I have only ever been in one reading group. It was several years ago and the group only read books on one theme: football. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, it was a select group – just me and a couple of mates. The premise was fairly standard; read a different book about football each month.
It wasn’t as difficult to find books as you might expect. It wasn’t as boring as some of you might expect, either. Beyond the ghostwritten autobiographies and first person accounts of hardcore hooliganism, there’s a surprisingly excellent range of football books.
Saying that, however, the first book we read was Steve Claridge’s autobiography – a tedious tale of gambling, crap cars and rubbish performances for rubbish clubs. I refused to read the chapter on Birmingham City, which other members of the group said was ridiculous. But I have my standards.
The group lasted for a year-or-so before we ran out of ideas. There are only so many socio-economic accounts about the history of German football worth reading. Well one, actually: ‘tor!’.
In fact, the group split for good when one member suggested branching into cricket. I was vehement that I hadn’t joined a football reading group to read books about cricket. And that was that. But maybe it’s time for a re-start?
My daughter is 25 months old. She has a bunch of favourite games but the following five are probably the most popular:
- Shop – Soft toys take various roles in the shop, such as shopkeeper, shop assistant, customer and ’stand back’ (the security guard, basically). The shop usually sells make believe food (cake, ice cream, toast), or various items from around the house (metal frog, little ball, Daddy’s keys). ‘Shop’ is an all-time favourite game.
- Doctor’s – Soft toys take on various role in the surgery. One toy normally takes on the role of main doctor and other toys usually fulfil a range of health professional positions. My daugther sometimes like to be the nurse. Other toys act as patients and are put to bed. Illnesses normally include spots, coughs, sneezes and ear complaints (such as a snail, or a spider, in the ear).
- Cave – The duvet on the bed becomes a cave. Sometimes the cave monster vists, sometimes it’s the ghost. Both cause my daughter to become hysterical – the cave monster makes her laugh, the ghost makes her scream. Variations include ‘Shop in the Cave’ – which is like Shop, but in the cave – and ‘Who is it?’ – where she guesses which toy has come to visit the cave.
- Hide and Seeks – As you might expect, someone hides – either Mummy, Daddy or a soft toy – and my daughter goes a-hunting. There’s a stairs-based variation, too – which no one understands and makes her tense because we forget the rules. Luckily, stairs-based ‘Hide and Seeks’ has fallen out of favour recently.
- Little Spider – A new game, where a small toy spider climbs the stairs and goes looking for food. He normally eats pretend flies or dragonflies. The latter make little spider cough and sneeze, for some reason.
The sparkling new edition of CIO Connect magazine is out. Thanks to all those who participated and to those that helped sort out the interviews. Here is a list of featured CIOs and business experts:
- Gordon Hextall, COO of NHS Connecting for Health
- Paul Jones, NHS CTO
- Mykolas Rambus, head of IT and special projects at Forbes
- Ken Narvey, group chief technology and services officer at HSBC
- Tony Mather, CIO at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office
- Paul Woobey, CIO at the Office of National Statistics
- Ben Booth, global CIO at Ipsos MORI
- Anne Weatherston, Bank of Ireland CIO
- Mark Leonard, Colt CIO
- Martin Thompson, Tradefair CTO
- Steve Pikett, head of IT at Rothschild
- Mark Greenlaw, Cognizant CIO
- Jan Durant, director of IT at Lewis Silkin LLP
- Ray Johnston, group IT operations manager at Aspen Insurance
- Dean Branton, group director of business transformation at KCOM
- Nathan Hayes, head of infrastructure and technology at Osborne Clarke
- Mary Hensher, Deloitte CIO
- Dave Williams, IT director at Confused.com
- Robin Osmond, Tradefair CEO
- Sharm Manwani, associate professor at Henley Management College
- James Urquhart Stewart, media commentator
- Duncan Aitchison, partner at TPI
- Joe McDonagh, executive development expert at Trinity College Dublin
- David Head, director at La Fosse Associates
- Jo Alexander-Jones, organisational development manager at BG Group
- Guy Hains, president of CSC’s European Operations
- Patrick O’Connell, president of BT Global Service and MD of BT Health
- David Bodanis, scenario planning expert
- Rohit Talwar, futurologist
PRs looking to feature CIOs or business experts in forthcoming issues can ping me an email. Thanks in advance.