Let's mount an expedition?

At the most recent meeting of the Diogenes Club our sedentary wonderings and epicurian excesses made me think, when did we last actually discover anything new.

Or do I mean old.

For example, no-one apparently has found the remains or tomb of Temujin, better known as Genghis Khan, (1162- 1227) the legendary Mongol empire builder. This surely could be a task for at least some desk research, if not an expedition to garner some treasure, at least in the form of his DNA.

An excuse might be that it would be an expedition into oil bearing territories that might be of use to Western and Eastern governments seeking new plunder and/or old myths to exploit as we near a scenario of “peak oil” when we will be looking for new connections and alliances based on any fragment of similarity.

For we are all brothers. And sisters. When the oil runs out.
This phenomenon of helping those in peril seemed to operate with the recent earthquake in nearby China. We need to exploit our connectedness.

But I note that the director of the most recent Genghis film was thrown out of Mongolia for failing to get the record straight. Genghis Khan, the Master of the Blue Wolf, is revered there. Artistic licence is one thing, exploitation another, but our common heritage needs emphasis in troubled times.

And the Diogenes Club has always wanted to pay homage to the oral tradition, not just by academic training, but by instinct, for whilst error and falsehood may be repeated, so too may truth kept alive at the knee of ones ancestors and the traces they leave behind in our memories.

Millions of people (some 16 million males at least,) carry the Y chromosome unique to Genghis Khan, just as certainly as we know he was responsible for the violent deaths of 18 million people in his conquests.

As beachhutman I, even, apparently share this genetic lineage, so I felt I should explore this birthright that I share with so many.

That is one man in every 200, never mind the female descendants (who pose problems of evidence for the geneticists).

Genghis Khan was a slave once. I hate slavery. My real name, Tim Baber, given to me by my parents aware of this tradition, both reveals and conceals a custom any such connection is worthy of even only idle consideration.

Personally I have always believed the milkman is a useful antidote to such harpings, but DNA can now reconstitute a tortuous trail over the centuries. And with milkmen numbering perhaps 1 in 200 men (I made that up) this might explain their calling, for whilst Khan had many wives, he was enthusiastic in his attentions to other women. Milkmen share this trait by tradition. I share this trait. Now we know Y.

There are arguable links of lineage between Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Tamurlaine, Babur and Vlad the Impaler. The trail and my family’s research gets a bit fuzzy thereafter, despite the evidence of some 16, 17 or 18 million males (that is, depending on when the research was validated).

See http://www.oxfordancestors.com/genghis_khan.html

This offers some confirmation and how testing was achieved dispelling much doubt and ignorance, which are equal enemies of progress and illumination. Of course, it might cost you over £200 to get this particular satisfaction in the form of a DNA test. And even then Diogenes might ask, So What?

After most conquests in which the men were slaughtered the most beautiful women were kept for the Khan ensuring little doubt that the mechanism worked. There is some doubt of course about his DNA, his grave has yet to be discovered, hence the Diogenes efforts being mustered to establish some veracity here.

This is in the face of some secrecy in the past. Legend records the escort of the body killed anyone that strayed across their path, so as not to reveal the burial place.

The favourite location is apparently today Mongolia. I am watching events closely, and gathering research and contacts to grace my desk; This literature search is prior to a bid to the Diogenes Club to fund future expeditions.

Kubilai Khan was Genghis’s great-grandson and he managed to add 30 virgins to his harem each year, so a patrilineal pattern would emerge, wouldn’t it.

Despite that bald fact it used to be said a virgin (a woman) carrying a bag of gold could walk from one end of his empire to the other and remain completely unmolested.

On the other hand he did slaughter 18 million lives to establish his own progeny. He is quoted as having said:

“The greatest happiness is to scatter your enemy, to drive him before you, to see his cities reduced to ashes, to see those who love him shrouded in tears and to gather into your bosom his wives and daughters”.

Did I say he was my role model? Well the bit about others being shrouded in tears seems unnecessarily cruel.



I suspect the later introduction of Buddhism to Mongolia may have been a mixture of softening warlike tendencies and social engineering, and guess what, I would be right, according to one source I have consulted.

Various diseases and attempted monkish serfdom has had a part to play too, according to the same source, but here I am erring into the realm of politics, conspiracy theories of history and war, we should focus on the DNA, the Khan, and leave the speculation over the genetic contribution to warfare to others who actually do understand such things. This is just a bit of flag-pole waving, you understand, based on a few tantalising glimpses of areas to understand.

Of course Mongolia today is still a place of extremes. Drought can wipe out 25% of the gazelle population in a month, sending 20,000 to face death (becoming entangled recently in the border fence with neighbouring Russia).

Mongolia ‘s population is half nomadic even today, and probably find fences as annoying as I do today, (the damn things limiting my freedom and anyone else’s). I live on an island, what do I want with a fence?

The nomads (literally scratching a living from the earth or their cashmere goats) under this stunning Asian sky face winter temperatures of 40 degrees below zero and if anything things are getting worse year on year for their survival.

At the moment as I write there are 15 wildfires threatening life and property that would destroy everything and anything that has survived this long. Do we read about this in the media here, No! Yet this land needs exploration. It offers much by way of explanation of what we are, what we were, and what we may become.

