One of the earliest “counterfactual histories,” published in 1931, was an anthology called If It Had Happened Otherwise, edited by J.C. Squire, with contributions from Hilaire Belloc on Louis XVI’s flight to Varennes, G.K. Chesterton on Mary Queen of Scotts, Winston Churchill on the Battle of Gettysburg, and H.A.L. Fisher on Napoleon.
I can actually help on footnote 3, having sat next to him at a business dinner last year where he described at length the process of the silent election that was going to make him Lord Mayor, which is a truly Gormenghastian ritual. (Oddly, it is actually competitive in a sense - the contested election is who gets the post he had at the time, to be a sheriff, as a Lord Mayor must be both a sheriff and an alderman and the way it works is that there can only ever be two people at a time meeting this requirement). Nice man, surprisingly Irish and proud of it, despite a very posh English accent (having lived here since a child). Phoenix Group basically bought up a lot of British life assurance pools that are closed to new business to manage them more effectively.
*where do I get off saying it’s not important to know much about the things I already don’t know much about, I’d like to know.*
So well said. That’s the rub, isn’t it? We never know which things we don’t know are most worth knowing. So, to say this is like setting up a pedestal for an empty box lined in black velvet, to represent all the other things and give them a place among our mental furniture.
This brand of humility is refreshing any time, let alone from someone having just provided us with a counterfactual of this caliber.
I want to say that I've always brightened when i see in my email that I have a new Chatner dispatch, but these days, in this world, there is nothing in my Inbox that I enjoy more. And the Chatner's footnotes are unparalleled!
Thank you very much for this, which firstly and most importantly was an absolute delight, and secondly informed me, a non-Brit who had the children's book growing up, that Dick Whittington was not a fictional character.
I can actually help on footnote 3, having sat next to him at a business dinner last year where he described at length the process of the silent election that was going to make him Lord Mayor, which is a truly Gormenghastian ritual. (Oddly, it is actually competitive in a sense - the contested election is who gets the post he had at the time, to be a sheriff, as a Lord Mayor must be both a sheriff and an alderman and the way it works is that there can only ever be two people at a time meeting this requirement). Nice man, surprisingly Irish and proud of it, despite a very posh English accent (having lived here since a child). Phoenix Group basically bought up a lot of British life assurance pools that are closed to new business to manage them more effectively.
This is a very dull comment, I admit.
I BEG to differ!!!
*where do I get off saying it’s not important to know much about the things I already don’t know much about, I’d like to know.*
So well said. That’s the rub, isn’t it? We never know which things we don’t know are most worth knowing. So, to say this is like setting up a pedestal for an empty box lined in black velvet, to represent all the other things and give them a place among our mental furniture.
This brand of humility is refreshing any time, let alone from someone having just provided us with a counterfactual of this caliber.
I want to say that I've always brightened when i see in my email that I have a new Chatner dispatch, but these days, in this world, there is nothing in my Inbox that I enjoy more. And the Chatner's footnotes are unparalleled!
Thank you very much for this, which firstly and most importantly was an absolute delight, and secondly informed me, a non-Brit who had the children's book growing up, that Dick Whittington was not a fictional character.
Bravo!
You're so creative; thank you!