Modularity may seem so straightforward that it is obvious, but it is rarely obvious in practice. Employees may only know about their department, and know little of what the rest of the business does. They may be completely divorced from the customer’s experience. Managers may have an idea of how things fit together, but are rewarded for fighting their individual corner, not for doing what best helps the whole organization. An outsourced function is not part of your company, but it may be just as integral to business success as any function performed in-house. Suppliers may be separate companies, but their failure may cause the failure of your business. Long-term business success will often depend on relationships within the company, and between the company and others. These relationships may change over time, but will greatly influence the health of the business.

Teaching managers to think of business in modular terms is not simple. The biggest obstacle is the time and effort spent working out what each part of the business does and all the interactions between the modules, including those that sit in other companies. Working out the model for an individual business is time-consuming, and the benefits are all indirect, so it would be hard to spend the time and resources needed to do it well. In contrast, generic industry models are abstract. They need to be tailored to the relevant circumstances of individual businesses. There is also the challenge of getting rival businesses to pool efforts and devise a common model; some may prefer not to contribute but merely to wait and see if they can use the finished work. Despite the obstacles, there have been successes. In software development, frameworks like the Software Engineering Institute’s Capability Maturity Model Integration have gained popularity. For telecommunications providers, the TM Forum’s Solution Frameworks are the de facto standard for planning major business-wide transformation. One difficulty with frameworks is that they can end up seeming just as complicated as the businesses they try to describe. However, they do help management in several important ways, which are briefly described below.

Distinguish the success of a part with the success of the whole

Poorly chosen targets, corporate politics and poor data can all conspire to encourage the business to reward units that act ’selfishly’. A selfish approach may seem natural, because businesses compete with each other. But the IT department should not be competing with the Sales team or the people who work in Customer Service. Targets and performance criteria for every module should be based on the benefits to the business as a whole. That means understanding how the modules connect and complement each other.

Measure the performance of a module based on what it controls

You would not blame customer-facing staff for spending a lot of time on refunds, if products are faulty because of poor quality control on the production line. Even so, it is sometimes difficult to link measures back to root causes. Modularity encourages a better understanding of what each module controls and does not control. This in turn encourages performance to be linked back to root causes, so improvement is focused where really needed. The correct approach is to measure the performance of each module based on the value it adds, and to set targets accordingly. Where the failure of one part of the business causes issues downstream, ensure that there is accountability and the resolution is taken right back to the source. Understanding the performance of each module, and relating this to the products and services supplied, will identify those activities that drive profits and customer satisfaction, and where there is the potential to cut costs.

Standards help everybody

Standards are an aspect of modularity. To define how modules interact, it is necessary to set standards. Standards can be limiting, but in large businesses the loss of freedom is offset by the vital improvement in the consistency of how the business works. Adopting broad standards in the performance of work is a good way to train people and make them feel part of a team. It is common to adopt technical standards, but many other activities can be standardized. Idiosyncrasy in how people work can be discouraged by having staff change around and do different jobs, at least on an occasional basis. Giving everyone an overview of what the business does will help to foster a sense of team spirit that reaches beyond departmental boundaries. If tasks are performed in a standard way, it is easier to cope with staff turnover. If staff have some familiarity with performing a variety of jobs, they will be better able to cope with new requirements at short notice.

The more standardized a business, at every level, the easier it is for suppliers to meet its needs. Standardization also makes it easier to shop around and find alternate suppliers. A modular approach works for services just like manufactured goods. The ease of swapping in new parts for old parts makes a business more flexible. Bringing in temporary staff or a new source of components may be vital for handling a surge in demand. The same kind of flexibility also helps with managing reductions in capacity when sales are poor. Suppliers are an extension of the business, performing modular roles per expectations defined in a contract. The supplier’s service levels can be monitored by extension.

Focus on what you do best, give fair rewards for the rest

The driving force behind outsourcing is that some tasks can be more efficiently handled by letting an outside, specialist business perform them. The best known examples are inherently modular. For example, the payroll of a manufacturer has a lot in common with the payroll of a bank. In contrast, managing payroll has very little in common with the core business of a manufacturer or of a bank. Common and regularly recurring tasks are obvious candidates for outsourcing. However, there may be ways to incentivize and engage outside suppliers for more risky or creative challenges. Take Apple’s iPhone Apps Store. Apple created an environment that ensures third parties get a transparent share of reward in exchange for the risk they take. In doing so, they handed over the risky task of developing new content for the iPhone, whilst creating a new feature that attracts more customers for their product. By giving a reasonable return to the modules outside of Apple’s company - the third party apps developers - they both outsourced risk and reaped a greater reward for their own business.

Summary: recognizing limits

For an intelligent, successful, and confident executive, the hardest challenge may be to recognize his or her own limits. But the human mind has limits. Even the versatile minds of a Benjamin Franklin or Leonardo da Vinci would be overwhelmed by trying to understand the intertwined complexities of money, machines, markets, laws and human behaviour that determine the success of a modern large corporation. Failures of big businesses show that risks can be underestimated and circumstances can outrun the company’s ability to change. To solve complex problems, it is necessary to break it down. There must be trust to recruit and delegate to managers who handle their individual part of the puzzle. Top level management is there to ensure the parts fit together to form the whole. By being modular, businesses become more adaptable. Identifying the important relationships between each module, establishes the key criteria for the success and profitability of the business. Knowing limits drives businesses to acquire the data needed to make effective decisions and plan ahead, instead of just responding to short-term variations from expectations without understanding what has caused them or if they represent more fundamental problems. Modularity keeps business intelligible, and by keeping the business intelligible, managers can manage even the most complex businesses with confidence.

Dear Eric,

It is with a heavy heart that I must share the news gleaned from my stealthy return to my motherland, Delfthia. As you appreciate, the current authorities consider me persona non grata; they fear I will lead a popular uprising and take back my crown. I have harboured no such intention, but seeing what they have done to my precious Delfthia, I can now say they were right to fear. Seeing what has become of my beloved Delfthia leaves me saddened and enraged in equal measure. The jackboot of their tyranny has marked my people’s soil for eternity. There is no time to waste. I am left with no choice but to make immediate preparations for a visit to the United Nations, whereupon I will petition the general assembly to restore me to the throne of Delfthia. I do this not for myself but for my people. Even a day’s delay will only leave my poor country even more irredeemably scarred than the day before. I beg of you to share this missive with your readers so they too can find out the horrible truth of what has happened to the beloved land of my birth. The world must hear of what has happened to Delfthia and I shall not rest until they do.

Woe, your name is Delfthia! Accursed tyrants have blighted your green and fertile meadows and darkened your blue and cloudless skies. Greedy wretches have befouled the streets of your magnificent cities and desecrated your pretty villages. Shameless supplicants have given over their lands and freedom to the despots that now disfigure the once beautiful land of Delfthia. Delfthia, how I remember the small boy I once was, running barefoot over your hills and through your valleys…

Prince Karl keeps this up for a couple more paragraphs. I hope he will not mind too much if I summarize by saying the Prince is more than a little upset at what has happened to Delfthia since he left. We will skip to the part where he starts detailing what he discovered on his arrival.

For the final leg of our journey, my valet and I boarded the overnight sleeper train from Vienna. This meant an early rise from our bunks, as the Delfthian immigration officials were scheduled to board the train and check our passports upon reaching the border at 6.20am. I awoke after a fitful night’s sleep, spent turning in my bunk and imagining how Delfthia had changed in the decades since my departure. Even so, I was up bright and early, giving me time to shower, shave and comb my hair before putting on a clean shirt and making myself presentable. As you can imagine, I found it distasteful to travel using an alias, but there was no alternative. However, just imagine my distaste when the immigration officer, looking for all the world like it was he, not me, that had just risen from bed, proceeded to interrogate me about my personage. There was a time when the hospitality of Delfthians was famous from Brussels to Baghdad, yet this slovenly oaf asked me all manner of questions, the relevance of which was beyond me.

“Where are you staying?” “In a hotel - do you think I travel first class and then plan to sleep on the park bench?” “Write down the address.” “Why, will you be contacting them to verify my answer?”

“How much cash do you have on you?” “None.” “Then how do you expect to pay your hotel bills?” “The valet will pay with the cash he carries for me or I will pay with my credit cards.”

“Do you have a communicable disease, social or mental disorder or are you a drug user or addict?” “Yes, I have a profound aversion to nosey parkers and to the insufferably rude. They give me a headache and then I have to take an aspirin.”

“Do I intend to engage in subversive activities leading to the overthrow of the government?”

Well, as it turns out the answer to that question is now ‘yes’, but what kind of nincompoop expects an honest answer from anyone who would contemplate such a thing? You might as well ask Mossad agents if they are traveling under a stolen identity and if the purpose of their visit is to assassinate someone.

This incident on the train was merely an omen of what was to come. After disembarking at Delfthia Central Station, we took a taxi to our hotel. I am sure the taxi driver took us an implausibly circuitous route, all the while proclaiming that he did so to avoid the worst of the congestion. If that were true, I shudder to think what the worst would be like. From the back seat of the taxi, I saw our fair capital’s streets were choked with cars and fumes that backed up and blackened every junction. Even so, I was glad of the detour, as I longed to see what had become of the buildings. What I saw filled me with horror. The pretty facades I remembered from my youth were now covered in advertising hoardings, with giant photographs of David Beckham selling his underpants. International brands of pizzerias and burger joints had taken the place of our cafés and bistros. The corner shops, run by local people that you knew, had disappeared completely.