Now, with the benefits of Range Rovers, satellite imagery and location finding, and modern expeditionary technology, we may even attract sponsors for such a Diogenarian enterprise with the otherwise preoccupied Mongolians.
The focus I suggest, genetic research combined with archaeology could be a skein behind which much could be revealed.

This is very much virgin territory for the West, few encounter this part of the world these days, but as I say, technology is catching up and the Diogenes Club, no slouch in its long history, should consider this question.

The Diogenes Club may have contributed to adventures in the region in the past, some yet to be found in the library, but focusing on establishing the grave of Genghis Khan seems a timely act as old and new superpowers tussle with Mongolia’s past, present and future. It might build us all up and unite us, as he once did with his empire.

Unfortunately there are signs that the treasure for the superpowers are the countries raw materials and global economics are going to pursue a path that results in a tragedy of the commons. This might be something of a rescue dig… a rescue of our common past.

The Diogenes Club seeks to extract not mineral wealth or exploit human labour, but respect the great mans last wishes, that:

” If my body dies, let my body die, but do not let my country die.”

He is, after all, a part of 1 in 200 of just our male population, so if his contribution was a poor one, we are the poorer for copying the evil that he did. We should seek the truth, not so much for any nation state, but to countenance the truth in ourselves. We are his country. We breathe the same air, something the Olympics will experience in Beijing as Mongolia’s savage dust storms are heading that way this month at least.

Of course, the oral tradition Khan’s remains are in today’s Mongolia is not without fresh challenge. Unexpectedly the oral tradition of his strong genetic links with northern Pakistan have been unexpectedly newly proved by the science, so nothing should be ruled out.

These are early days.

A fortuitous article on a similar endeavour that fell into my in box was about nearby Taklamakan. Trust me, you should follow this link,

http://barista.media2.org/?p=2971

now that you have laboured through this idle conjecture of mine. Barista is worth some attention, even if they hail from the other side of the world. We are all connected now.

Perhaps that is the real treasure of this piece, and if nothing else my wanderings were to prepare you for this new slant on world history, where NOTHING is what it seems, and EVERYTHING was more once than it now is. The trick is to go back and unravel the past to realise what we have become involved chance and choice.

The Diogenes Club could chose to ignore this subject. This is a chance to pool together not just our genes, our garlic or our wine, but our future, dismantling the fences that will trap us in our petty nation-states.

Genghis demonstrated desire and motivation to succeed, yet sought the failure of others.

He said famously,: "It is not sufficient that I succeed - all others must fail."

The secret is to seek the success of others, for we are all connected and we need to keep our enemies close to ourselves, for they are his sons, and our brothers. They may be our allies in the turbulent times ahead. And as for the daughters and wives, …they too are our sisters, it is just the proof is a little hazy for them, so we should spare them our aggression most especially. I have come to the conclusion overnight that the Y chromosome encouraging conquest and domination needs to be countered by the kinds of kindness Buddhism can inspire in the human heart for the success of others.

The Inner Diogenarian

Last month, conversation turned to how many of us had refused to buy a TV set, leading to warning letters and then home visits by sceptical HM Inspectors looking to take us to court for failure to buy the official TV-viewing license. They simply could not believe anyone could survive without watching TV. And of course the newspapers encourage this view by uncritically printing official press releases from Her Majesty’s TV Licensing Inspectorate about the numbers of cheaters, and the endless lies they tell trying to pretend they don’t have a TV. While most people now believe one cannot survive without television, we here at the Club tend to differ in this, as in other things in life. Television today, we agreed, simply does not provide the same inner sustenance, the balance between a comfortable sense of continuity with the past, and exciting new ideas, which we recalled from our youth.
... We were also lamenting how we rarely go out to the cinema anymore, as the sound levels are ramped up to 150 decibels to cover the incessant jingles of teenagers’ mobile phones. Out of this came the idea we should have our own Film Evening. We would set aside an evening to view old films dedicated to the values we support – in short, a simple, better life beyond the horizons of consumerist thinking, and excessive modern bureaucracy.
Pridian suggested stiff-upper-lip British war films celebrating the value of stoicism in times of danger and privation. Dr Phil said we should show vintage British comedies of the sort we all fondly recalled from our youth, evoking nostalgic memories of happier times, before we knew what we now know about the world. There were many of these, and he said he would put up a list of ten [see post below] to help us select one. Zeno, as befits his name (meaning stranger or foreigner), said we should also have the odd foreign film, to which we assented, to demonstrate we were not too insular in our tastes. Beachhutman spoke of how stories featuring trains carried a lot of symbolic traffic, so to speak. And so, on this wave of enthusiasm, it was all arranged.
There would also be a meal beforehand, to sustain what travellers’ accounts used to call “the inner man.” It was Harris of course - trying to stir up trouble as usual - who suggested we have exotic dishes. He reminded us how our Victorian predecessors on expedition would have to eat everything and anything to survive. Indeed this was the test of a true Diogenarian – to live off the land, so to speak, away from civilised comforts, which can require a strong stomach. He reminded us of Buckland, the great Victorian man of science who made it his life’s work to eat one of every species – exotic (panther, crocodile etc) as well as British. (He said the vilest-tasting here was a toss-up between stewed mole and boiled bluebottles.) He also got hold of the heart of Louis XIV, preserved in a silver casket, and ate it for a boast. Harris also mentioned Clarence "Bugs" Birdseye, the American who invented the frozen fish finger, and patented the modern frozen-food industry, via his Birds-Eye Foods. In college he had boasted he would eat any species, and during WWI was sent secretly by the US Government to the British colony of Labrador, where he learned the secret of successful freezing of food from the local Eskimos. He said one could eat anything, demonstrating by trying polar bear, beaver tail, lynx, mice, chipmunk, gopher, packrat, and skunk - the front half of which, he said, was excellent.
Neither of these two show-offs was ever a Club member, and so it was to Harris’s surprise we agreed unanimously. For we knew this would ensure Harris himself would not attend, he being strictly a beefsteak and two-veg sort of fellow, who could never stomach a more adventurous menu. (Sure enough in the event, he left a message saying he could not come as one of his cats was poorly, having swallowed a furball.)
... Thus the evening began with a suitably Diogenarian meal. An outdoors barbecue was planned, but the prospect of rain forced us indoors, where the club kitchen was soon filled with the appetising smells of smoke and burning flesh. For, as a tribute to the other, lesser-known Diogenes, who explored the source of the Nile in classical times, the menu included crocodile-tail steak. Croc tail of course has to be cooked at high temperatures to eliminate any pesky tropical parasites. (And if you’re wondering, it tastes like a cross between fish and pork, and looks like a pork chop, due to the bony spine.) There was also an ale-tasting ceremony to choose from a selection of finest English ales. I believe the winners here were the slightly “hoppy” Hopping Hare and the gingered-up Blandford Fly (actually the name of a notorious local biting fly, to remind us of the discomforts of tropical expeditions).
But of course “the inner man” is not sustained only by satisfying one's innards, but by inner contemplation. So we repaired to the Library, where a projector had been set up to show films in a gap on the wall over the fireplace, between the shelves of oversize rare books. There we watched a thought-provoking film, whose name at present escapes me, due to the after-effects of the ale-tasting. (I seem to recall, before lapsing into post-prandial somnolence, it featured the sight and sounds of some wonderful old steam locomotives.)
All in all, a splendid time was had by everyone who attended, and other such evenings are now planned, with a programme of vintage black-and-white films, to be selected by each member in turn.

