I feel there's a great deal of over complicating going on. The kind of thing that is used to mystify and muddy the waters, rather than help people find things out.
In days gone by, story tellers used to change a situation or an idea into words that most people would be able to get their head round. It's something journalists should still do today, instead of, as so many do, become part of the problem.
I have written a story for you to cast your eyes over. Any similarities with situations or actual people are purely in your imagination.
Now, come with me while I take you to the magical land of the free, in a world far, far removed from this one....
Once upon a time, in a country far, far away, there was a stable boy and a knight. The stable boy wasn’t really a stable boy – he was quite a wealthy young man, but his family had been poor and when he’d been a child, he’d helped in the town stables. Luckily, he’d been a very clever and hard working lad, and his talent had been spotted. He’d worked hard to get a good education and had now made something of himself. He was now a well-known businessman in the town and had made a lot of money. Trouble was, an awful lot of other businessmen, and the people he mixed with, didn’t really like him, and didn’t want to spend too much time socially with him. They still couldn’t help remembering him as a stable boy. They couldn’t help remembering his family scraping a living in a pokey little cottage, his mum doing mending for the wealthier ladies in town and his dad picking anything that looked useful out of the piles of rubbish thrown out by the rich folk every day. They certainly wouldn’t want him marrying their daughters – no matter how much money he had. He was, after all, underneath all the fine clothes and impeccable manners, still a stable boy. But the stable boy had a big ambition. He’d fallen in love with a beautiful princess who lived in a small palace near the castle. She was everything a young man could hope for in a bride – beautiful, desirable and very well connected. If he could just marry her, that would give him the power to make changes that could benefit everyone in society – not just the businessmen. The stable boy reckoned that his background allowed him to see much more than just the beautifully tended gardens the businessmen looked out their windows on to. So he set out to woo her. And it was then he met the knight.
The knight was a whole different matter. He had come from a wealthy family and all his connections were blue ribbon. But in his youth he’d been a bit of a rebel. He’d rubbed some important people up the wrong way and had missed out on a lot of chances that he’d felt should have been rightfully his. He’d spared a dragon that everyone thought he should have killed and made a deal with it to go away instead. He’d done a bit too much carousing and had gotten a reputation for being an outsider. Now he was old, and he wanted, just maybe for the last time in his life, to achieve something really spectacular. He wanted to win the heart of the princess. So he’d spent the last few years really figuring out what the other businessmen wanted. He started behaving the way they liked to see people behave. He started to treat his servants badly and he even had little dragons that just ate grass put to death immediately so that everyone could see that he was right with them, in their camp and one of their own. The businessmen started to warm to the old knight. Sure he was cantankerous in his old age, he tended to throw things around when he got angry and he could be a bit unpredictable, but he’d learned the lessons well and they knew, that if push came to shove, he’d come out fighting for them. So they decided that, on this occasion, and only this one, he would be allowed to make play for the fair princess. But when he reached her palace he found the stable boy coming up the same road.
Quickly they both realised they had the same intention in mind – they both wanted the hand of that fair princess in marriage. And after a bit of shoving and ‘accidental bumping’ they both realised that they’d have to sort things out man to man.
They decided on a joust.
The knight was quite keen on the idea – he’d been good at jousting as a youngster and was fairly sure he could remember the techniques and how to stay aboard his horse.
The stable boy knew that, at some point in his life, he’d have to get in the ring and joust at some time, so he’d used some of the time he’d spent in the stable to practise jousting – and he was really quite good at it, which came as a bit of a surprise to the knight. For the whole day the two charged at each other, their lances striking blow after blow against the other’s shield, their horses tiring beneath them and neither of them seemingly able to strike the final blow.
Eventually their sturdy animals were too tired to go on, so the two rivals took to the ground and fought on foot. Shoulder to shoulder, sword against sword. Young against old. Money against knowledge.
By this time a crowd of townspeople had gathered to cheer them on, or to jeer as one missed his target or fell over his own foot in the heat of battle.
Even the princess woke up from her afternoon nap and started watching out of one of the windows high up on the turret she slept in. She’d been told by one of the ladies in waiting that if she stood on a chair and leaned so far out that you were in danger of falling out the window, that you might be able, on a sunny day, to see Alaska from there, but the princess thought that sounded like too much effort, and had never tried. She was MUCH more interested in what was going on outside at the moment.
Then the two fighters had an idea, and they turned to the baying crowd. Some were peasants, dressed in rags and barefoot. Some were townspeople, who looked after shops and small businesses. They were too small to appear on the big business radar, so they tended to get overlooked a bit. Some of the crowd were really anti-dragon, and they were rooting for the knight.
"You know us," they cried as one. "You’ve seen us fight. You’ve seen the way we deal with people, with problems and with each other. You’ve spent the day watching us in action. You decide who gets the princess."
Well, what are you going to do?