Women and Power by Mary Beard
03/03/2023 I have so much things to do so I decided to go to a Pret a Manger to read a book called Women and Power by Mary Beard.
There was only one middle age man front of me in the queue who passonately explained how his espresso should be served. It was wonderful to see. Every table is taken but not every seat, most people are alone and on their phone. Only one man on his laptop. Most of the customers female, fitting surrandings to read a girlpower book. Five baggies parking in the middle with energetic babies. A man who looks like spent a year in bed and just got out if it talks on a phone in the most professional manner I've ever heard. I wonder what a client would think if he or she could see him, not just hearing his words, tone of his voice.
I've had a lady colleague a year back for a week not less, who in one of her weak moment shared with me that she worked for Pret a Manger and hated it. I asked why. She said she liked the company, the customers she had problem with. Pret introduced a subscription service for £25 a month including every drink not just coffees but juices that takes 3-4 minutes to make. When you have 5 queues, all streching miles long, she explained, you get a nervous breakdown whever you hear an order of a 3-4 minutes drink. It even made it into the news that some Pret (it is a chain, in London we have it on every corner) said that their fruit mixer is broken so they didn't have to make the expensive drinks.
The main guy from Pret said to the journalist that the subscription service here to stay.
Me, I don't mind any of that. I pay £3.55 for a Mocha. I visit the place maybe once a month and have a good time.
Mary Beard. She is a godess.
Last travel of mine before the pandemic shut the borders in 2020 brought me to Athens with a Friend. That Friend later sent me a book. It was from Mary Beard and this is how I've learnt about her. I googled the name and admired her work and the reception of her work.
"You can ve the best opera singer but if no one listens to you - are you really the best opera singer?" asked a Lady who taught me singing. Mary Beard deffinitely has the people listening.
The book starts off with Homer's Odyssey where the kid Telemachus says to his Mother Penelope to go back to her quarters and let the man speak business. It happened 3000 years ago and still little has changed.
Perfect start of a book. You need to read less than a page and you will understand why Mary Beard is loved. I wish her the same success as Homer enjoys, to be read and understood after almost 3000 years in the future.
10 out of 10