Ten Funniest Moments in British Comedy

As I was sitting in my favourite armchair at The Diogenes Club and tucking into a plate of buttered crumpets I heard old Carruthers chortling away. We all looked up from our copies of the Times and and Manton asked him what was up. He said the funniest line he had heard in any movie was from a strange man with a black moustache and a big cigar who had said "I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it".

Well we all looked at him strangely but then this led us to a club discussion as to what were the top British comedy moments on either the big or small screen. No one could agree so I thought I would record here my own personal top-ten list for posterity. I am sure other members would have a different list. Here are mine in reverse order:

10 Morecambe and Wise
Andre Previn: "You're playing all the wrong notes!"
Eric(menacing):"I'm playing all the RIGHT notes...just not necessarily in the right order!"

9 Kenneth Williams - Carry on Cleo
Infamy! Infamy! They've all got it in for me!

8. John Cleese - Fawlty Towers, The Germans
Fawlty: "You started it............."
German Guest: "No we didn't"
Fawlty: "Yes you did! You invaded Poland!"

7. Monty Python - The Holy Grail
ARTHUR: Does your master want to come with us to search for the Holy Grail?
GUARD: Well, I'll ask him, but I don't think he'll be very keen... Uh, he's already got one, you see.
ARTHUR: What?
GALAHAD: He says they've already got one!
ARTHUR: Are you sure he's got one?
GUARD: Oh, yes, it's very nice-a (I told him we already got one)
ARTHUR: Well, um, can we come up and have a look?
GUARD: Of course not! You are English types-a!
ARTHUR: Well, what are you then?
GUARD: I'm French! Why do think I have this outrageous accent, you silly king!

6 Dirk Bogarde - Doctor in the House
The great Sir Lancelot Spratt is asking his students about the time it takes blood to stop flowing from a cut.
Sprat: "You! What's the bleeding time?"
Sparrow: [looks at watch] "10 past 10"

5 Tony Hancock - Twelve Angry Men
Hancock makes an impassioned plea to his fellow jurors.
Hancock: "Does Magna Carta mean nothing to you?... Did she die in vain?"

4 Will Hay - Ask a Policeman
Granddad: "I think I'll have a sweet. Want one?"
Will Hay: "Yes, I'll have a blackcurrant." He pops it in his mouth
Granddad: Spitting out his own sweet, "Eee, blackcurrant!"
Will Hay: "What's the matter? don't you like them?"
Granddad: "No! I always put them back in the bag"

3 Arthur Lowe - Dad's Army
Private Pike has just sung an insulting song about Hitler to a captured U-boat crew.
U-boat captain, "What is your name?"
Mannering: "Don't tell him Pike!"

2 Moore Marriott - Oh Mr Porter!
Will Hay and co. put their watches on on a railway line when the engine starts to role forward and crushes the watches to pieces. Harbottle picks up the crushed watch and holds it to his ear.
Harbottle: "... it's stopped!"

1 Tony Hancock - The Blood Donor
"A PINT? That's very nearly an armful! I'm sorry - I'm not walking around with an empty arm for anybody.”

