When I Am An Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple.
Now, some of you who read this blog might think this is a strange title for a ‘business’ blog. What has wearing purple got to do with business? Well, I could blag on about the use of different colours in advertising. I could mutter about how we wear colours to suit our moods – or change our mood to suit colours. I could talk about selling a product or a colour to suit anticipated moods. This would then lead me on to talk about the marketing concept and maybe the marketing mix- not the somewhat limited mix that’s taught in schools i.e. the 4Ps (what about industrial relations or market education?) but the 20-element marketing mix written about by Jenkins (Modern Marketing).
But, the title is not a lead-in about colour or even an old woman. Though, in a way, it has got something about age.
“When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple with a red hat that doesn't go, and doesn't suit me. And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves and satin candles, and say we've no money for butter.”
This is an extract from a poem by Jenny Joseph. Again, you might wonder why it is relevant. It doesn’t appear in ‘Teaching Business Studies through Poetry’ by, um, me so I cannot be accused of bringing the poem up for a shameless plug.
But it certainly does have something to do with business studies – though not in the way you might think.
“I shall sit down on the pavement when I am tired and gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells and run my stick along the public railings and make up for the sobriety of my youth. I shall go out in my slippers in the rain and pick the flowers in other people's gardens and learn to spit.”
This clearly talks about how our behaviour changes when we are old – perhaps we mean it to, perhaps we don’t care.
But that’s not the point of this blog entry. The reason I have been thinking about this poem is because if you put “When I am an old woman I shall wear purple” into Google you’ll see that many many sites have this poem. Many sites but not Lady Jaye's The reason that Lady Jaye’s does not have the poem up is because:
“NOTE: from LadyJaye -- this lovely poem has been removed because I was threatened that sharing it with you is copyright infringement. I was informed that only one person (who happens to sell Jenny Joseph items, such as red hats, etc, has soul rights to the copyright.”
Her site was threatened by the supposed owner of the poem (or associates) owing to breach of copyright. The site goes on to say:
“I also want to state that the person who wrote me threatening me was using a bogus email address. Who would do such a thing? In this world of sadness -- the laughter from this poem will be missed. “
Clearly the threatening email had been sent from someone who merely wanted to frighten – and achieve the effect of Lady Jaye not showing the poem.
This is the action either of a competitor (and yet look at the sites showing the poem) or someone who, out of malice, wants to stop the site reaching its full potential.
“You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat and eat three pounds of sausages at a go or only bread and pickles for a week and hoard pens and pencils and beer nuts and things in boxes. “
The thing is, as one gets older we become less combative and more at ease with ourselves with the world. “Not true!” you shout, “What of Victor Meldrew!”
I take your point. Maybe it’s just me then. I find that as I get older - not more mature, just ‘older’ – I feel less need to fight, less need to retaliate. Maybe I secretly wish to accelerate the age process:
“But now we must have clothes that keep us dry and pay our rent and not swear in the street and set a good example for the children. ‘
Maybe I am less bothered by the reactions of others – and merely wish to stick to what I like doing, without harming others. That’s why when Duncan and I started Oxbow we decided to try and provide the best possible service to others, oddly enough, not necessarily with a view to making a profit. More to provide a service that we felt was not provided by others and, on the way, help a couple of charities, explore new avenues, have a good time and if we cover our costs then that’s fine.
That’s why on the free lesson plan element of the site we have lesson plans on business, sure, but also on ‘Virtue Ethics’ and ‘Dramatic Tension’. In other words we are providing lesson plans well outside our own field of expertise. These lesson plans are for discussion. We don’t necessarily feel they are perfect plans – merely the best we could do given a limited amount of time available. Our plans may differ because where we both contribute, these contributions are done separately.
So, you have the purpose of the site. It would seem our performance has annoyed someone. On New Year’s Eve someone bought the domain name ‘oxbowbusiness.co.uk and it says on the ‘site’ “Coming Soon - A New Website for the Online School of Learning”.
Note the message – ‘Online School of Learning’ – or to abbreviate: OSL.
Now why would someone want to do this? Maybe just a mickey-take. Maybe they want people to think we are they and something nasty is planned. Maybe it’s all part of a very slow strategy that is planned to make sure that Oxbow never really takes off.
Who would do such a thing? A nasty competitor? Someone with a grudge?
“We must have friends to dinner and read the papers. But maybe I ought to practice a little now? “
The sad thing is I don’t really care. If I did care then the various geeks I know (usually of a left-wing variety) who have offered to ‘take down their site and destroy it by putting viruses everywhere – and we’d never be traced’ would have been contacted. Equally another site would have been set up and photos would have been displayed (doctored photos I hasten to add) that would put certain Danish cartoons to shame.
