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!