Cabinet

Cabinet (pronounced kab-uh-nit)

(1) A piece of furniture with shelves, drawers etc, for holding or displaying items; a wall cupboard used for storage, as of kitchen utensils or toilet articles; a variety of fixed or movable receptacles for storing stuff.  Historic origin of the trade cabinetmaker (vis-à-vis carpenter) was that cabinets tended to require finer, more precise work.

(2) In the era of big-box televisions and LP records, a piece of furniture containing a turntable or television, usually standing on the floor and often including storage for twelve-inch vinyl records.

(3) An elected or appointed council advising a president, sovereign etc, especially the group of ministers or executives responsible for the government of a nation (often initial capital letter); In the US, an appointed advisory body to the president, consisting of the heads of the (currently) fifteen executive departments of the federal government (often initial capital letter).

(4) A small case with compartments for valuables or other small objects; a small chamber or booth for special use; a private room (obsolete); a room set aside for the exhibition of small works of art or objets d'art (historic and technical use only).

(5) A dry white wine produced in Germany from fully matured grapes without the addition of extra sugar; also called cabinet wine.

(6) A milk shake made with ice cream (mostly used in Rhode Island and southern Massachusetts, US).

(7) In architecture, a type of drafting, designating a method of projection (cabinet projection) in which a three-dimensional object is represented by a drawing (cabinet drawing) having all vertical and horizontal lines drawn to exact scale, with oblique lines reduced to about half scale so as to offset the appearance of distortion.

(8) In printing, a standard paper size, 6×4 inches (150×100mm) or 6½ x 4¼ inches (165×105mm), used for mounting photographs.

(9) In computing, an often compressed file, typically used in the distribution of installation software.  Originally, on compact discs (CD), they emulated the earlier distribution media of floppy diskettes.

1540–1550: The construct was cabin + -et.  From the Middle English cabinet (secret storehouse, treasure chamber; case for valuables), from the Middle French cabinet (small room), diminutive of the Old French cabane (cabin) or cabine (hut, room on a ship) of uncertain origin, but thought perhaps influenced by (or more likely from) the Italian gabinetto (toilet) (masculine, plural gabinetti), diminutive of gabbia, from the Latin cavea (stall, stoop, cage, den for animals).

The original meaning in English was "case for safe-keeping" (of papers, liquor, etc.), gradually shading to mean an actual static piece of furniture which fulfils the same function.  The sense of "a private room where advisers meet" emerged circa 1600 and from that is derived the modern meaning in a political context: "an executive council", a use noted first in the 1640s and thought short for “cabinet council” a phrase in use since the 1620s.  From that it evolved from “the place or room in which the group meets” to mean the group itself.  From the 1670s, it also meant "building or part of a building set aside for the conservation and study of natural specimens, art, antiquities etc."  The suffix –et was from the Middle English -et, from the Old French –et & its feminine variant -ette, from the Late Latin -ittus (and the other gender forms -itta & -ittum).  It was used to form diminutives, loosely construed.

Cabinet government

The cabinet in the sense of an executive body comprising some or all the ministers of a government was so named because, in England, their meetings with the monarch were conducted in a cabinet (in the sense of a small room), the first recorded reference to the institution being Francis Bacon’s mention of a “Cabinet council” in 1605.  Charles I attended "Cabinet Councils" from his accession in 1625 although it wasn’t until 1644 the body first described itself as a "cabinet".  A recognizably modern cabinet system, necessitated by the demands of war, was created between 1916-1918 by UK Prime Minister David Lloyd George (1863–1945; UK prime-minister 1916-1945) who established both a cabinet office and secretariat, this remaining the standard Westminster model, familiar in Australia as the Department of Prime-Minister & Cabinet (PM&C).  The modern slang, “kitchen cabinet” is a smaller group, not always a sub-set exclusively of the cabinet proper, which is ad-hoc and usually the creature of a prime-minister.  Caution needs to be taken also when reading historic documents.  Frederick the Great's father, Frederick William I (1688–1740) (King of Prussia & Elector of Brandenburg 1713-1740), described his system of administration as cabinet government (kabinettsregierung) but his rule was exclusive and autocratic and by “cabinet” he meant that all decisions emanated from the royal closet.  Frederick the Great (Frederick II (1712–1786) (King of Prussian 1740-1786)), no stranger to the closet, followed his father’s example.

Even where a cabinet in the modern sense does exist, cabinet government is an organic process and cannot always be understood by analyzing its structure; the mere existence of a cabinet not of necessity creating government by cabinet.  This is especially true of US governments where the influence of its appointed cabinet varies between and even within administrations but the spectrum exists also in Westminster-style arrangements.  Indeed, in both Australia and the UK, since the trend of “presidential” prime ministers became prevalent in the late post-war years, both parliaments and cabinets are sometimes marginalized, the former by the exercise of executive authority, the latter by the increasing role of advisors and the formation of “kitchen cabinets”.

Cabinet room, Reich Chancellery, Berlin, 1938.

