Sadhbh Warren

This is a partial clipping only, for a copy of the full piece please mail sadhbh at gmail dot com . In 1500 the PA role was for men only. In the 1950s it was dominated by women and in the 1990s people thought it would soon be obsolete. But today’s PA is a valued resource and PR powerhouse, more likely to be working on a document management system than carbon-copying memos says Sadhbh Warren. The PA role has changed in recent times - today’s office support professionals are barely recognisable from the original secretary. While the profession today is highly regarded and dominated by women, historically it’s always been about a trusted right-hand man. The term secretary was first used during the Renaissance and comes from the Latin secretum, ‘a secret’ and referred to the men – and only men - who dealt with confidential correspondence and acted as advisors to the mighty. Women were not initially seen as candidates for this influential position. When Sir Isaac Pitman founded the ...

I have been in Belize for 6 hours and, as yet, no one has answered the most pressing question I have about the place. To whit, why is there a fucking tarantula in the box next to the coffee machine? Most people would assume that a box next to the coffee machine would contain beverage related items.  They’d imagine the mesh lid would be to keep flies off the things within. Perhaps some sugar and tea bags. Maybe, if we get really lucky, a few packets of biscuits. These would be the things that normally I would expect to find in a box on a table next to the coffee machine. But no. There is a fecking tarantula. Approximately 5 inches of sulking black arachnid, hunched in readiness next to the spot where the box flips open. Perhaps he wants out. Perhaps he wants a coffee. Perhaps Belizeans sprinkle spiders on the foam of cappuccinos, like squirmy furious chocolate flakes. Who knows? Belize is insane. First off, Belize appears to be in the wrong place. With a small population w...

A friend of mine once married the girl he hadn’t wanted, and that’s kinda how I feel about Guatemala. He was in the pub and very attracted to a bubbly blonde who was capturing the party‘s attention with her jokes, so he had a good try at chatting her up. She wasn’t keen. But he did end up talking to her friend, a brunette, and he realised she was funny and pretty and sweet and intelligent. And he asked her out and in the fullness of time they ended up getting married. And - apart from a few awkward “how did you meet” questions the wedding - it all worked out just fine. When I was anticipating my 30 day overland epic trip through Central America, I wasn’t really thinking about Guatemala. Sultry Caribbean Belize, with its huge reef and soft creole, was occupying most of my attention, with bouncy, beery Mexico running close second. But it turned out to be Guatemala that gave me a lot of my best memories of the trip, although not where I had expected to find them. Anti...