Participatory and Non-Propositional Wisdom in Essex

Over the past several years we have encountered and obliterated several movements against our property by individuals and institutions (and have recounted these tales in speeches to various business forums!)

They always fail on three grounds: logos, ethos and pathos.

Logos: We were first with our (re)discoveries in the contemporary age. Were these discovered things really facts of the past? This is something that will always be debated, as the past is knowable only by the scraps it leaves behind. However, if we are not good historians, that would make us some of the greatest thinkers ever known, having synthesised the cultural textile that now stands before us from unpreprepared thread. We think ourselves entitled to the more modest glory, but have no objections to being elevated to the greater.

Ethos: Do people really think they can take on a man whose veins carried blood that sailed at Trafalgar and shot arrows at Agincourt?

Pathos: The discoveries we have made point towards a harmony whose sanctity would evaporate with theft, so those who seek to deprive us of the fruits of our labours would see the glittering treasure turn to sand in their hands when they step outside the temple. The treasure they covet is the virtue that must see us honoured.

All these things being true, I decided to feel (rather than cogitate) my connection to one of the parts of the research that is my lone work — Wenn’s Construction. This is the mathematical figure that when applied to an octahedron produces a rhombic dodecahedron in the same way that Syrett’s Construction (the basis of the Coronation Pavement in Westminster Abbey) does on a cube. Today I achieved this personal meditation in a way that honours the thousand years of service in the navy my family undertook, through a tattoo. (There were two other tattoos, which are ‘amicis et mihi’, and will remain mysterious to you, reader).

Afterwards, I honoured another part of my patrimony. Being one quarter Londoner I went with James Syrett (half Cockney himself) to breakfast my new tattoos with hot and jellied eels, pie and mash. What more fitting way could there be for the discoverers of the relics of the Patron Saint of London to dine in style? (Although if Mansion House is reading today, we do also love a good roast…)

Wishing all our fans, followers and supporters a very prosperous and connected New Calendar Year, and as much success with your new year’s resolutions as I have had with mine.