2012 — 24 January: Tuesday
After midnight? Again? Already? How does that keep happening?1 It's chilly, it's late, I'm tired, and I'm off to the Land of Nod, if I can remember where it is.
Wouldn't want a surfeit2 of "Bones" now, would I? G'night.
This morning's rain..
... is currently proving that we chose the better day yesterday for our walk. Still, I remembered to place the "bottle crate" out in advance of the collectors. I feel somewhat inadequate, having only managed to quarter fill it in the last six months or so. I'll get over it. [Pause] I suspect the day is going to be spent with the hatches largely battened down, though there is no shortage of 'stuff' (accumulated or otherwise) that needs no shortage of attention.
The Pensioner's Lament: how did I ever have time to go to work?
Societies that reward...
... inappropriately simply get increasing opportunities to do so, surely?
... the press normally quotes only the not-so-basic pay. But the rest would be what Harvard law professor and corporate-governance expert Lucian Bebchuk calls "camouflage" compensation — that
is, payment expressly designed not to be noticed by the public and so not stir up outrage.
Some might look at that £5.85m and shrug that this is the price you pay for someone to turn around a failed bank. Bear in mind, though, that Hester is head of a public enterprise; in that sense his
excessive pay is a burden on the business. On average, Britons contribute £5,280 each3 in income tax every year: so effectively, 1,107 individuals worked
flat out for a year to pay for Hester.
Here's a fascinating paper by the good Professor Bebchuk and others. (PDF file.)
Goodness me; do you realise the timing of share option grants to senior executives is opportunistic? I'm shocked, I tell you, shocked, to learn that (rigged) gambling is going on. Still, I'm quite sure they all pay their taxes on time and in full.
The delivery, a few...
... minutes ago, of my own copy of the new book "The Aha! Moment" by David EH Jones reminds me that, when I popped over to Tom in Romsey last week to pick up the review copy Professor Jones had assigned to me, Tom also lent me his personally-signed copy of a somewhat different book that I now also have on order:
It's larger than A4, so I had to scan it in two chunks and recombine the images — a task made slightly more difficult by the fact that there's a miniature enamel sign of the title physically attached to the book, so it wasn't keen on the flatbed scanner's glass platen. I did the best I could. Last time I faced such an oversized book cover I used my Canon digital SLR but I lack the patience to sort out better than makeshift lighting.