The myth of democracy

The local elections were on Thursday but I didn't vote.

I think I am the only member of the Diogenes Club that takes his cynicism to such an extreme. I am quite sure that some of my fellow Diogenarians would frown on my lack of public spiritedness. I can almost hear the tutting from some of the older more established members over their copies of the Times. After all we live in a democracy, don't we? Our fore-fathers died to give us the vote, didn't they? We are part of the enlightened free world, aren't we?

Well actually, no we don't, no they didn't and no we aren't.

I think the realization came upon me only a couple of years ago. Democracy is a myth. It is a fiction put out by a rather successful government marketing machine. The way I came to this conclusion was simple. I realized one day that really we have no say over anything that is done in our name. Whether it was insane road changes, crazy new education policies, tax laws, petrol rises, speed-trap cameras, planning laws, the siting of wind farms, the issuing of ID cards, internet controls, the extension of 42 day detention without charge, removal of the presumption of innocence, removal of the right not to be tried for the same crime twice, going to war with Iraq..... we have no say over anything. No one asks your opinion, no one takes your views into account. That's how it is in our democracy. We can't change any of these things even if we wanted to. All we can do is get rid of people several years too late, and replace them with people just as bad.

According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights the will of the people is the only authority for government. But the will of the people is never consulted except at a general election. It is what is called a representative democracy which means that it is the will of others that matters not the will of the people.

What our democracy amounts to is this. You get a chance to make one choice every five years between two or three parties that are almost indistinguishable. And that's it. That's the full extent of your democratic power. You can pick Conservative, Labour or Liberal (or some other less likely possibility) and that's the full size of it. In the States its even worse. You only have Republicans or Democrats to choose from.

You're not allowed to decide what happens yourself, you have to pass that power on to someone else to make all the decisions for you. But they never come back to you to ask what you want to happen. They just do what the party tells them to do.That means that whoever you vote for, the government wins every time.

The only opportunity for democratic choice happens in a referendum when the people are asked to express their will. But time and again these are promised and then refused. Take the EU. Entry into the EU required signature to the Maastrict Treaty. Most were against it. A referendum was refused. More recently the Labour Government promised a referendum on the recent Lisbon Treaty - the EU Constitution under another name. A referendum was refused, basically on the grounds that the people would have voted against it. And so they went ahead without the will of the people. What use is the vote when the will of the people is ignored? Voting is not an expression of power but an admission of powerlessness.

The fact that the technology now exist for everyone to have a say in the decision making process just make the situation less excusable. In the past representational democracy grew up because you couldn't physically fit millions into a simple voting structure that could be used on every decision made. But with the coming of the Internet that has all changed. It is now possible to easily consult every person about the introduction of every law. Should that wind farm be put in the centre of town? Should we build that motorway through that green belt? Should we go to war with Iraq? Or Iran? Well we can now all be consulted because the technology now makes it possible. But I will tell you something. It will never happen. Why? Because we do not live in a democracy. And the few will never give up their power to the many.

So I didn't vote last Thursday. Voting only keeps the charade in play. The game goes on. If nobody voted then the pretense would be over. So vote for nobody, for nobody represents you.

ou phrontis

I dropped into Clouds Hill the other day. Those of you with eclectic memories may recall that Clouds Hill was the cottage owned by Colonel Thomas Edward Lawrence, better known from the David Lean film as Lawrence of Arabia. Lawrence was nothing like the tall, handsome and debonair Peter O'Toole. Quite the opposite in fact. He was only five foot three, rather plain looking and awkward in his mannerisms.

Lawrence was of course also ideally suited to be a member of the Diogenes Club and club records would, I am sure, show that he was a past president back in 1935 just before his untimely death - that is if the records could be found, which sadly they cannot since they have been lost along with much of the club’s better known memorabilia. I may say more about the club museum and its artefacts at a later date but to get back to T. E. Lawrence and Clouds Hill, there is only one solid evidence of connection with the club and that is the recollections of old Manton who once said that he met Lawrence when he was a young lad and couldn’t abide the fellow - thought him a tremendous show-off.

However, despite Manton’s doubtful memory and the lack of Diogenes Club records there are three things that convince me that Lawrence was a Diogenist to his very core.

The first thing is Clouds Hill itself. It is rather a rum kind of place. Not much in the way of windows as you can see from the picture and inside there is no kitchen nor lavatory nor any kind of hot or cold water. Certainly a place for the bohemian lifestyle. A man who had lived among the Bedu for almost two years had no need for modern conveniences. This is the way Diogenes would have been today – living out of tins and trotting up the hill with his spade to do his business. Here is ample evidence of the Diogenistic lifestyle and it is as close as you can get to living in a barrel as will pass for present day accommodation today.

The second thing that indicates Lawrence was a true Diogenes Club member was the rather secret work for which his special talents had made him particularly suitable. His relationship with Churchill, the talk of his being asked to head-up the secret service, the offer of a job as secretary to the Bank of England (I ask you!) his strange and untimely death and the mysterious black car that was sighted at the time. And then there were all manner of VIP visitors who came to see him at Clouds Hill including EM Forster, Robert Graves, Siegfried Sassoon, George Bernard Shaw and Thomas Hardy. How they coped in these ascetic surroundings is another matter. But it all adds up to something more than a mere private in the army. Here are mysterious comings and goings for which the Diogenes Club members are rightly famous.

