My media: Businesswoman Josephine Grierson

The first of a summer series with well-known figures who tell ELINORE WELLWOOD what they read and watch for ideas, inspiration and entertainment.


Josephine Grierson

Glamorous businesswoman known for besting Eric Watson in court and winning big money.

Newspapers

I subscribe to the New Zealand Herald, the Financial Times from the UK and the Sunday Star-Times.

I also read the National Business Review, and the Economist magazine, which classifies itself as a newspaper, and I get the Sunday Times from the United Kingdom.

Television

I only get to see the late news on each channel. Nothing that's on television before 10.30 at night.

I'm just too busy. I've got kids as well as a business.

Magazines

Since I was 18 you could always find me somewhere with the Economist or Vogue. These days I read house magazines as well, being a boring married woman, but English ones rather than New Zealand ones.

I like to look at Pavement occasionally and Urbis.

Radio

I only ever get to listen to it in the car. I usually have it on something very lightweight.

I don't even know the names of them - 91FM and 95.8 - and I have occasionally listened to classical on National Radio, but not often.

I don't generally listen to talkback. I listen to music in my car.

Internet

I use it for email and research all the time. I don't have time for chat rooms, but I research things, like products. I'm always looking for products to buy.

I look for new ideas that I can develop business plans around. At the moment I'm doing the shopping centre in Northcote and other things.

Books

I normally don't read, except when I'm in a hotel or travelling. The Dream of Scipio by Iain Pears is the one I'm reading at the moment. It's quite philosophical.

It follows three people - one during the fall of Rome, one in the Middle Ages during the plague, and one in World War II.

The theme is the fall of civilisations and how you preserve culture.

There's a character, Manlius, and he's sitting on his farm watching the Empire crumble. I suppose the message is about how you have to get out of your comfort zone and go out and make things happen and try to preserve what's good in the world.

There's a saying along the lines of: for evil to prevail all that's required is for good men to do nothing.

We've all got to get out there and do our bit.

One of the characters infiltrates the religious orders and becomes a bishop of the church, not because he's a Christian but because he has to get into a position of reasonable power to put in place values such as the importance of education.

Inspiration

I'm listening to the new Dido CD. I find there's some quite uplifting messages on that.

It's very easy listening, but the last track says something like, "You probably don't want to hear that tomorrow's another day, but I promise you'll see the sun again. Your down moments are there, but there's always the up moments that follow".

It's not a huge inspiration, but it's a nice message.