When HRH Queenie was visiting the London School of Economics in November she asked the pointy heads why the credit crunch managed to sneak up and proverbially catch everyone with their pants firmly around their ankles.
As she is the queen, when she asks, she gets.
In order to answer her question, the British Academy piled a whole lot of rocket scientists into a room, shut the door and refused to let anyone* out until they had hammered out an appropriate response.
*I made that part of that sentence up. I am sure they were allowed out to go to the dunny or to phone a friend.
My cousin sent me their excuse.
I particularly like this sentence:
Among the authorities charged with managing these risks, there were difficulties too. Some say that their job should have been 'to take away the punch bowl when the party was in full swing.'
And if you want to know (in a nutshell) why no one saw the credit clusterfuck coming, here's what they say:
So in summary, Your Majesty, the failure to foresee the timing, extent and severity of the crisis and to head it off, while it had many causes, was principally a failure of the collective imagination of many bright people, both in this country and internationally, to understand the risks to the system as a whole.
And then, almost as if to sound like they're sorry, they sign off by saying:
We have the honour, to remain, Madam,
Your Majesty's most humble and obedient servants.
Blerrgh, sucky, suck, suck.
So anyway, bright people, it's all your fault. Go shut yourselves in the wardrobe and don't come out till you're ready to apologise and behave nicely.
Goodbye.
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8 comments:
I had read that a few days ago and had a good laugh. I don't know which is funnier, the Queen asking, or them answering.
I bet she's wishing "Off with their heads" was still legal.
They're not really sorry, of course. They're just sorry they got caught still standing up when the music stopped playing, and all the chairs were full.
Hah! I was wanting to crowbar the 'Off with their heads' line into the post, but I wasn't bright enough to pull it off.
How does referring to themselves as "many bright people" tally with calling themselves "humble servants"?
Thanks for yesterday, by the way.
Do you think 'humble servants' is a euphinism for 'humble servants who fucked up' ?
Oh and, a pleasure.
Ha! They should have listened to Dmitry Orlov.
And he's not on the list of bright people who they got together to come up with the response.
Funny that...
I'm glad I'm not a bright person. I lost my Pledge.
You're fine Meadow, at least you didn't lose your mind (something, I am sure, happens quite regularly to those bright people).
Found your Pledge it yet?
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