It was with relief that we finally arrived at our hotel, the Hotel Metropole. This was the establishment that had, for a hundred years, welcomed heads of state from around the world, back in the days when Delfthia was a place that world leaders looked forward to visiting. Sad to relate, standards had slipped even there. The décor still impressed, but much had been lost. A horrid gift shop had taken the place of what I had remembered as the Augustus VI room for gentleman smokers. It sold chocolates from Switzerland and watches from Belgium (or perhaps the other way around, I am too upset to remember clearly) but there were no local goods, like our fine Delfthinian flaxxon hats or the famous mountain pipes played and made in the Delfthinian highlands. Hungry after our journey, I decided to enjoy a bowl of our glapclava, a dish that is never prepared correctly by the few overseas restaurants I have found will serve it. To my amazement, the hotel restaurant now only offered Thai food. Surely if I wanted to go somewhere that offered Thai food, I would holiday in Thailand? Disappointed, I retired to my suite and decided to order room service instead. That menu was equally desultory, offering all manner of club sandwiches and chicken madrases, but not a single Delfthian dish of worth. It was quite enough to cause me to lose my appetite altogether.

I consoled myself that I was out of sorts after the sporadic sleep of the night before, and that a nap would raise my spirits. After my nap, I awoke refreshed. Feeling rejuvenated, I told the valet to have the rest of the day off whilst I ventured out for a walk around the streets of Delfthia. My first stop was at the tourist information office, situated in a hideous concrete bunker directly opposite the Hotel Metropole. I asked about craft shops selling locally-made flaxxon goods. There were none, though the lady behind the counter suggested a superstore with some similar products imported from China. I enquired about the weekend polka dances in the park, but they had long since ended. This weekend there was a jazz festival, which sounded rather jolly. I mentioned that if I wanted the finest in jazz I would have gone to New Orleans or Chicago, but the lady assured me they had flown in some fine musical acts from overseas. Then it transpired the headline entertainment was James Blunt and David Gray, so I naturally gave her a telling-off for misleading me about there being ‘jazz’ music on offer. Depressed, I asked her what other tourists did to enjoy themselves. There was an IMAX cinema, showing the latest Hollywood blockbuster movie from someone called James Cameraman. I shook my head and asked about shopping for Delfthian antiques. The lady said the old market was closed for refurbishment, but that I might be disappointed with the ‘tat’ on sale there anyway. She instead suggested I could enjoy myself at the air-conditioned shopping mall, at which I would find Gucci, Armani and Jimmy Choo stores, and if that was not to my liking, they also had a Topshop, Starbucks, Boots and even a Virgin Megastore. I commented that I did not see how it was possible to have a Virgin Megastore, as all the British Virgin Megastores had been sold off, rebranded or even closed. She responded by sniffing in a very off-hand way and handing me some leaflets that promised reduced entry to an artificial ski dome and a waxworks museum featuring a new dummy of the diminutive Nicolas Sarkozy. Perhaps the waxworks were running short of wax.

Utterly deflated by this dreadful experience, I thought it best to drown my sorrows with a tipple or two or our Delfthinian wormwood liquor, or failing that, a little absinthe. Imagine how dejected I was when the only bar I could find was an Irish-themed pub, covered in shamrock wallpaper and with a big TV screen showing English Premiership football. Their beverages included no wormwood liquor nor absinthe, so I mulled a choice between Guinness, Fosters or Budweiser. I settled for a Guinness and, reconciling myself to my torpid travel experience, I found comfort in the thought that the Irish say their Guinness does not travel well either.

Dear reader, it seems you can never go home. I tried, but it was no longer where I once left it. In the place it should have been, I found myself surrounded by the tyranny of the familiar. Those rogues in the Delfthian government had sold out our national heritage for a Hallmark gift shop, a Dunkin Donuts and a Gordon Ramsey restaurant. These are all very fine establishments, in their own way, but not so fine that I never want to be without them.

Yours Sincerely,

Prince Karl Zeis of the Royal House of Delfthia

5. The Shawshank Redemption

Andy, played by Tim Robbins, is going to escape from Shawshank prison by using his little stone chisel to make a great big bloody hole in the wall. The guards never see the hole because it is covered over using a poster of a cinema sex symbol. Andy hides his chisel in a bible, and in one tense scene the warden is holding the bible whilst they search Andy’s cell. Fortunately, the warden never opens it up, although he talks about bible stories at length. But why hide your chisel in a bible, when there is a bloody great hole in the wall big enough to hide the chisel plus an elephant or two?

4. Star Wars

After a stirring escape from Death Star, and from the TIE fighters sent to chase after them, Han Solo and the crew of the Millennium Falcon at last feel like they can relax. Princess Leia, though, knows better. ‘Too easy’ she says, and announces the evil empire must have put a tracking device on their ship. If the heroes fly back to the secret rebel base, then they will lead the empire back there too. So what do they do? They fly straight back, in the hope that they will find a weakness in the Death Star which will allow the rebels to blow it up. Flying in the wrong direction and changing ships would have been a less risky plan.

3. The Prestige

Two warring Victorian magicians, played by Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman, scheme and counter-scheme to upstage and bamboozle each other. In a masterstroke, Bale allows Jackman to ’steal’ his secret diary. The secret diary leads Jackman halfway across the world, to meet with the inventor Nikola Tesla. The diary reveals that Tesla is the man who made a machine that can transport a man through space, making him reappear at a distance from where he first started. However, the diary is a cunning connivance by Bale - he actually performs his disappearing and reappearing trick with the help of a twin brother unknown to the rest of the world. The foolish Jackman believes the diary and tracks Tesla down in the US, finally persuading the reluctant but penniless inventor to meet with him. Desperately needing Jackman’s money, Tesla agrees to build Jackman a transporting machine, which works pretty darned well (apart for one unfortunate side-effect). How unlucky for Bale! He intended to send Jackman on a wild goose chase, but in the end he pointed him at the one man in the world who could build a machine that actually does magic. What were the odds on that?

2. Alien

In space, no one can hear you scream. You are being chased by an alien monster. It is strong. It is covered in armour. Its has a tail that can slice you in two. It has an extra set of jaws for biting you when the first set does not get the job done. It has acid for blood. To sum it up, killing this alien is going to be hard. But in space, no one can hear you scream because there is no atmosphere. So how do the hapless humans try to fight off this one-alien apocalypse? They use flamethrowers and other weakling weapons. Why not try switching off the atmosphere and allowing the otherworldly bugger to suffocate instead?

1. The Fast and The Furious

The starter for this high-octane car racing franchise starred Vin Diesel as the gang leader who boosts a lot of electronic equipment to pay for the modifications that boost his automobiles. However, in the craziest scene of the movie, Vinnie needs to escape the police following a street race. He hides his precious car in a garage, then high-tails it away on foot. A police car spots Vinnie and chases him. Remarkably, Vinnie manages to outrun the police car, and he makes his getaway. What were the moviemakers trying to say with this incongruous scene? Perhaps they were saying that feet are fleeter than the furious automobiles of this car-studded feature. Or perhaps they were saying that Diesel is faster than petrol…

Lady Virginia Mantlebrat: Shall we begin? There’s some coffee at the back if people want to help themselves.

Colonel Spindle: No biscuits this time? Are we making cutbacks? I’m famished. I need a bourbon, or a custard cream or two.

Lady Mantlebrat: No, no, the absence of biscuits has nothing to do with budgets. We’ve had to suspend biscuit buying pending further investigation.

Prof. Palindrome: If I may, Virginia. Colonel, it occurred to us that the cream filling of certain kinds of biscuit - like the bourbons and custard creams you mention - could be deliberately tainted with genetically-modified psychotropic substances that are keyed to the DNA of a specific individual. In most cases the biscuit would be perfectly harmless. But if the individual with the matching DNA ate the modified biscuit, they would suffer powerful and disturbing hallucinations. The hallucinations would be so vivid and emotionally compelling that they make an LSD trip seem like an animated movie by The Beatles. Onlookers would assume the victim had gone completely mad and would have no way of telling it was down to the biscuit, as they would have eaten from the same biscuit plate but be completely unaffected.

Colonel Spindle: Didn’t the CIA try the same thing on Castro? Something about spiking his cigar in the hope he’d smoke it, go on telly and seem totally off his rocker.

Prof. Palindrome: Yes, but the cigars were crude and it was easy to detect the drugs. The beauty of the DNA-encoded biscuits is that the drug would be very hard to detect and there would be no effect on others eating the biscuit. So if one of us went complete bonkers, nobody would suspect that the real culprit was the chemical cocktail hidden in the custard cream.

The Right Hon. William Whiteslosh: But I thought those Beatles films were supposed to be rather like an LSD trip… not that I’ve ever had one myself… with all those stories about blue meanies and yellow submarines and Lilly flying her kite.

Prof. Palindrome: By the standards of their day, The Beatles’ flirtations with drug culture were very radical, but modern teenagers are not so easily impressed. If it’s not a 3-D epic by James Cameron about giant blue people piloted by virtual reality, then the kids simply don’t treat it as realistic.

Dame Marjorie Marjarom: What about ginger nuts?

Prof. Palindrome: Excuse me?

Dame Marjorie Marjarom: Ginger nuts, or digestive biscuits - surely they’re safe as they have no cream filling?

Prof. Palindrome: Until we’ve devised a foolproof test, we think it’s better to err on the side of caution and avoid biscuits of any description. We can’t be sure if the drugs are limited to cream fillings as we’ve never had an actual case of this happening and there’s no proof that the technology exists. But we’re still urgently working towards the method to detect it. Better safe than sorry.

The Right Hon. William Whiteslosh: Weren’t we supposed to be investigating something to do with that three-dimensional thingy… what was it? Something about the potential to send even more powerful and undetectable subliminal messages to viewers because each eye got a different blip-coded instruction that only makes sense when combined with the blip-code instruction received by the other eye?

Prof. Palindrome: Ah, yes. You see… (interrupted)

Lady Mantlebrat: Gentlemen, please, let’s get back to the agenda, shall we? I’ve asked Dr. Delia Dingle to join us today, so she can talk to us about the risks of collisions with objects from outer space.

Colonel Spindle: So where is she then?

Lady Mantlebrat: I don’t know, and that’s what I’m worried about.

Dame Marjorie Marjarom: Do you think she could have been kidnapped?

