is as close to making paper planes at work as we will get.
There is nothing not cool about this entire story, the engineers involved are 2nd and 3rd generation employees who remember coming on the family fun days with their parents as kids, they studied origami and hypersonic vehicles and this took the guys and the teams month of perfection to land the record breaking distance on the third throw.
So, what would be the world record you could set at your job? This week one my reconciliation has made it to column DT and is still growing, but I don’t see largest balance sheet reconciliation as world record worthy, it’s certainly not 88 meters!
National Trust Scones
This week saw Sarah Merker eat her 244th National Trust scone after a decade long mission to eat a scone at every single National Trust in England, Wales and Ireland (Scotland have their own NT that I did not know about until this week also).
Sarah has been chronically her adventures on Twitter @NT_Scones and her blog rating both the national trust property, the scone and highlight of the day out of 5. This was breaking BBC news in the office on someone’s phone and sparked the usual lively debate about cream and then jam or jam and then cream and peoples favourite scone moments.
It sort of makes me want to pick her Sarah’s book National Trust Book of Scones and definitely makes me want to go to our nearest National Trust for a scone or two.
Goodbye Kindle Unlimited
A week or so ago I got the message that Kindle Unlimited was increasing in price and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, it theoretically should cost a lot more money than it does for what you get and in that is the rub…If I used it a whole lot more it would be so useful at even the increased price, but I don’t.
After a lot of thought I have cancelled my subscription, it was invaluable when I got it, I was at a very low energy tine in my life and then I was in my Booktok phase of enjoying trashy romance novels and while there are a few good titles in the spaces I want to read in this year, I am just not able to sustain a book a month to make it worthwhile.
I am currently not reading a lot of volume, committing to a feature that requires you to read stuff and recommend something a week, well that will kind of kill it for you, especially as there are not endless hours in the day to read.
Women losing financial confidence
Women’s financial confidence is declining at double the rate of men according to the Fidelity ahead of International Women’s Day. Despite the bounce in feeling off the back of the pandemic, where most people regardless of gender for the first time really had to consider their finances.
More women than ever feel financially independent, up 6% to 51% on 2022, but that said women often struggle to know what to do with their finances and often don’t feel like the advice is there for there. Women and the decisions they need to make around money are very different to men and their decision around money. Plenty of advice out there for men and money, less so for women. Women typically pay more for products than men, the pink tax is not imaginary, and women are typically having a harder time accessing the right financial products for them.
You can’t tackle what you don’t know and while you only need to head to the comments section on any article about women and money to see a deluge of men commenting that living within your means has no gender and that articles are just promo for the researching body to realise that the subject of women’s finance still has some way to go.
Current watch: Outer Banks – Well I was not expecting to enjoy this, I’m not saying when trying to sell something to me that you don’t reference “sweet teen drama meets treasure island” but you know, it was the current watch of my temporary housemates that had been recommended by the teenager in their lives. I’m oddly fascinated, the soundtrack is beautiful, and North Carolina looks absolutely stunning, with some characters you love to hate, some teenage angst and those good moral basis of teen drama it grows on you.
Current read: The French Art of Not Giving a Sh*t: Cut the Crap and Live Your Life by Fabrice Midal – I feel like this book found me on a good day, the book explores the concept of noting doing what you think you’re supposed to be doing and embraces just being what you are in the moment. That meditation isn’t chasing thoughts out of your mind, but just being open to embracing life as it is right there in the moment, sit with it. The book acts as a gentle reminder to say no, give yourself a break and act compassionately to yourself. Midal offers the reader permission to embrace self and situation in a realistic way. I think the timing was so right for this book, I needed to find away to believe in myself in a very specific way, just in short bursts and his words helped do that, just for a day.
Most Impactful Listen: Today in Focus: What the salad crisis says about Britain – This podcast was fascinating, you can’t have failed to miss the empty shelves at the supermarket or the relentless reporting on said empty shelves, but what is the truth behind the shortage and why might this be a thing we just have to get used it? Michael Safe and Joanne Partridge explore the questions on everyone’s minds, is the bad weather in Europe and Egypt to blame? Is it Brexit? Or does the answer also lie a little closer to home? Spoiler alert, it’s a little from column a, b and c.
Rachael McKelvey 
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