The third thing that convinces me that Lawrence was a member is the inscription I saw over his doorway. One day his neighbour called round to find Lawrence up on a ladder with hammer and chisel in hand carving the words “ou phrontis” into the concrete lintel. Lawrence was a Greek scholar as you probably knew and when he was asked what the Greek words meant he told a story which he said he had read in Herodotus. The story goes that a king had a daughter that he wanted to marry off so he invited all of the best and most suitable young men to a feast. Well one young man got a bit drunk and danced on the table and did a few handstands – which is not the kind of thing you do at polite parties remembering that Greeks wore short military skirts and didn’t bother much with undergarments. Well the king was suitably repulsed by this young show-off and shouted out that he had just lost his chances of marrying the royal daughter. To which the young man shouted back “ou phrontis!” which roughly translated means “I don’t give a damn!” It’s the sort of phrase that one can almost believe was invented by Diogenes himself and expressed his philosophy pretty exactly. Anyone who carves that over their door has got to be a true cynic in practice as well as in spirit.
Dr Phil

[For those interested, the club memorabilia has included such rare artefacts as a blue carbuncle – said to be the inspiration for a famous detective story; the hollowed out foot of a woolly mammoth – used as the club umbrella stand; a coded journal said to belong to Sir Isaac Newton – as yet indecipherable and supposed to contain new insights into the workings of the universe for which the world was not yet prepared and finally the hollowed out skull of an ancient philosopher, said to be Plato’s himself – now used as a bowl from which the club dog drinks.]

The Diogenes Protocol

Since one of our newer (ahem) members has let it slip the Club was actually founded 232 years ago, i.e. in 1776, rather than its much later officially publicised founding date (when it first moved into its own premises), it has become necessary to clarify a certain matter. What follows will hopefully put into perspective talk of the Club being first established as an "underground" organisation or secret society.
The year 1776 was a critical one in British affairs, with the Americans breaking away, largely over the Customs duty on tea, leading to the so-called Revolutionary War Of Independence. Certainly the price of tea and coffee was a concern here too, for before gentlemen's clubs existed as separate entities, the coffeehouses of London were where men met to read the latest periodicals and discuss affairs of state. In Britain, there were many affected by the gap between the wealthy few and the needy many, and talk of revolution was in the air. This was also the year of Adam Smith's textbook The Wealth Of Nations, introducing market principles like supply and demand, and the idea of the "Free Trader." The coffeehouses of London became conversational battle grounds for the cut and thrust of fierce political debate over new ideas like the res publica, the rationale of public ownership and republican government. Soon they also became recruiting grounds for government agents looking for men to spy on perceived enemies at home or abroad, or to act as agents of influence, to promote one ideology or another.
As in every age, there were men who preferred to stand above all this, who wanted to be independent, not drawn into the political ideologies and changing alliances of the day. They were nonetheless pestered by nosey parkers sounding out their views, or beset by clumsy attempts at recruitment by men who often flew false flags or were double agents.
A small group of them decided to hire, by the evening, a private upstairs dining room in one or another of London's many inns, where they could meet monthly in peace for intelligent conversation, while avoiding the divisive and constricting subject of politics and its cousin, religion. In order to protect this strict protocol from abuse, each member would adopt a "covering" identity to conceal their actual name and position, the conversational equivalent of the disguise in the then-popular masqued ball. The names chosen were those of Classical philosophers. "Diogenes" was reserved for the annually-elected club president, after the founder of Cynicism who held political ambition in such low regard he told off Alexander the Great. Other members chose names like Socrates or Pythagoras.
As new members were forced to take increasingly obscure names, the basis was broadened to include other cultures. With the antiquarian revival in progress, names were chosen from Celtic myth, like Merlin and Gawain, and this also brought with it the idea of using a round table for meetings, for the number of members had grown by now from the original four to thirteen. Thus was born, in name at least, the Diogenes Club - or rather our Diogenes Club, for there are of course now others, of which we do not speak.

For a dozen years all went well, but in the 13th year, events in France forced a change in Club protocol. Britain's long-time enemies the French had supported the Americans in their revolution; France's own radicals had grown in power and now, in 1789, overthrew their Royalist state, leading to a decade of terror across the Channel. The Continent was cut off - the gentleman's Grand Tour of spas and art galleries no longer possible. Newspaper reports and the influx of thousands of French émigrés telling tales of endless purges and executions by guillotine, and a growing fear of invasion made a lofty disdain for worldly affairs more difficult to sustain for men of a certain calibre.
Members grew sombre and spoke more quietly; the gentle good humour of past meetings vanished. The news became all-important. Members brought the latest newspapers with them and pored over them for hours, looking for clues or hints as to what might be going on, or might happen next. What had been a jovial dining club turned into a reading room where members read even during meals, and only muttered conversation was heard. This was one reason the Club would abandon meeting in inns and become a club proper with its own premises, as it became more a private library, stocking the latest periodicals as well as rare books which were bequests from members, who were often well-travelled.
Then members began to disappear two or more at a time, returning tight-lipped as to where they had been. Sometimes they were limping or bandaged up, and it soon became obvious these private cabals had abandoned neutrality for unauthorised intervention abroad. But it must be stressed that this was never part of the Club’s official mandate. It was not within the founding principles of Diogenarianism to try to - in the popular phrase -- "set the world to rights." Other members felt the aristocracy had brought disaster on themselves by their own lack of moderation.