The Right Hon. William Whiteslosh: What about jaffa cakes then?

Lady Mantlebrat: Willie?

The Right Hon. William Whiteslosh: Jaffa cakes. Strictly speaking, they’re not biscuits. Are they safe from the super-LSD-DNA stuff?

Colonel Spindle: Good idea, Willie. Let’s get some jaffa cakes in, shall we? They’re not biscuits and I really am famished.

Prof. Palindrome: Whilst the jaffa cake is, indeed, a cake, I think it still poses a risk.

Dame Marjorie Marjarom: We need to ask ourselves if any cake can be considered 100% safe. I’m inclined to think not.

Lady Virginia Mantlebrat: The question is moot, as we do not have departmental budget to serve cake.

Prof. Palindrome: Marjorie makes a good point. We should extend our research, and our internal ban, to cover the possibility of DNA-encoded hallucinatory cakes in addition to DNA-encoded hallucinatory biscuits.

The Right Hon. William Whiteslosh: Jaffa cakes could be bought under the biscuit budget, surely?

Colonel Spindle: This doesn’t sound like an especially new threat to me. In my youth I visited Amsterdam and purchased some baked goods - brownies I think they were called at the shop - that were made with marijuana in them. I think they called them hash brownies.

Prof. Palindrome: These new DNA-encoded psychotropic… (interrupted)

Lady Virginia Mantlebrat: Please, please gentlemen. If you wanted to talk about biscuits you should have put them on the agenda. This will have to wait to Any Other Business.

The Right Hon. William Whiteslosh: I thought biscuits were a standing item for this meeting (chortles to himself).

Lady Virginia Mantlebrat: Willie, please let’s return to the agenda, shall we? We need to consider what might have happened to Dr. Dingle.

Colonel Spindle: Maybe she went to the movies and got a subliminal message telling her to fly to Moscow or some such.

Dame Marjorie Marjarom: Maybe there never was a Dr. Dingle. She could have been a robot imposter.

The Right Hon. William Whiteslosh: What about birthday cakes? Surely we’ve got budget for that? Does the ministry expect us to chip in and buy the staff birthday cakes out of our own pockets?

Prof. Palindrome: I think we also need to consider another, even more chilling possibility. Perhaps Dr. Dingle is in the room with us, right now.

Colonel Spindle: How so? Are you saying she might be invisible?

Prof. Palindrome: Not just invisible, but completely out of phase with ordinary matter, so that she wasn’t interacting with any devices that could be used to detect her presence. If she had been converted to dark matter, then Dr. Dingle would have no interaction with the universe as we perceive it. It’s not beyond the realms of possibility - she was working in the field of dangers from outer space. Perhaps she was the target of aliens who wanted to stop her work?

Lady Virginia Mantlebrat: Really, Professor. I think you’re getting a bit carried away. She was investigating what to do about comets and meteors hitting our planet, not alien invasions! And you know full well that contingency planning for alien invasions is outside of our scope. Responsibility for that lies with those nice people who work in New Mexico and who we otherwise don’t mention.

The Right Hon. William Whiteslosh: Might I possibly be a robot imposter?

Lady Virginia Mantlebrat: No, Willie. You’re all too unique.

Colonel Spindle: We should still take a look into this dark matter conversion theory of Professor Palindrome. If somebody made of dark matter would not register on any scientific device, they would travel through our world completely undetected. They’d be the perfect spy.

Lady Virginia Mantlebrat: If I understand correctly, the thing about dark matter is that it doesn’t interact with anything else, like ordinary matter or even light. So if light passes right through a dark matter person, that would surely mean they must be blind - because the light wouldn’t hit the back of their retina?

Prof. Palindrome: Ah, yes. Good point. Perhaps we can afford to discount the conversion of people into dark matter for the moment.

[Dr. Delia Dingle enters the room.]

Dr. Dingle: Sorry I’m late. My train was delayed.

Lady Virginia Mantlebrat: Oh, there you are. You didn’t call to warn us you wouldn’t be on time.

Dr. Dingle: (Pulls out her mobile phone and waves it) Didn’t you get my message?

Lady Virginia Mantlebrat: No. No I didn’t. (She reaches into her handbag for her own mobile phone. After searching around she pulls it out). That’s funny - there’s no signal in here.

Prof. Palindrome: I’m afraid I hadn’t had chance to warn you about that. As you’ll see, it’s item number eight on the agenda: mobile telephony safety risks.

Lady Virginia Mantlebrat: Professor, our purpose is to deal with the unexpected, not the expected. Surely there are plenty of mainstream researchers looking into the health and safety aspects of mobile telephones - and what exactly have you done to block my reception? It was fine yesterday.

Prof. Palindrome: Very true, Lady Virginia, but I was more concerned that the signals might be intercepted and decoded.

The Right Hon. William Whiteslosh: Four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire. Might they be used to hold this dark matter stuff?

Lady Virginia Mantlebrat: Please Willie, I don’t think The Beatles did a reliable geographic survey for the sake of writing ‘A Day in the Life’.

Colonel Spindle: (Angry) Of course mobile radio signals can be decoded. The thing is, only a blithering idiot would do such a thing. Have you ever listened to what the average person jabbers on about whilst on the telephone? What happened last night on Eastenders and who’s next for the bushtucker trials on Celebrity Come Ice Dancing. Who’d want to listen to all that guff? In the secret services we’ve got thousands of people employed to listen in to ordinary people’s conversations, and speaking as someone who’s listened in to them listening in, I can tell you, it’s a complete waste of time. So you can bloody well switch my phone back on, right now.

Lady Virginia Mantlebrat: Colonel, Professor, please, please.

Prof. Palindrome: Does the rest of the committee agree with Colonel Spindle…?

[Mutters of approval.]

Prof. Palindrome: Very well, I’ll stop jamming the signal as soon as the meeting is over.

Colonel Spindle: Can’t you do it now, and fetch some sandwiches whilst you’re out? I’m surprised you can’t all hear my stomach rumbling.

Lady Mantlebrat: Now, please, let’s get back to the agenda, shall we? Dr. Dingle has kindly joined us today to tell us about the probability of an object from space colliding with earth and causing a disaster. Dr. Dingle, if you please…

Dr. Dingle: Though it’s the stuff of movie blockbusters, the possibility of a comet or meteor striking earth…

The Right Hon. William Whiteslosh: (aside) Yes, that ‘Abattoir’ movie by David Cameron. 3D. Very good. Went with the grandkids. Slept right through it but the littl’uns said they loved it.

Dr. Dingle: … is so small we can effectively ignore it…

Lady Mantlebrat: Excuse me, but I don’t think we can. Everyone else can ignore it, but we at the Dionysos Institute can’t. We’re here to consider all those outlandish possibilities which, when they do happen once in a blue moon, cause people to say: “somebody should have planned for this” even though nobody else would. And that’s what we do. “Specto subitus”!

The Right Hon. William Whiteslosh: Virginia’s absolutely right. Roads freezing over and needing grit, bankers getting big bonuses after we bail them out, making a pigs ear out of the Olympics and finding someone in the private sector to take the blame - we need to think the unthinkable and do the undoable.

Lady Mantlebrat: No, no, no, Willie! None of that has anything to do with us. All of those are perfectly foreseeable which is why we allow others to take responsibility for those foul-ups. We only take responsibility for foul-ups that were so hard to predict that only an insane person would worry about them. That’s why we have to plan for collisions with comets and the like, even if the possibility is so small we should ignore it.

The Right Hon. William Whiteslosh: You’re right, Virginia. I spoke out of turn. We’re here to consider the inconsiderable but not to ignore the ignorable.

Lady Mantlebrat: Quite.

Dr. Dingle: Well you don’t really need to worry about space collisions, because the Russians have a plan that involves using space probes to change the trajectory of any large object heading towards earth. They intend to slowly and steadily divert its course so it will miss. It’ll cost them billions of rubles to implement, so it’s better to leave it to them.

Lady Mantlebrat: We can’t afford to allow the safety of taxpayers to be left to a foreign power. That’s why we’ve already agreed on funding to create our own solution. Isn’t that right Professor?

Prof. Palindrome: It is. In fact, we’ve recently doubled the amount we’re spending on it.

Colonel Spindle: Doubled, you say?

Prof. Palindrome: Yes, we redirected the money saved on biscuits for meetings.

The Right Hon. William Whiteslosh: Am I wrong, but I thought the New Mexicans dealt with dangers from space, not us.

Lady Mantlebrat: They only deal with aliens, Willie. We deal with non-living threats from outer space.

Dame Marjorie Marjarom: What about spores?

Lady Mantlebrat: What about them?

Dame Marjorie Marjarom: Spores from outer space - do they count as a living or non-living threat? Spores are inert but they have the potential to create new life.

Lady Mantlebrat: Well, Marjorie, I’d have to consider them as living threats rather than lifeless threats, but you raise a good point. I’ll take an action to speak with our friends in New Mexico who we otherwise don’t mention and ask if we or they should be dealing with spores from space.

Colonel Spindle: I’m very sorry, but I’m terribly hungry and it’s almost lunchtime. I motion that we adjourn to the Old Bull and Bush and reconvene after we’ve had a spot to eat.

The Right Hon. William Whiteslosh: Seconded.

Lady Mantlebrat: Gentlemen! It’s only ten to twelve. I’ll tell you what, let’s quickly run through the items to add to the new threats list and then we can go down the pub with Dr. Dingle; she can explain to us more about averting meteor strikes whilst we’re eating.

Colonel Spindle: Very well. I’ll get the ball rolling by offering some new threats to consider: virulent new strains of rabies infecting sheep and causing them to go on a killing spree; Twitter being taken over by foreign governments and used to disseminate 140-character messages of propaganda; terrorists using tunneling machines to plant bombs underneath important buildings; red ants mating with killer bees to create an unstoppable army of killer red bees.

