Whatever will be

Oh well this has been a week. The knee nay sayers have piped down and the principled leadership shown by the England team has given some cause for hope. I was in Warwick last weekend so I was watching the football with my dad instead of with my friends Amna Abdul, Huda Jawad, and Shaista Aziz. I was so glad to see Shaista's post about their evening be celebrated so widely, and positively.

With Gareth Southgate in charge, we three hijabis can be proud of the Three Lions

Shaista's smooth move into football punditry since has been wonderful to witness.

‌It's been interesting discussing the thorny issue of the St George's flag. While it's been brilliant to see the principled and inclusive stance of the current England team, it can't been said that the flag isn't still a very problematic symbol for a range of reasons. I was wondering if we need a progress St George's flag, like the progress Pride flag. And then I saw that English Heritage have created this:

The fight to save one of America's last lesbian bars is a good read on a phenomenon that we've seen on this side of the Atlantic too. There are only 21 left in the whole of the USA, and only one left in London.

Interesting and useful links 🖇️

Antonia Bance, from the TUC, is recruiting for a public affairs role imminently and requested input into different ways of publicising the job to broaden the reach. She's, very helpfully, summarised the advice she was given and what the next steps are here

Interesting stat in here about which country has the largest number of "diversity" roles per 10,000 employees. (Spoiler - it's the UK - almost double the next country on the list 👀)

The panic over critical race theory is an attempt to whitewash U.S. history Relevant to the UK too.

Learning points 🎓

Success is very often about being in the right place at the right time. Nowhere is this more true than politics. Denis Healey could hardly be said to have got nowhere but he didn't make Labour party leader or Foreign Secretary. I'm currently reading his memoir which is reminding me of some of his famous one liners.

Healey’s first law of holes: when you’re in one, stop digging.

But I know sometimes it can be really hard to stop and take stock. I remember being embroiled in a terrible database implementation project years ago. I was moaning about it to a new CEO and she said, could you just pull the project? It was a bit of a lightbulb moment and led us to go back to basics of whether, what, how, when etc. The question is, how do you retain enough detachment and objectivity without needing a new CEO to walk in and say the obvious.

What am I reading? 📚

The Time of My Life by Denis Healey I do find it interesting to get into politicians' minds. I can recommend John Major's too.

What am I watching? 👀

I've never watched Succession so we've lined that up for when there's no more football.

What am I listening to? 👂

I loved listening to this episode of the BBC's Only Artists programme featuring Jess Gillam, the saxophonist, interviewing Gail Ann Dorsey, the bassist. Here's Gail taking on the Freddie Mercury vocal in Under Pressure

And Jess's version of Where Are We Now? is ❤️❤️❤️

Joy-giving things 😍

I went for a walk along the Grand Union canal (in Warwickshire, not Camden, obvs)

Have a lovely weekend.

Lots of love, Lucy

PS Come on, England!

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