NEXT month the great and good gather in New York for the UN's millennium summit, a grand affair that promises monumental tedium.
The World Economic Forum at the Swiss resort of Davos sees the great and the good and the not so good gather to discuss the burning issues of the day, and this year's theme is the fourth industrial revolution.
The Rules of the Game (Jean Renoir, 1939) Renoir's masterpiece is set in a stately pile where the great and good gather for a shoot, and where a fatal incident sets the cap on an incisive portrayal of people - both servants and guests - in all their contradictions.
But, with the great and the good gathered underneath Christopher Wren's world-famous domed roof, there was no sign of the party girl.
Investors shook off the weak UK economy, as evidenced by disappointing fourth quarter GDP figures, and news that the International Monetary Fund had cut its global growth forecasts as the great and the good gathered at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
The site is essentially an aggregated online version of conventional police auctions, which sell goods gathered by seizure, through legal forfeiture or as evidence in criminal cases.
Last month, Tom OKeefe of Hemet, Calif., was browsing Property Room (www.propertyroom.com), which auctions off lost, seized or stolen goods gathered by 30 law enforcement agencies, when he found a white Fernandes bass guitar described as "one HOT instrument!" Curious, he sent e-mail to the site, asking for more details.
There, the silver was used to purchase spices and trade goods gathered from throughout Asia, including (until 1638) goods from Japan.
Recalling this must strengthen our collective hand as resistance to the coalition government's savaging of the public good gathers momentum this autumn.
Second, the great and the good will gather at a London conference centre just feet away from the sombre hall where the victims who lived through Paddington last October are daily telling their raw tales.
Just when you think they are gone for good and gather the teddy bears, the little pillow and the tattered blankie and store them in that old trunk in the attic, one of them appears on the doorstep, ready to move back in -- with her boyfriend.