Lady Mantlebrat: Thanks Colonel. As always, some good suggestions for the threat list. Marjorie?

Dame Marjorie Marjarom: I was reading on the internet about how a blogger cloned himself and sent his clone to upset proceedings at the World Economic Forum at Davos. Also, I wonder if global warming will cause snow to become sticky, causing skiers to flip over headfirst and break their neck.

Lady Mantlebrat: Really, Marjorie. You shouldn’t believe everything you read on the internet. But I’ve just been back from a ski break and now you mention it, the snow did seem a bit stickier than usual - it’s something we should look into.

Prof. Palindrome: My turn? I’m worried about the potential for Benny Hill repeats to be shown on television. This might encourage an increase of bald men being slapped on the top of the head, causing brain hemorrhages. Also, it will encourage the chasing of scantily-clad women wearing high heels - we don’t want anyone falling over and twisting their ankle. We should destroy all copies of The Benny Hill Show just in case. (Pauses for a long time, then bursts into laughter).

Lady Mantlebrat: (Chuckles) Very droll, Professor, but seriously, what are your suggestions?

Prof. Palindrome: Brainwashing from secret messages hidden in the sound of car alarms that go off ‘accidentally’; perfumes impregnated with hormones that encourage crocodile attacks; odour eaters soaked in drugs that your feet find addictive; the training of chimpanzees in sign language and to be household servants, leading them to form a competitive society and eventually to enslave all humans; exploding cigarettes; exploding nicotine gum; exploding ordinary chewing gum; and the retirement of the soothing Terry Wogan leading to an increase in stress levels and much higher numbers of heart disease and gang fights. Oh, and I nearly forgot… we should start the central monitoring of the number of cases of spontaneous combustion, just in case it’s on the rise.

Lady Mantlebrat: Willie?

The Right Hon. William Whiteslosh: What about machines turning us all into living batteries - using our body heat as energy source they can live off - whilst our minds are locked into a computer-generated fantasy world without our realizing it. My grandkids were telling me about it from a movie they’d seen. I think it was one of the ones in the Harry Potter series.

Prof. Palindrome: Your grandchildren were talking about The Matrix, and it’s not scientifically possible. Whatever energy humans give off as heat, there would be more efficient ways to get the energy directly from the food fed to the humans, or from the energy sources used to make the food.

The Right Hon. William Whiteslosh: Is that so? Well, then my only new worry for this month is that we’ll get a mutant strain of flu that combines the worst of bird flu with the worst of swine flu. We could call it ‘pigs will fly’ flu. (Laughs).

Lady Mantlebrat: You are a card, Willie. For myself, I’m very worried about the possibility of someone inventing an impervious cloth and hence devastating the fashion industry. Just imagine how many much-needed jobs would be lost in sweat shops around the world. And pigeons that contain miniature bombs. Imagine the panic that might cause…

The War on Terror was never going to be won or lost the same as other wars. Tell-tale signs of who wins or loses a war usually come at the end. It comes in the form of who surrenders, where the new borders are, how many bodies are buried, whose anthem you are made to listen to and whose flag you find yourself saluting. Not so with the War on Terror. The War on Terror was not a fight over land. The War on Terror was a fight over freedom. Apparently we had it, and the terrorists did not like it. They were going to take it away, by killing a few of us and scaring the remainder. That means that a victory in this war is measured in increased freedom. And that is why I am sure we must have lost.

The truly scary thing about terrorism is the idea that you live your meaningless, hum-drum and generally unexciting life and suddenly - boom! - you are dead. You get on a bus or plane or train, walk down the wrong street or into the wrong building and there you come to an abrupt end. One minute you are considering what to eat for dinner. The next minute you are never going to win the Nobel Prize for Literature or become an international playboy or win the lottery or a million other things you were never going to do anyway. Whilst alive, you have hope. When dead, your story is over. The terrorists will randomly, meaninglessly, cut your life short. Of course, people lose their lives every day because of a million-and-one random, meaningless acts. Your car crashes because the accelerator got stuck. You fall off your skis and hit your head. You do not visit the doctor and ask her to check that new lump. You live in Haiti and there is an earthquake. You live in the Congo and a mosquito bites you. So why no War on Skiing? Why no War on Malaria? Why no War on Earthquakes or Cancer or Toyota? It is because we do what we want to do and we want to drive cars and to ski and to spend our time watching television instead of seeing the doctor or designing a better accelerator pedal. And it is because we live in a world with earthquakes and diseases and danger and we accept that. The difference with terror is that, unlike skiers or Toyota or mosquitoes, terrorists mean to kill other people, and if their tactics seem to work, they may do it more.

The problem with dealing with terrorists is they do not know what they want. Or rather, they know what they want, but have no idea how to get it. Terrorists want things like a planet where everyone thinks like them, or glory in the afterlife. Their ultimate goals are fantastic. They are unattainable and disconnected from what the terrorists actually do. The terrorists chances of success are as good as the chances of doctors finding a cure for cancer with bombs or the chances that Toyota will build better cars using bombs. In this world, it is perfectly possible for somebody to want something and have no idea how to get it. That somebody may then do something irrelevant and nasty in the false belief it will help them achieve their goal. We have seen this conundrum with the human race many times before. Worried about the next harvest? Sacrifice someone. Suffering bad luck? Burn the local witch. The terrorists are just the modern incarnation of the innate human propensity to foolishly attempt to solve problems through a futile murder. The War on Terror was a war on a method, not on a country. The method is flawed, because violence does not beget a better harvest or a brotherhood of man. But then, the method to fight terrorism is just as flawed. Killing the terrorists is pointless if new people are born who replenish the ranks of the terrorists. The education that murder is a potential route to success lasts longer than the fear of retributive violence.

We could allow terrorists to believe what they want to believe and then kill them if they act on their beliefs. A better approach might be to change their beliefs. In Afghanistan, the US scored a great victory over the ailing Soviet Union by giving weapons to people who, by most definitions, deserve to be called terrorists. I call that a kind of education - the education that terrorism can lead to success. When the Soviets were defeated, the American money stopped. A better US investment would have been to put dollars into schools. Education would have been a better long-term investment than waiting until the time to fight another war. The West started losing the War on Terror even before it realized the War had begun. We started losing by placing our trust in the wrong methods to achieve our goals. In that respect, we were just as misguided as the terrorists. We were wrong to believe that the threat of greater violence can stop people being violent. We were wrong to believe that spending on being violent to our enemies and spending on security at home is more cost-effective than educating people to stop being violent. Our beliefs were as wrong as those of the terrorist.

It is a poor doctor that treats symptoms and not the cause. We lost the war because we became preoccupied with symptoms and ignored the ailment. Terrorism is a cancer, but killing the cancer with violence only prompts more cancer. Better to live a healthy life and reduce the chances of getting sick in the first place. The discipline of freedom is that we must use it well in order to preserve it. We had the freedom to educate; we did not use it well. Now, we fight violence with violence and sacrifice the one thing we were fighting for: our freedom. We spend on spying on ourselves. We spend on listening to our own conversations. We spend on searching ourselves as we board flights. We spend and spend and spend, and mostly we spend to make ourselves less free, because we do not trust what the terrorist will do with his freedom. We could have spent on educating our potential enemies. We could have given our potential enemy something valuable that would have been diminished each time they kill: the loss of friendships, trade, knowledge, and of their own freedom. If these things have no value to the terrorist, we should spend more on making them valuable to all. Better that than spending on making them less valuable to us.

[An unoccupied, windowless but otherwise plushly decorated hotel room. The single door opens and a valet escorts Tony Blair, Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher into the room. Churchill and Thatcher take seats on either side of the room. Blair stands in the middle.]

Blair: I have no regrets.

Thatcher: I have no regrets.

Churchill: I have many regrets. A man without regret is a man who has done nothing or cared even less.

Blair: Look, what I mean to say is…

Thatcher: Will you keep on doing that? Will you keep on reinterpreting what you say, like a chorus of commentary upon yourself? There’s no voters here. There’s no need to maintain the pretense. Stand by what you say and do. There’s no pretense here - here, of all places.

Blair: The thing is, I really don’t see why I’m here. The decision I took — and frankly would take again — was in the best interests of peace. If there was any possibility that Saddam could develop weapons of mass destruction…

Churchill: Any possibility, do you say? By that principle I assume you’d enslave us all, for the possibility always persists. The man of judgement balances probabilities, not possibilities. When Stalin sequestered half of Europe within his iron curtain, his tyranny was certain. The reason for our not acting was not based on possibility, for we knew what he would do and the threat he posed to our continued security. We did not act because of probabilities, not possibilities. The probability was that further war would have resulted in greater tragedy. It was imaginable to have continued the war, to have kept our forces mobilized and turned them on our allies of convenience, the Soviet war machine. We gave it thought. I had the report written, though in those days we mostly used military intelligence to make decisions, not to make propaganda. We thought about it; I thought about it, but we did not strike against Stalin. To have done so would have done more harm than good, no matter how terrible his tyranny proved to be. Possibilities did not come into it.

Thatcher: I admire you, Winston.

Churchill: Admire yourself, dear lady. I made my choices as best I could, and see where I am now.

Blair: (to Churchill) I admire you too.

Churchill: I’d offer the same advice as proferred to Margaret, but I fear you have no need of it. You’re too full of self-admiration already.

Blair: Now, see, what I did was within the law… (interrupted)

Churchill: You remind me of that manipulating schemer, Gandhi. He knew the law. He was also a wizard who knew how to beguile people. When I compare you to that fakir of fakery, I don’t mean it as a compliment.

Thatcher: You shouldn’t be here, Winston. You saved democracy in World War II.

Churchill: I suppose I’ll find out why I’m here in due course. Perhaps I sent too many to their deaths, or perhaps too few. Perhaps it was the lives lost at Gallipoli, or refusing to turn on the Russians in order to save the Eastern Europeans at the end of the Second World War. Or perhaps it was returning Britain to the Gold Standard, and all the trouble that caused. Who can say. In this universe there’s a judgement wiser than that of men.