But, like I said, I don’t really care. A few years ago you could type in ‘Chris Sivewright Asian Babes’ and there was a site on Google whereby you click ‘Chris Sivewright’ and pay a fee and you go straight to an Asian babes site. Even now there are whole messages seeking to ‘ prove’ I am a pornographer, a peddler of filth and – by giving my name, phone number and address, ‘all schools should be circulated and the police with a view to driving him out of business’. The odd thing is I am also – allegedly – an American (with a BT dialup?) and have connections in Cyprus…
The person who did this was miffed merely because he criticised a long essay I wrote and I criticised something he wrote.
Equally there are long messages about ‘Mrs Sivewright is covered in chocolate’ which seeks to ‘prove’ that I like covering my wife in chocolate before…well, you can read the rest when you find it.
Again, hatred? Malice or just someone having fun?
In the internet world there are a lot of odious characters – some have personal vendettas. Some merely want to make sure you never succeed – in anything.
But that all depends on what ‘success’ is.
I have been teaching for 25+ years. I never sought to make shed-loads of dosh (even though the newspapers referred to me as ‘Britain’s Richest Teacher’ on £1000 a week which was a lot of money then. ) I just wanted to teach, to enjoy my subject and my job and have a few laughs along the way.
I have done that and I am doing it now, writing books that are sold by three internet-based publishers as well as running conferences at schools and doing bits of private tuition.
That’s why when people like Far_Corner start making posts where the only intention is to pour scorn on what I am doing I recognise it for what it is, naked malice.
Or at least I thought I did.
The strange thing is about Far Corner is that he pretended to be so keen to come to a free conference in Oxford. He wanted details – but wouldn’t email me. He kept on posting for information in the Business Studies section at the TES.
Far_Corner seemed such a keen teacher. He says that he works at Eton College and as he teaches Business Studies one can only assume that he works with Geoff Riley who is Head of Economics at Eton. As I said in the Forums it seemed very disloyal for Far_Corner to want to bring other people to the conference:
“6 | Posted by: Far_Corner at 01 Nov 2005 06:11
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Some of my colleagues would be interested in coming if there was a programme offering clear guidelines on what will be covered “
My free conference clashed with a fee-paying one run by tutor2u . After all there was Far_Corner, working in the same Department as Geoff Riley, who was openly posting that he and some of his colleagues would be interested in coming – and not supporting Geoff.
That seems very bad behaviour.
This is an opportunity for me to prattle on about loyalty etc – but, resisting that, I’ll stick to the theme which is about the actions of others.
Something rang a bell about Far Corner. I remembered some company documents I had been looking at. And then I remembered – Far Corner is the address of someone I know of who teaches Economics. Someone very well-known? Could this be the person who was posting as Far_Corner?
It seemed more than likely. That person would be an Eton teacher and someone who had chosen Far_Corner as an ID. Certainly the Far_Corner person was very supportive of the work done by tutor2u – often posting saying how good the product was – and yet seemed to desert them when enquiring about our (free) conference.
Thing is, his later posts, as I commented, were of the sneering variety as he sought to pour scorn on my endeavours – i.e. my free conference in Oxford.
Now I ask again. Why would someone do this? Certainly I have never met Far_Corner (though I know people how have) so I see no reason for personal dislike. That leaves another option (there may be more) – a competitive strategy.
And that brings me back to www.oxbowbusiness.co.uk.
Recently on the TES forums someone using the name ‘oxbow’ has been ‘upping’ some of my threads. Why would they do this?
One answer is that they think the threads are worthy of bringing to people’s attention – again.
But…what type of behaviour is most likely to get people’s backs up?
Yes – upping threads that are promoting something. And by using the identity Oxbow, people are more likely to think it’s either Duncan or myself doing this – just as a cynic among you might think that Far_Corner praising tutor2u’s stuff is in fact a tutor2u stooge. (Not that I think that, you understand)
So if and when www.oxbowbusiness.co.uk does appear and it either resembles www.oxbow.org.uk , or is a parody or is a full-frontal attack on me or Duncan, remember this blog.
And remember the old woman who wants to wear purple:
“So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple”
The Ginko Biloba seems to be wearing off – when the attack comes I probably won’t even care.
If you would like to read the full poem there are many sites to see it at but I would recommend restuff.co.uk as the owner seems a Good Guy and there is a lot of free stuff there - without even a hint of commercialism – or of Far_Corner.
Chris Sivewright
posted by Duncan Williamson @ 10:07 PM
2 Comments:
Nice to see something about the arts on a boring old business blog!
Well thank you; and, erm, we'll take that as some form of compliment.
Duncan
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