And so these taciturn returnees said merely that they had been away "taking the waters," had had a carriage upset or some such accident. Even the Club president, the 14th "Diogenes", by profession a botanist, reappeared one day with his cheek gashed by a sabre cut, which he explained away as a boating or bathing accident while on holiday down on the coast at Mudeford.
By now, members knew better, and a protocol developed that no one would ask questions in the club room, lest the answers prove awkward. The author Conan Doyle must have heard of this oddity, although he either did not know, or care to write of, the real reason behind it – or perhaps treated it as an insiders’ joke. For in his Sherlock Holmes stories, he merely says the Diogenes Club is a place where members go to read the latest periodicals and nobody is allowed to talk!
Yet soon after this, someone must have talked, for details of such unofficial cross-Channel exploits were dramatised in popular plays and novels. These were written by an émigré aristocrat living in London, but who was never a Club member, being a woman. She was the Baroness Orczy, and she wrote of a gentleman adventurer, Percy Blake, whose private codename was Diogenes. He operated as a political intriguer with a pair of companions, codenamed Socrates and Pythagoras. She put his exploits in the 17th C., claiming this 'Diogenes' was the real identity of the subject of the famous painting The Laughing Cavalier.
She also wrote of his more recent descendant, Sir Percy Blakeney, who took his codename from a flower he used as a seal - the Scarlet Pimpernel. To help spirit away political prisoners from the shadow of the guillotine, the Pimpernel also has his own "League" of a dozen or so volunteer helpers. Through her hit stage play and the dozen stories that followed, the Baroness was credited with introducing in popular literature certain now familiar situations. This includes the idea of the 'league of extraordinary gentlemen' who lead a double life, playing the aloof or hedonistic clubland gentleman while secretly risking life and limb, operating abroad as agents under a code name in order to put the world to rights.
... Not that we do that sort of thing any more, of course.

Virtual Reality

The wind threatened to blow people's hats off as they hurried along Pall Mall, and women struggled to control their umbrellas. The rain was being hurled from the sky, the drops bouncing off the pavements, such was the ferocity of the storm. The Diogenes Club was a beacon of light and warmth to those who were privileged enough to be members.

Standing at one of the large windows, I watched the raindrops trace their paths down the outside of the glass. Other than the crackling and spitting of the logs in the fire as they were consumed by the flames, the only sound was the reassuring ticking of the Grandfather clock in the corner.

"I hate days like this" I said, as I moved to stand in front of the fire. "When I drew the curtains this morning, it was so dark I thought my alarm must have gone off early. Even at midday we still have the lights on, and a fire lit."

"Yes, it is rather depressing." said Treworthy as he came across to the fire to warm himself. The only other member present in the library was Abrahams, who was, as usual, engrossed in his crossword. "Listen - I don't suppose you know anything about computer games?"

"Not really - why?"

"Well it's my sister's boy. He seems to spend every waking hour playing the damn things at the moment, and she is a little worried."

"Could it be that spending the long summer evenings playing football with one's schoolfriends doesn't seem to have the same attraction for children as it did in our time, Treworthy?"

"Perhaps not, but spending all one's time in a completely artificial world doesn't strike me as a particularly good substitute - especially as the main activity seems to be blasting one's opponents to pieces with a large selection of guns."

Our conversation was interrupted by Travis, who dumped his wet coat on the table and slumped noisily into his favourite chair, his face almost as grey as the sky outside.

"Good grief," I said, as Henry picked up Travis's coat, "you look dreadful."

"I feel dreadful. Ah, Henry - a double whisky, and make it a generous one. In fact, bring me two."

"Two, sir?" Like a BBC newsreader, Henry was able to convey criticism without any measurable change in either his pronounciation or intonation. Travis, however, was oblivious to such subtleties.

"Yes, Henry. Two. The world is going to hell and I intend forget about it for the rest of the day - or at least until I sober up tomorrow."

"Very good sir."

"Oh, and is lunch ready yet?"

"Luncheon will be served at one o'clock precisely, sir. As usual."

"Well, tell the Chef to get a move on, will you. I'm starving."

"I shall convey your message to him, sir. I have no doubt that he will redouble his efforts."

"Had a bad day old chap?" I enquired gently, as Henry left the room. Travis was usually the most cheerful of the group, albeit with a somewhat acidic edge to his sense of humour.

"Yes, come on. It's usually Manton who is trying to blot out the madness of the world with alcohol." said Treworthy. "Where is he, by the way? He's usually here by now."

"The markets have gone mad. Everywhere you look there are people trying to sell and no one wanting to buy. Confidence has gone through the floor. At least two other banks are on the verge of going bankrupt, but they are trying to keep it quiet until a deal can be done, or the panic will just get worse."

Treworthy, who normally found Travis slightly irritating, struggled manfully to cheer him up. "Oh come on, it can't be as bad as all that. The market always has ups and downs."

"Nothing like this though. I've been talking to some of the chaps who have been in the business since the sixties - they say that it is unlike anything they have ever experienced. Everyone is paranoid. No one trusts anyone any more."