Thatcher: You shouldn’t be here, Winston. We all make mistakes. The General Strike, riots, political upheaval, the end of empire… you faced it all. A leader cannot afford to second-guess every decision. If you were brutal sometimes, it is because you had to be firm to be fair.

Churchill: I had to be firm to be fair? Perhaps. But it sounds like you’re justifying yourself more than you’re consoling me. When asked if we make mistakes, we assure that we do, for we are human after all. But when asked to identify a single mistake, our memory fades and not a one comes to mind.

Blair: I made mistakes. The former Yugoslavia for instance… (interrupted)

Thatcher: (To Blair) You would have made a tolerable leader of the Tory party. You’re greatest mistake was to join with Labour.

Churchill: Give the boy some credit. Leaders pick their parties, not the other way around. I was a rat more than once. The boy picked a side and it suited him - at least he stuck to it, unlike me. There’s no great harm in his choosing to sit opposite you. It shows he had the foresight to swim with the tide, not against it. And at least he deserves credit for never being a socialist.

Thatcher: Yes, at least you were never a socialist, were you Tony?

Tony: Look, I think we’re drifting off the point here a little, don’t you think? We should… (interrupted)

Churchill: (Lifts his cane, to point angrily at Blair) The point you say? What point would that be? I was battling with the House of Lords before you were born. I was introducing taxes to redistribute wealth from the rich to the poor before it became fashionable. And what, in comparison, did you do? You turned the second chamber into a monstrosity of government lackeys, and the welfare state into a drain on every decent working fellow. The point is that we are here, and by God’s will we deserve to be. That is the only point that I can see, beyond this here point (waves cane) that I’m pointing at you.

Blair: Well, I don’t understand why I should be here. I was a good Christian all my life… (interrupted)

Thatcher: So was I. I was brought up a strict Methodist. We’re here because we failed, to some degree. Perhaps it was the impossibility of the decisions we faced that has led us to be here.

Churchill: I rather suspect that vanity was the deadly sin that pays for our lodging in this establishment. It’s vanity to think a man can rise himself above his fellows and be much better or wiser than the rest of them. A necessary vanity, perhaps, but vanity all the same.

Blair: Listen, we’re not tyrants. We were elected. I was elected to protect and serve the British people, by the British people. To do that, I realized that regime change was necessary and inevitable in Iraq if we wanted to protect… (interrupted)

Thatcher: We don’t have to listen to you. Please stop now. You’re making this intolerable.

(The room falls silent as Blair realizes the truth of this.)

Churchill: That’s the greatest torment the poor boy can imagine - to not be listened to. He has been listened to all his life, as was I. I think only you, Margaret, can understand what it was like to fight for the limelight.

Thatcher: I am a woman, but I never saw that as a serious impediment.

Blair: Nor should you, opportunity should be for all in equal measure… (interrupted)

Thatcher: You say that without irony, don’t you? And I thought you were only allowed to be Labour Party leader, only had the chance to be Primeminister, because you were a well-spoken, well-schooled white Englishman that the middle classes could warm too. That was the essence of your attraction, wasn’t it? As Primeminister, my government delivered social mobility. Your government eroded it. You talk about reducing social barriers yet you built them higher for all, and took advantage of them for yourself. It’s almost enough to make you feel sorry for Gordon Brown.

Blair: I’m not inclined to take a lecture from you on how to reduce division in society. My point is that… (interrupted)

Churchill: (Points with his cane) And this, is my point!

Blair: (Resumes and talks over Churchill) There is a point and I intend to share it, even if you’re unwilling to hear me out. We’re politicians and we did what we thought best. I’ll plead my case and I’ll plead it to anyone who’ll listen. If you’re not listening, then fair enough, I’ll practice and you can talk to each other or sit in silence as you please. I can account for what I’ve done and that’s what I intend to do.

Churchill: There’s no need to give your account. You’re not surrounded by journalists any longer, except in so far as I was once counted an exponent of that profession. No, accounts are not needed here. To atone is what is needed, not to account.

Blair: (Getting angry) Look, I did nothing wrong.

Thatcher: (Grave) I did what I believe was right, but I still sent British troops to their graves. War is not a topic for frivolous equivocation.

Blair: (Gesticulating) We had to deal with this threat of WMD. Because of terrorism, the calculus of risk had changed immeasurably since the two of you were leaders. I believed it was beyond doubt that Saddam had continued to produce chemical and biological weapons. But suppose we put it the other way around. It’s really really important to understand the decision I took, and would take again, was that the primary consideration was not to take any risks with Saddam. This was a man who showed his willingness to use WMDs against his own people, when he gassed thousands of Kurds… (interrupted)

Churchill: In my time, I also ordered the use of poison gas against the Kurdish rebels. They were uncivilized and it proved to be effective if also cruel. (To Blair) I suppose that means you could have justified the overthrow of my regime, if it had suited you.

Thatcher: Please stop with the speech-making, both of you. I think I’d rather like to sit in quiet now.

Blair: I’ll not sit in quiet. (Looks upwards) He is listening to us, as always. He can hear me defend myself…

Thatcher: You’re not the only lawyer in this room. But that doesn’t mean you’re entitled to a judge or jury.

Blair: (Ignores Thatcher) The fact is, force is always an option. What changed after September 11 was that it was necessary — and there was no other way of dealing with this threat — for us to remove Saddam. (To Thatcher) You, of all people, should appreciate that, to stand up to terror and to tyrants. The primary consideration for me was to send an absolutely powerful, clear and unremitting message that, after September 11, if you were a regime engaged in WMD, you had to stop.

Churchill: Unless you’re regime is too powerful or too inconvenient to stop, like the Communists in Korea or the Jews in the Middle East. I think now you should stop. Margaret is right. We’ve had our opportunities to talk throughout our lives. Now may be the time to turn to quiet contemplation of what we did.

Blair: I take responsibility for what I’ve done. I have no regrets.

Thatcher: I’m not for turning back and retracing my steps. However, perhaps now might be a time for looking back and admitting a regret or two.

Churchill: I have many regrets, although I’m also prepared to admit that I did what I thought was right at the time and would doubtless do most, if not all of it again. That’s why I expect we’re here. For good or bad, we’re irredeemably human, and prone to err. I intend to ask for forgiveness. Even if I can’t divine my faults, I’m confident that they exist anyhow.

Thatcher: You must be sincere to ask for forgiveness.

Blair: (Shakes head) There’s no forgiveness that I seek. I’ll be judged by what I’ve done and the consequences, which were good. That’s good enough for me.

Churchill: Perhaps forgiveness is beyond us. We’re tools of the master, or of whatever forces that exist in his place and that we just imagine must take his form. We are made as well as we were intended to be, save for any defects in the exercise of our free will, for which only we can take the blame. For my faults, I’ll take my punishment however it’s administered. I served my short time on Earth, and filled it as best I could. That time I treated not as a gift, but as merely borrowed. If now I must serve as your fellow inmate, locked in this asylum of reflection, I’ll take that as my fit and proper punishment, and my just reward.

President: Merkin Muffley of the United States
Actor: Peter Sellers
Movie: Dr. Strangelove
Plausibility: 7/10
Statesmanship: 9/10
Electability: 6/10

Peter Sellers gave three outstanding performances in Stanley Kubrick’s pitch black cold war satire about nuclear war. The most understated was his portrayal of Merkin Muffley, the mild-mannered President who gets exasperated with his military for exceeding their authority (by launching a first strike on the USSR) and then calls his drunken counterpart, Premier Kissoff, to persuade him not to retaliate…

Hello?… Uh… Hello D- uh hello Dmitri? Listen uh uh I can’t hear too well. Do you suppose you could turn the music down just a little?… Oh-ho, that’s much better… yeah… huh… yes… Fine, I can hear you now, Dmitri… Clear and plain and coming through fine… I’m coming through fine, too, eh?… Good, then… well, then, as you say, we’re both coming through fine… Good… Well, it’s good that you’re fine and… and I’m fine… I agree with you, it’s great to be fine… a-ha-ha-ha-ha… Now then, Dmitri, you know how we’ve always talked about the possibility of something going wrong with the Bomb… The *Bomb*, Dmitri… The *hydrogen* bomb!… Well now, what happened is… ahm… one of our base commanders, he had a sort of… well, he went a little funny in the head… you know… just a little… funny. And, ah… he went and did a silly thing… Well, I’ll tell you what he did. He ordered his planes… to attack your country… Ah… Well, let me finish, Dmitri… Let me finish, Dmitri… Well listen, how do you think I feel about it?… Can you *imagine* how I feel about it, Dmitri?… Why do you think I’m calling you? Just to say hello?… *Of course* I like to speak to you!… *Of course* I like to say hello!… Not now, but anytime, Dmitri. I’m just calling up to tell you something terrible has happened… It’s a *friendly* call. Of course it’s a friendly call… Listen, if it wasn’t friendly… you probably wouldn’t have even got it… They will *not* reach their targets for at least another hour… I am… I am positive, Dmitri… Listen, I’ve been all over this with your ambassador. It is not a trick… Well, I’ll tell you. We’d like to give your air staff a complete run-down on the targets, the flight plans, and the defensive systems of the planes… Yes! I mean i-i-i-if we’re unable to recall the planes, then… I’d say that, ah… well, ah… we’re just gonna have to help you destroy them, Dmitri… I know they’re our boys… All right, well listen now. Who should we call?… *Who* should we call, Dmitri? The… wha-whe, the People… you, sorry, you faded away there… The People’s Central Air Defense Headquarters… Where is that, Dmitri?… In Omsk… Right… Yes… Oh, you’ll call them first, will you?… Uh-huh… Listen, do you happen to have the phone number on you, Dmitri?… Whe-ah, what? I see, just ask for Omsk information… Ah-ah-eh-uhm-hm… I’m sorry, too, Dmitri… I’m very sorry… *All right*, you’re sorrier than I am, but I am as sorry as well… I am as sorry as you are, Dmitri! Don’t say that you’re more sorry than I am, because I’m capable of being just as sorry as you are… So we’re both sorry, all right?… All right.

President Muffley takes charge, is diplomatic, wastes no time on press conferences, speaks plainly and passionately wants to avoid war. But apart from that, it is a very realistic portrayal.

President: Dave Kovic/Bill Mitchell of the United States
Actor: Kevin Kline
Movie: Dave
Plausibility: 1/10
Statesmanship: 9/10
Electability: 0/10

When they talk about the film-making being a creative industry, they were probably were not thinking of this particular film. From the stupendously unimaginative title to the hackneyed plot device of having a character replaced by their double, the most challenging thing about this movie is watching it to the end. Why the normally so-selective Kevin Kline agreed to appear in this film is beyond me. In the story, Kline plays Bill Mitchell, the philandering President and Dave Kovic, the decent nobody who looks just like the President and ends up taking his place. Of course, the decent nobody is a caring sensible sort who does a great job as President. In other words he is exactly the sort of fantasy President that people wish for - without asking why they would never vote for someone like that in the first place…

President: James Marshall of the United States
Actor: Harrison Ford
Movie: Air Force One
Plausibility: 0/10
Statesmanship: 2/10
Electability: 10/10

The President’s security goons are caught sleeping on the job, allowing terrorists to take over Air Force One and put the President’s family in jeopardy. Following the maxim that ‘if you want a job doing properly, do it yourself’ the President is forced to kick the butt of the terrorists himself. The worrying thing is that some people probably do expect their world’s most powerful man to solve problems with his bare fists.

Presidential Candidate: Governor Jack Stanton
Actor: John Travolta
Movie: Primary Colors
Plausibility: 10/10
Statesmanship: 10/10
Electability: 10/10

It is a cheat to include John Travolta’s approximation of Bill Clinton in this list, not least because the film follows him on road to the White House, not his time in it. But the depiction of a man who would be President is so compelling, it is hard not to carried along by it. Clinton is a man of considerable charisma, and so is Travolta. With Charisma like that, he gets my vote.

President: David Levinson of the United States
Actor: Bill Pullman
Movie: Independence Day
Plausibility: 1/10
Statesmanship: 4/10
Electability: 9/10

So the aliens invade the whole earth, but apparently it is up to the yanks to do all the heavy lifting when it comes to fighting them off. The Americans do not need to coordinate with any other nation, and they get their asses royally kicked, as you might expect when fighting a race that has mastered interstellar travel and has put some thought into how they kill every living human living. Then, in rather a twist, the American government discovers that hacking can be a good thing. Some nerd finds that the aliens have not updated their admin passwords. Down comes the alien forcefields and up goes the President, a former pilot, in his jet fighter. The aliens lose and apparently the rest of the world gives them a blooded nose too, but the fighting by the rest of the world is off camera. It makes you wonder why anyone would put the United Nations in New York. Was it just to the only way to persuade the Americans to participate?

President: Andrew Shepherd of the United States
Actor: Michael Douglas
Movie: The American President
Plausibility: 2/10
Statesmanship: 4/10
Electability: 2/10

Did I say that “Dave” lacked imagination? In “The American President” it turns out the American President is a decent guy who has to deal with complicated political stuff and finds it hard to find time for dating between being a President and a single dad. There are only two original concepts in this film: (1) that American Presidents find it hard to meet women, and (2) that former sex addict Michael Douglas finds it hard to meet women. Both are extremely unlikely.

President: Thomas Wilson of the United States
Actor: Danny Glover
Movie: 2012
Plausibility: 5/10
Statesmanship: 7/10
Electability: 5/10

When Obama was on the campaign trail, there was a joke that they would never let a black man be President unless the country was in real trouble. Judging by Hollywood, they will not let a black man be President unless the world is about to end. Morgan Freeman set the mould for forlorn Black President watching as the world is destroyed, in the 90’s disaster movie Deep Impact. Danny Glover is equally forlorn in this latest formula excuse for lots of CGI and frantically screaming extras. Glover gives a decent performance as a man who cannot do much about the end of the world, and he does what any decent black President should do and makes no effort to save himself from disaster. This movie would have been significantly helped if, instead of just giving up, Glover had called up old pal Mel Gibson and the two of them had tried to save the day with some high-octane, high-kicking and high-explosive action, all the while complaining that they are “too old for this shit”. It probably would not have saved the world, but it would have been an entertaining way to try. At least they would have gone down fighting. “Riggs!”

President: Laura Roslyn of the Twelve Colonies
Actor: Mary McDonnell
TV Show: Battlestar Galactica
Plausibility: 4/10
Statesmanship: 5/10
Electability: 2/10

In the ground-breaking reworking of Battlestar Galactica, the President of the twelve human colonies was a woman. Clearly a double-X chromosomed President is only imaginable in a world set millions of light years from our own. Apart from the fact that she is a woman, the President of the Twelve Colonies is obviously based on the US Presidency. This can only leave you bewildered at the mixed emotions Americans must have about their leaders. She never wins an election, but tries to steal one. She behaves like a bashful schoolgirl when someone flirts with her, mere minutes after ordering the execution of someone in cold blood without a trial. She takes the mantle of religious messiah and is intolerant of those with differing beliefs. Unlike the others on this list, the viewer is given no clues about whether they are expected to despise or sympathize with this President. In Independence Day, McDonnell played the First Lady to Bill Pullman’s President. She consistently did nothing whilst the President consistently took the fight to the aliens. A decade later, McDonnell’s twisted President flip flops on every issue, and at times is caught loving her enemies, screwing her colleagues, and hating her neighbours. Compared to this, I would take Harrison Ford’s terrorist thumper or Bill Pullman’s alien dogfighter every day of the week. They may not be smart, but at least you know whose side they are on.

President: Josiah ‘Jed’ Barlet of the United States
Actor: Martin Sheen
TV Show: The West Wing
Plausibility: 8/10
Statesmanship: 7/10
Electability: 7/10

When the Democrats could not get a President into the White House, they could still get one on to television. Martin Sheen as the President is the supposed to be the right man in the right place at the right time. Yup, the program showed politics is complicated and full of compromise and it tried to track the substantive issues of the time. The real question though was how anyone found Martin Sheen’s depiction of an erudite and faithful President to be plausible, after Clinton’s personal failings and George W’s mangluage (mangling of language). Perhaps, for all its realism, The West Wing was the ultimate in Presidential escapism?

Dr. X: I have been thinking… I have been looking at the system the aliens used to operate their flying saucer. Perhaps we can turn that into something marketable.

Prof. Z: The ship’s operating system? How can we make money from that? It was no good - the ship crashed.

Dr. X: We’re looking at it the wrong way. It’s good that the alien saucer crashed. The more the first version crashes, the more people will have to buy the later versions, meaning we make more money in the long run.

Prof. Z: But what’s the system going to be used to operate?

Dr. X: I think I have it. A super-duper telephone.

Prof. Z: I can’t see the need for that. Are people likely to become super-duper talkers?

Dr. X: A record player - or a portable jukebox of some description.

Prof. Z: Ditto. Just get out your LP and stick the needle on - no need for anything fancy. And if you want music on the move, just whistle to yourself. That’s what I do. [Whistles]

Dr. X: Games.

Prof. Z: You mean like backgammon? Chess? Poker? Don’t you need another person to play those games?

Dr. X: The machine can be the opponent. The research suggests the aliens were playing a game called ‘pong’ when their ship crashed.

Prof. Z: Playing against a machine? That sounds like no fun at all. And perhaps those aliens should have been looking out of the window instead of playing games.

Dr. X: Apparently not. The ship slowed right down if the pilot opened too many windows.

Prof. Z: I’m not convinced. Let the lab monkey look into productizing the operating system. Maybe he can do something with it.

Dr. X: You should stop calling Gates a monkey. He’s a chimpanzee.

Prof. Z: I’m not sure what he is since we gave him that alien brain serum. I admit Gates is a lot smarter, but he’s changed in other ways too. First he monopolized all the bananas, then he started giving them away to show the other apes how generous he is. Dumb animals that they are, I think they’ve fallen for it.

Dr. X: Next you will be making dire predictions about Gates taking over the world.

Prof. Z: Which is why we should’ve put more effort into weapons development, just in case that cheeky monkey does try to take over the world with his chemically-enhanced brain. Plus there’s always money in weapons.

Dr. X: If you want to make weapons, go work in Area 52. Like I said when you first joined, Area 52 for bombs with a bigger bang, Area 53 for non-stick frying pans.

Prof. Z: Granted. That saucer’s heat resistant skin sure made for convenient kitchen utensils. But it’s been a while since we last came up with a sure-fire winner. If we don’t find another hit soon, they’ll close down Area 53 and we’ll all be working at Area 52 - whether we like it or not.

Dr. X: You are right.

Prof. Z: I say we should revisit the alien’s use of silicon.

Dr. X: You mean making smaller, micro-sized, computer chips?

Prof. Z: No, I’m not talking about making things smaller. I’m talking about making things larger. Breast enhancements. Now that’s one technology with lasting sales potential.

Each year that passes seems to have its own character. Some leave us with a feeling of satisfaction, others are best forgotten. 2009 was a difficult year for many, in particular those facing the continuing effects of the economic downturn.