Henry brought over his drinks. Travis gulped down the first whisky almost without taking breath, and immediately had a coughing fit. Henry waited silently at his side until he had recovered, and then, before offering him the second drink, said:

"With all due respect sir, I would recommend a slightly more phlegmatic approach - this is a fine highland single malt which has been matured in oak casks for at least 12 years. Not a..." - the faintest impression of some distant pain moved across Henry's normally imperturbable face, like the shadow of a cloud moving swiftly across a sunlit hillside - "...a Barcardi Breezer. I implore you to give it the respect that it deserves."

The room seemed suddenly quiet.

"Yes, of course. Sorry Henry." Travis was genuinely shocked. It was the closest that Henry had ever come to openly criticising any of us.

Henry withdrew.

"If there is one thing that upsets Henry, it is a man who does not appreciate the finer things in life." said Treworthy. "Still, it seems to have taken your mind off work for a few minutes."

"Yes, that's true."

I walked back to the window. "What about you, Abrahams. Does this weather depress you as well?"

"Hmmm?" Abrahams looked up from his crossword, and pushed his spectacles back onto the bridge of his nose. "Weather? What weather? Is it raining?"

"Abrahams, are you actually aware of anything, other than what is inside your head?" asked Treworthy.

Abrahams stared at Treworthy, as if seeing him for the first time, his brain clearly engaged upon deeply complex thought process.

"You've set him off now", said Travis.

"Oh God. Look Abrahams, it was just a simple question, it wasn't meant to initiate a full-scale philosophical debate."

"Ah...well.....ummmm....well, no, not really. I find the outside world far too....."

"Confusing?"

"..messy. That's why I prefer the realms of pure mathematical logic."

"Yes, well, some of us don't have the luxury of existing in an ivory tower like you, Abrahams. Some of us have to earn our money in the real world." groaned Travis, taking another gulp of whisky.

"Oh my dear fellow, the financial markets of the City are far from being the 'real world'. You and your colleagues are many levels of abstraction separated from anything remotely real."

"And I suppose you do work in the real world?"

"No, far from it. I don't suppose any of us do."

"Hang on a moment. What do you mean by 'levels of abstraction'?" asked Treworthy.

"Oh, it's an idea from computer science - or at least, that's where I've come across it."

"So how does it apply to this?" I asked. "You may as well tell us, while we wait for Manton to show up."

"Oh, well" - he put his newpaper down and cleared his throat. "It's a notion that attempts to describe the relationship between the user and a computer. At the bottom level, you have the hardware of the computer. The processor, the disk drive, the memory, the network card. They communicate with each other at a very low level - electrical signals, binary codes, blocks of data, that sort of thing. But when you use a computer, you don't have to worry about any of those things."

"No, we use an operating system." I said, using up my entire store of computing knowledge in one fell swoop.

"Exactly. A layer of software which provides with a simplified way of, say, using a disk drive."

"Doesn't seem that simple to me." said Travis, somewhat sulkily.

"Well, you don't have to worry about the strength of the current needed to produce a magnetic spot, or where that spot is on the disk. The operating system provides you with the illusion that there are things called folders, inside which you can store things called files. It provides you with a simplified way of using the hardware of the computer. That is what a level of abstraction gives you. A convenient way of thinking about a much messier and more complicated state of affairs."

"Yes. Well I suppose that makes some sort of sense."

"But it doesn't stop there. On top of the operating system, you might have a database package running. That gives you another level of abstraction, because it allows you to store things in lists called tables, and to set up relationships between the tables."

"But if I understand what you are saying, they don't exist either." said Treworthy, "At some point, those tables of data will get stored inside files, which means that the operating system will store them as magnetic spots on a disk. Yes, I think I see."

"But that doesn't mean that a database package isn't real." said Travis, becoming interested despite his mood.

"No, but it is a simplified way of seeing things that are actually much more complex. Of course, there is always a downside to using layers of abstraction, as well as a benefit. On the one hand, it does allow you to concentrate on the matter in hand without getting swamped in too much detail, but on the other, it does mean that it is much easier to start treating the illusion offered by the level of abstraction as reality, and forget about what is underneath."

"But isn't that the whole point?" I asked.

"Yes, but you should be careful about taking it too far. As Bruce Lee said in 'Enter the Dragon': 'It's like a finger pointing away to the moon. Don't concentrate on the finger, or you will miss all the heavenly glory.'"

The room fell silent as we all inwardly digested Abrahams's surprising detour into popular culture. He had a habit of coming up with bizarrely sourced but often appropriate quotations, often belying his outward appearance as a dry academic who rarely ventured outside the walls of his ivory tower.

"Yes, well, that's all very well," said Travis, after taking another quick mouthful of whisky, "but what has that all got to do with the City?"

"It's perfectly obvious, old boy", boomed Manton from the doorway, as he gave his coat to Henry. "You will find that, in the same way, the money markets offer several layers of abstraction, thus enabling you and your colleagues to make - I hesitate to use the word earn - far more money than you would otherwise be able to. Quite apart from the fact that it enables us all to live lives of luxury unsurpassed by even the worst excesses of the Roman empire at it's most decadent."

Manton collapsed into his favourite chair, and grunted apologies for his lateness.