The Queen should know. She has given the summary of every year since 1952, with just the one exception. If anybody is in position to objectively scrutinize the vicissitudes of time, it is the immutable Elizabeth II. Her reign is in its fifty-eigth year, she lived through World War Two, and she is the head of a church. Her broadcasts began on radio; now they are on YouTube. In her time Elizabeth has been the Queen of thirty-two separate nations. In 1952 she was the queen of seven independent countries and is currently the monarch of sixteen states. The numbers went up and then down as the British Empire died and spawned newly-independent countries, whilst half of those countries later walked the road to republicanism. Across all those nations, she has had a hundred and fifty Prime Ministers. On a personal level, she bore three sons and a daughter over the space of sixteen years. Elizabeth has seen all four children marry, three divorce and two remarry. Each of her four children has blessed her with two grandchildren. If anyone is qualified to talk about the travail of time, it is the Queen. If she says that some years are best forgotten, then she should know. And if some years are best forgotten, is it not fair to extend that idea to a period of several sequential years, and suggest there might be some decades that are best forgotten?

It is not in keeping with the zeitgeist to find fault with now. We may face problems, and there may be dissatisfactions, but the fault is never with the present moment. Problems may be rooted in the past, or in a lack of progress, or there may be troubles ahead, or there may be a minority to blame for our ills, but overriding every difficulty there is a cosy consensus that we, the great majority, are good. We are fine, and there has never been a better time than now. But if all is well with us, then how do we explain a year to forget. And what was 2009 apart from the natural conclusion to a decade of disappointment. From 9-11, through the tangential response of the second Iraq War, the Indian Ocean Tsunami, political scandals and the failure of the climate change conference in Copenhagen, the noughties were a decade to forget.

What went wrong with the start of the 21st Century? One source of discomfort comes from our own aspirations. Aspiration is easy. It is realization that is hard. The higher the bar, the likelier we are to fall short. In the 1940’s the prevailing aspiration was to defeat totalitarian dictators - except in Russia. The 1960’s were a period of liberation - the start of a process to overcome barriers that society erected for itself. In the 1980’s and 1990’s the barriers were coming down literally, first with the fall of the Berlin Wall and then with the fall of the Soviet Union. Mandela was released from prison. Miscarriages of justice were overturned, like those suffered by the Guildford Four and Birmingham Six. Communism was dying in most countries, whilst a concern for the Green agenda was on the rise. In 1985, Live Aid raised money to ease the famine in Ethiopia. The world was getting freer, richer and safer, and the inevitable exceptions helped to prove the rule.

Whence come the highest mountains? I once asked. Then I learned that they came out of the sea. The evidence is written in their rocks and in the walls of their peaks. It is out of the deepest depth that the highest must come to its height.

Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Did we reach the highest heights in the noughties, the decade whose very name told a story of indecision and derision? Comfort breeds self-satisfaction. Self-satisfaction breeds complacency. Complacency is a downhill slide. If mountains rise from the sea, it follows that they return to the sea also. Across the world, wanton, selfish and aimless destruction has come to dominate our thoughts. One source of destruction is the nebulous forces of ‘international terrorism’, as much the creation of the war on terror as it is its justification. At the other end of the spectrum from the isolated lunatics who want to end their meaningless lives with a big bang are the overwhelming majority of worker ants, slowly nibbling away at our environment, with no clear thought about the consequences. By ants, I mean all of us, who all contribute to climate change whilst mostly pointing fingers at others in preference to looking to ourselves.

The inheritance of the nineties was squandered in the noughties. Mandela’s truth and reconciliation gave way to dithering about Mugabe’s inversion of racism and killing of democracy on South Africa’s doorstep. The Russians retreated from the chaos of a real democracy to the guided democracy where Putin is either on the throne, sitting behind the throne, deciding who sits on the throne, or is in charge of anything to do with the throne, including how (and if) pretenders to the throne are reported in the ‘free’ press. Meanwhile, the world’s greatest autocrats were rewarded for the economic prosperity of their hardworking and under-rewarded people, and not punished for their continued and unrepentant oppression of them. Their reward was the Beijing Olympics, whose impressive construction program and execution served to show that the world would gladly bury freedom and democracy so long as it was laid to rest in a luxurious coffin.

Western democracies lost their way, and their mandate to preach an agenda that is pro-rights and anti-corruption to the rest of the world. There was a glut of politicians who linked power to wealth in a cycle of seediness: Chirac, Berlusconi, Cheney and even Tony Blair, though the latter had the sense to let his wife do the dodgy deals whilst he was in office, and only spent his time in office laying the groundwork for his future fortune. As his Director of Public Prosecutions told us recently, Blair was a sycophant and that sycophancy has paid off with a string of lucrative deals since. Whether Iraq had WMDs that could strike Britain in forty-five minutes was seemingly unimportant, per the leader’s own report. The objective was bigger than questions about whose lives were at risk and whose lives would be put at risk. The stage was the UN and that most corrupted of all ideas, international law. Abu Ghraib and extraordinary rendition permanently scarred the features of so-called liberal democracies. Away from the public’s gaze, the real action was found in the flow of money between business and state. An oil tanker was renamed ‘Altair Voyager’ because its old name, ‘Condoleezza Rice’ made some connections too obvious. Ms Rice got a promotion after foolish former General Colin Powell wasted his enormous credibility by proving to the UN that Iraq must have been hiding WMDs (and that was just the intelligence he was allowed to show…) Powell outlived his usefulness soon after. During the noughties, the real leaders of the West were afloat, their feet not touching the ground. They were carried away by a stream of money, a stream that promised to carry them to all their personal and public ambitions. Whilst private ambitions may have been realized, the public ones were not. On the contrary, the deregulation of business and banks proved only that money is always available for a pliable politician, no matter what the price paid by the public. The petty greed of Britain’s Members of Parliament only served to show how far the rot had gone.

The cynicism of the politicians needed to keep pace with that of celebrity. Divorced of talent, the greatest source of fame became fame itself. Non-entities competed to outdo each other on ‘reality’ shows, in the hope of securing riches to follow. Damien Hirst proved that the ‘Young British Artist’ scene was a victory for marketing over art-making, as he turned his idealess dross into a printing machine for money. The public voted for ‘ordinary’ people to be their next stars, living vicariously through their success and failing to see any irony in this circle of self-realization where ordinariness begets fame and fame is its own justification. Bono became more like Bore-o with his endless offering of solutions to the world’s ills, all whilst merrily socializing with the very elite who must be most at fault if anything is wrong. Whilst giving out lots of advice without being asked for, Bono was careful to listen to his tax advisers and effectively become a tax exile from his home nation, even though the Irishman was already benefiting from one of the most generous tax regimes for rich music stars like himself. His countryman Bob Geldof showed that fame fuels vanity more often than it feeds the poor, by reimagining the glory of Live Aid as the pointless publicity exercise that was Live 8. Live 8, for those who forget, was going to persuade the G8 nations to “make poverty history”. At date of writing, poverty is not history, though Live 8 proved a great boost to the sales of the musicians who took part - bands like U2, for example.

At the very start of 2000, I was like many in London waiting by the Thames for the fireworks spectacular to herald the arrival of the new year. A ‘river of fire’ was promised. What we got was the synchronized setting off of wimpish sparklers at regular intervals down the length of the river. It was a disappointment, only to be followed by a long walk home. In hindsight, it set the tone for the decade that was to follow. Indeed, the Chairman of the business that had been paid - by taxpayer’s money - to put on that dismal show went on the media to confirm that it had been, in his opinion, a great success. But then, the Chairman of that business was none other than Bob Geldof. It was fitting that the decade ended in similar disappointment. Even whilst the world’s population is long past the point where they doubt the reality of climate change, the world’s leaders are unable to do anything substantial about it. They all flew to Copenhagen, mostly in private jets. So many went, that the country ran out of limousines to drive around all these world leaders, none of whom were willing to carpool, and the Danes had to resort to driving in more gas-guzzling cars from Germany and Sweden. After a lot of hot air was expelled at the event, the conclusion was bugger all. Which says everything about where saving the planet fits into the big scheme of priorities. The world’s leaders live now, and unlike the Queen they do not intend to stay in charge for another fifty or sixty years, if they even live that long. That makes global warming somebody else’s problem - the problem of somebody who will need to take tough decisions long after the current elite has reaped the rewards of our current profligacy. Yet in the end, the leaders worry more about their power and privilege than anything else, and will do nothing to risk losing that. If they do not prioritize climate change, it is because their minions do not prioritize it either. Desmond Tutu summed up the confusion of the event when he said:

They marched in Berlin and the wall fell. We marched in Cape Town and apartheid fell. We marched in Copenhagen and we are going to get a real deal!

I do not know the South African archbishop personally, but I am pretty sure he does not live in Copenhagen. People who lived in Berlin wanted to see their relatives the other side of the wall. They were opposed by the interests of a small number who had put the wall in their way. When Berliners stood together in great enough numbers, they could not be opposed. People who lived in South Africa wanted to vote, and wanted to vote for candidates with the same colour skin as themselves. Their rights were denied to preserve the interest of a small number. When South Africans stood together in great enough numbers, they could not be opposed. Who stands against saving the Earth? A small minority, but that is irrelevant. It is not the minority that stand opposed to the wishes of the majority that matters here. It is the majority that stand opposed to their own objectives that matters here. How can Tutu justify flying across the world to tell people what they know already? He can because he sees global climate change in the same way as apartheid or the Berlin Wall, as products of a system that favours the freedom of a few over the freedom of the many. Climate change is the opposite problem; it is caused by favouring the freedom of the many, where too many can justify their own behaviour to themselves even whilst they kill the planet with a death by a thousand cuts, or more appropriately a death by a thousand (self-)indulgences. It neatly epitomizes the failure and self-satisfaction of the noughties. With no convenient bogeyman to overcome, we leave ourselves powerless to act even when we know we should.

The noughties were about now. The decade represented waste in all its forms. For the sake of now, we wasted physical resources, and people, and time, and opportunities. Why work when you can borrow? Why wait when you can have what you want now? If we care for the future, we have to stop thinking of now, and start thinking of something more. We must unlearn what we were taught in the noughties. In the noughties, aspiration was justification and execution was irrelevant. The pinnacle of its central conceit - that how much we care is more important than what we do - was climbed by the Nobel committee when they awarded the 2009 Peace Prize to Obama. That prize was given to Obama for what he is going to do, not what he has accomplished already. The Nobel committee has shown themselves to be like too many of the rest of us. They are too quick to be enthralled by popularity. But popularity is transitory. Real worth is measured by constancy. We can only change the world now if that moment extends into a lifetime.

Politicians concerned with their own popularity and power cannot be consistently relied upon to make the world a better place, not least because they fear to tell us the truths we might not like to hear. It takes a leader to do what they think is right, at the price of risking unpopularity, and that is why many of the world’s ‘leaders’ do not deserve that description. It also takes a leader to do what is right because it is right, not because the cameras are there to document it. And a leader is somebody who leads for a lifetime, whether in the limelight or away from it. When a leader says a year is best forgotten, they speak of a worldview that cannot be encapsulated in twelve short months. They measure the now with reference to the past and future, can be patient whilst treasuring their time and doing the small but important things. The Queen does so; reportedly she travels on ordinary trains not just to cut costs and preserve the environment, but because it gives her more time to do her work. What a wonderful example for all of us. Without political influence, the Queen has still played her part in leading the way. Her example shows that the route to a better world is not found in this present moment but through the accumulation of moments into a lifetime of steadfast purpose. We can be true to ourselves as individuals, and strive to make the world better, even whilst the role we are asked to play and world around us changes. Her heritage will last in the world around us, even if the recognition is not long remembered and even if we all end up as republicans. As the Queen hinted, 2009 was a year best forgotten. 2009 summed up a decade that came to nought. For everyone who lived through the noughties, the onus is on all of us to find more purpose in the decade to come.

Date: 26th December 2009
Location: Santa’s Workshop, North Pole
Attendance: Santa Claus, Mrs. Claus, Lesley the Chief Elf, Rudolf the Reindeer.

Agenda:
1. Christmas 2009 Post Implementation Review
2. AOB

Santa opened the meeting by expressing general satisfaction that the key targets had been hit. Gift production during the year had been adequate, though admittedly it was helped by the surplus inventory of presents carried over from 2008. All the good boys and girls had received their presents by the deadline, with the final gift delivered to little Benny Benson in the Aleutian Islands at 11.59pm local time (GMT-10). However, financial resources were still stretched and the deposit in Icelandic banks had still not been recovered due to some scepticism about verifying Santa as the account holder. Identity fraud was on a par with last year, with literally thousands of imposters pretending to be Santa. This also contributed to increasing cynicism from the boys and girls about Santa’s branding and his overall mission. Although targets were met, this was helped by two favourable but troubling factors: (1) believers in Santa Claus continued to decline, and the rate of decline appears to be accelerating despite overall population growth; and (2) the naughty list is the longest it has been since records began. Because of this, total gift distribution was down 0.3% on 2008. Even with the elves going to a three-shift rotation to keep the workshops running 24 hours a day throughout December, toy stocks only reached the required level within a few minutes of the delivery run commencing. Had the ratio of good children to bad children been the same as 2008, production would have needed to overrun by two days, leading to the potentially unacceptable situation that some children would only receive their gifts on Boxing Day.

Lesley the Chief Elf highlighted that elf productivity remained high despite poor working conditions and an uncompetitive rewards package. Elf dissatisfaction was made worse by inadequate leisure opportunities at the North Pole and because old-fashioned training and work practices were not keeping pace with the newest production techniques. For example, there was inadequate use of computer-aided design for new toys. A talented young elf will typically feel that they have to move on and seek new opportunities; staying at the North Pole too long will make it virtually impossible for them to move on to a more rewarding career elsewhere. As a result, many talented young elves were choosing to leave. The elf brain drain has got significantly worse. 800 elves migrated during 2008. The elvish engagement survey showed that 1 in 10 are seriously thinking of looking for work elsewhere. Lesley believed staff needed better basic salary and not an increase in performance-related bonuses as has been Santa’s preference in recent years.

Mrs. Claus suggested outsourcing of some final assembly of toys to Chinese factories. This would be a cost-effective way to reduce the dependency on Santa’s workshop. Using component suppliers from China had already worked well and had kept costs down in 2008.

Lesley observed that 2008 had seen increased numbers of complaints about the quality of toys and he believed this was due to the lower grade production standards for the Chinese component manufacturers compared to the very high grade of work demanded in Santa’s workshop. Management should also be wary of incidents in China like the widely-publicized story about using leaded paint to decorate toys.

Santa said that procedures for the selection and quality audit of suppliers had been stepped up this year. He expected fewer complaints in 2008 than 2009.

Rudolf suggested that the practice of leaving coal for naughty children should be discontinued. A strategy of strictly focusing on good boys and girls and ignoring the naughty children would cut costs and make more sense. Delivering the coal to naughty children added to costs because coal prices are rising, the coal greatly increased the weight carried on the sleigh, and giving coal was badly out of step with the need to conserve fossil fuels and tackle global warming. Santa agreed and said he would review alternatives. He felt that naughty children should get some acknowledgment to avoid the false perception that he had failed to notice them. One idea is to send them a note in January, outlining the reasons why the children had been included on the naughty list and not received a Christmas present from Santa.

Lesley questioned if there should be an appeals process for children who found themselves on the naughty list. Perhaps naughty children could be contacted in advance, in September, to give them time to appeal. Santa said that he was open to ideas but this would be problematic, as it would mean deciding which children had been naughty or good based on significantly less than a full year’s data.

Mrs. Claus said that she believed that despite increases in the number of naughty children reported, the real level of naughtiness was the highest it had been in memory. Standards had slipped and children who would have been on the naughty list in the 1950’s or even the 1970’s are now making it on to the same list with the good boys and girls. Expectations for presents were unreasonable and unprecedented. Greedy children that made excessive requests in their letter to Santa should be immediately disqualified from inclusion in the list of who has been good. This would help to reverse the decline in behaviour and reduce the strain on production. Much of the strain is caused by making presents for boys and girls who are essentially bad and undeserving.

Lesley felt that Santa had failed to move with the times and was pouring too much effort into making and distributing old-fashioned toys. Thanks to the internet, it would be much easier to give boys and girls a gift of a video game, or of music, a movie, or a computer program. A potentially unlimited number could be delivered electronically, and the marginal unit cost of production would be zero. This would justify investment in upskilling the elves by offering courses in topics like software engineering and the editing of sound and video.

Rudolf agreed that more gifts could be delivered digitally, and that this would help him and the other reindeer. However, he felt the essential character of Santa was to be traditional and this should not be diluted by diversifying too far.

Santa finds it increasingly challenging to make a personal visit to every home in order to deliver his gifts. Only a trivial number of modern houses have a chimney, meaning precious minutes are wasted picking door locks to enter each property, and Santa set off more than one house alarm during this Christmas night as a result. He asked Mrs. Claus to get quotes to use a parcel delivery service for perhaps a third of all gifts. The idea would be to rotate personal deliveries so every good child would still have a hand-delivered gift two years out of every three. Rudolf asked if this was opening the door to competitors that did not require children to be good or believe in Santa. Outsourcing both production and delivery would leave Santa’s gift service open to the accusation that it is no different to the service offered by Amazon. Santa said his gifts always arrived on time, and more importantly that the big difference between Santa’s gift service and Amazon is that Santa gives without expecting payment in return. Lesley questioned if this wasn’t the real underlying cause of all their problems. Santa’s business model was essentially flawed. Santa responded by asserting that altruism was essential to his mission and that he would rather close the operation down if the alternative was to start seeking payment from those who receive his gifts.

Mrs. Claus proposed a staggered Christmas to ease the burden of having a single annual deadline and making all deliveries on the same night. Rudolf said that although they had started making deliveries at precisely one minute past midnight on 24th December, and had taken advantage of timezones with a progressive delivery schedule from East to West, this still left them less than 36 hours to deliver everything. Per Mrs. Claus, it would be easier if deliveries were done on a quarterly basis. Each child would be allocated to a rota with the delivery dates being 25th December, 25th March, 25th June and 25th September. Santa felt this moving away from deliveries on the 25th December was too radical, and Lesley agreed with Santa.

Lesley felt that a franchising approach might be an alternative solution to the problem of a bottleneck delivery schedule for Santa. Instead of fighting santa imposters, perhaps they could introduce an accreditation scheme and let the proxy santas make the deliveries for their region. They would still distribute toys manufactured by the real Santa according to Santa’s list. They could receive a bulk shipment of the presents and a distribution list in advance of Christmas Eve. Some advantages would be getting more stock out of the warehouse early and simplifying overall logistics for the big day. Rudolf said there was a risk of fraud and that toys might not be in delivered to the right children. Santa was uncomfortable with the idea of trusting strangers and felt it was a deceit to use fake Santas, but he was willing to allow Lesley to do some research into the idea. He suggested Lesley begin by asking the Easter Bunny what his policy was on delegating responsibility for delivery. Lesley should also ask EB about his vetting procedures.

The meeting agreed that after working hard all year, they all deserved a break and they would adjourn to the pub unless there was any other business.

Mrs. Claus asked if the idea of giving people lots of material gifts was actually the wrong message for a religious festival. She was having second thoughts about the wisdom of putting all the money and effort into the annual Christmas programme as it currently stands. Santa responded that the festival was older than Christianity and, if anything, the pursuit of meaningless stuff as a temporary and throwaway source of pleasure is perfectly in keeping with modern attitudes to life.

The meeting was then adjourned to the pub with a view to cheering everybody up after another long and arduous December. Discussion of plans for the works’ New Year party would take place down the pub. It was commented that it was poor timing to have two big party occasions within a week of each other. Santa observed that if either date needed to change, it should be New Year that changes, because the start of the year could occur at any arbitrary date but Jesus’ birthday could not change. It would be better to have New Year on June 30th, to spread out the big party events. Rudolf said that celebrating New Year’s Eve at the end of June would be great because pubs and clubs would be a lot less busy than on December 31st.