"What on earth are you talking about Manton?" said Travis.

"Well, I don't want to pre-empt our resident academic. Ah, thank you Henry." he said, as club's factotum appeared at his right elbow with a glass of whisky.

Abrahams was untroubled. "Not at all, Manton, I have nothing left to say on the subject. I leave it to others to apply my ideas. I operate in the realm of pure abstraction, a place where the pure thought processes of my intellect can flourish without being caged in by the grey limitations of everyday life."

"More like the realm of pure bollocks, if you ask me." muttered Travis, sotto voce, before taking another gulp from his drink.

"Oh well, if you insist," said Manton. "It's like this. As you know, there was a time when everyone carried round gold or silver coins, where their wealth equated to the inherent value of the metal. It's called commodity money. Which means that the wealth of the country is limited by the amount of gold that everyone has in their pockets, or bank vaults."

"Go on."

"So if the UK wanted to lend a couple of million to America, say, the government would have to get the gold out of their vaults, ship it across the ocean, and the American government would have to lock it up in their vaults. And you obviously couldn't lend more gold than you had."

"Isn't that commonsense?" I said.

"Maybe, but it's very restricting. So what you do is add a layer of abstraction, and invent what is called representative money. In other words, bank notes. You know, a bit of paper which says on it 'promise to pay the bearer on demand...' all that sort of thing. It's a lot easier to ship the stuff around. But it is still tied to the physical amount of gold you've got. In theory, you can take your notes to a bank and get them exchanged for the equivalent in gold. Of course, governments tend to make it illegal for ordinary members of the public to do that."

"Why?"

"Well, a more cynical person than I might say that it is because it might expose the fact that the government has printed more promises than they have gold to fulfill them. Which is a bit naughty of them, but it does mean that they are no longer limited by how much gold they have in the vaults. I think we are meant to call it 'providing enough liquidity to enable the hard pressed British economy to expand'".

"But if you print more notes than you can support with gold, doesn't that mean that each note is worth less gold? I mean, that's what inflation is, isn't it." I asked.

"Yes, but you are forgetting our innate ability, as a civilised society, to completely ignore the underlying causes of something, and be distracted by the superficial appearance."

"Thus spake the little Dragon." said Abrahams.

"Er...quite," said Manton, who, having arrived immediately after the original comment, had no idea what he was talking about. "Everyone becomes so obsessed with the IOUs that they start to think that they have intrinsic value. They see it as 'prices going up' instead of 'money being worth less.'"

"So they start treating representative money as though it were commodity money." said Treworthy.

"Precisely."

"And that is the current state of affairs?"

"Good God no. How is a chap like Travis supposed to earn his substantial salary if the nation is ostensibly limited by the amount of gold it has managed to dig up. No, no. Think about it. Apart from coming across a massive gold deposit under the North Sea or somewhere, how can the government print more money - sorry, 'provide enough liquidity for hard pressed businesses to be able to expand', without causing inflation to devalue it. Anyone except Travis may answer."

"Don't mind me, I have no idea - I'm not an economist. I work on the trading floor." his mood having finally lifted.

"You could link the currency to something other than gold?" I ventured.

"No, no. Come on, show some imagination. You will never be feted as a captain of industry with thinking like that."

"Well go on, Manton. Clearly none of us are able to match your scalpel-like insight into the greater scheme."

"Why have it linked to anything? Float it. It can be worth whatever anyone is willing to give you for it."

"Hang on," I said, "if bank notes are promises to pay the bearer an amount of gold, you can't ..."

"But we're just adding another layer of abstraction. Let them become a commodity in their own right. If that's the way that people tend to treat it anyway, it's only a matter of time before the money men build it into the system itself, and make it official. It's called Fiat Money."

"But it's not linked to anything real." I protested.

"I know, it's brilliant when you think about it. And so much less restrictive. Just think how many more people can earn huge salaries now! Everyone's a winner."

"But it's madness," said Treworthy. "It's not related to anything."

"It doesn't matter - in fact that's the whole point. As long as the Government is willing to accept it as legal payment for taxes, it has a value by default. Baby Ocelots would have a value if you could pay your taxes with them. That's if we all acknowledge the right of the Government to demand payment of taxes, of course."

"Or if they have enough soldiers to render our opinions irrelevant."

"Quite so, Travis, quite so. Of course, that's not the end of the story, there are still quite a few layers of abstraction to go yet. Consider the fact that bank notes are being replaced by electronic impulses inside a computer, which means that there is no real representation at all in the physical world, not even bits of paper."

"And of course there are credit cards," said Travis. "Most people rely on credit cards now."

After a short pause, I turned to Treworthy. "Well, I wouldn't worry about your nephew spending too much time on his computer, inhabiting non-existent virtual worlds. It sounds to me like it might be ideal training for his adult life - especially if he goes into the finance sector."

"I have a horrible feeling that you may be right. What about you Henry? Do you sometimes have trouble working out what is real?"

"The modern preference does seem to be for more change, and not less, sir. A most regrettable development, if I may say so. It would not do for one to become too complacent. After all, the Diogenes Club itself is only a mere 232 years old."

"Yes, the speed of change can be quite terrifying sometimes." observed Travis, somewhat dryly.

The Grandfather clock chimed the hour.

"Luncheon is served, gentlemen."