An extreme example was the Third Reich’s cabinet (Die Reichsregierung (originally Reich Cabinet of National Salvation)) which existed between 1933-1945, the Nazis inheriting the cabinet structure from the Weimar Republic (1918-1933).  It wasn’t until the Nuremberg trial when the indictment included the Reich Cabinet as a criminal organization that it became understood the body had met only sporadically after 1934, last gathering on 5 February 1938; Hitler was a dictator who had no taste for cabinet government.  The judges thus held that no declaration of criminality should be made with respect to the Reich Cabinet because (1) after 1931 it had ceased to act as a group or organization and (2) because it comprised so few people they should, where appropriate, be tried as individuals.

Interestingly, despite not having met since 1938, as a bureaucratic institution, the establishments of the offices attached to the cabinet grew greatly after 1938.  In fairness, the demands of an administration in wartime are greater: Winston Churchill (1975-1965; UK prime minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) noted with some satisfaction the prime-minister's private office maintained a staff of five when he arrived at Downing Street in 1940 and had grown to over five-hundred at the time of his (un-expected) departure in 1945.  Even the five he found on arrival existed only because of the establishment by David Lloyd George (1863–1945; UK prime-minister 1916-1945) in 1917 of a small staff which no prime-minister had enjoyed since 1841 when Sir Robert Peel (1788–1850; UK prime-minister 1834–1835 & 1841–1846), upon becoming prime minister for a second time, delegated day-to-day oversight of the Treasury to the newly created post of chancellor of the exchequer.  In 1841, the prime-minister had left behind the office and administrative infrastructure of the treasury.  The residue of the old arrangement is that prime-ministers to this day, despite the structural reality, formerly are styled "Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury".

The authoritative Into the Gloss deconstructs Lindsay Lohan's bathroom cabinet.

Solidarity

Solidarity (pronounced sol-i-dar-i-tee)

(1) A state or feeling of union or fellowship arising from common responsibilities and interests, as between members of a group or between classes, peoples etc.

(2) A community of feelings, purposes etc; a unity of interests.

(3) In the Westminster political system, as cabinet solidarity, a principle in representative & responsible government whereby all members of the cabinet are required either publicly to support all decisions of cabinet or resign from the body.

(4) In inter-personal relations, a willingness to provide support of various kinds when another person is in need.

(5) A communist era Polish organization of independent trade unions founded in 1980 (solidarność (pronounced saw-lee-dahr-nawshch) in the Polish)).  It was in 1982 outlawed by the government of Poland before being made lawful and going on to form the basis of the non-communist government in 1989.

1829: The construct was the English solidary +‎ -ity, from the French solidarité (solidarity; communion of interests and responsibilities, mutual responsibility), from solidaire (characterized by solidarity), from the Latin solidum (whole sum), neuter of solidus (solid).  The French solidarité was coined by and first appeared in the Encyclopédie (1765) and was from solidaire (interdependent, complete, entire) from solide.  Capitalized, it was ultimately from the French form the independent trade union movement in Poland gained its name.  The –ity suffix was from the French -ité, from the Middle French -ité, from the Old French –ete & -eteit (-ity), from the Latin -itātem, from -itās, from the primitive Indo-European suffix –it.  It was cognate with the Gothic –iþa (-th), the Old High German -ida (-th) and the Old English -þo, -þu & -þ (-th).  It was used to form nouns from adjectives (especially abstract nouns), thus most often associated with nouns referring to the state, property, or quality of conforming to the adjective's description.  Solidarity is a noun, solid is a noun, adjective & adverb and solidarize & solidary are verbs; the noun, plural is solidarities.

Flag of Solidarność.

The Solidarity labor union was formed in Poland in September 1980 and was independent of both the state and the Polish Communist party.  Under the leadership of dockyard electrician Lech Wałęsa (b 1943; Polish dissident trade union leader, President of Poland 1990-1995), it came into existence at a time when the communist authorities in both Warsaw and Moscow had become more reticent in their internal suppression and by the early 1980s its membership was in the millions.  Eventually banned by the government in 1982, as an underground movement it continued to pursue the need for industrial and democratic reform and was a factor in the fall of communism in Poland.  Although Wałęsa won both the Nobel Peace prize (1983) and the presidency of his country, (1990-1995), by the end of the century, Solidarity’s historic moment had passed.

Looking their best: Arthur Sinodinos presenting to President Trump his credentials as Australia's ambassador to the US, the White House, Washington DC, February 2020.

In Australia, royal commissions are public investigations, established by but independent of government.  Not a court, royal commissions are created to enquire into matters of importance and, within their terms of reference, have broad powers to conduct public & in camera hearings and can call witnesses, compelling them (under oath) to provide testimony and they deliver recommendations to government about what should be done, consequent upon their findings.  These can include recommendations for legislative or administrative changes and the prosecution of institutions or individuals and they’re of great interest because they appear to be the only institution (at least theoretically) able to compel a politician to tell the truth.  Even that power is limited though because when appearing before royal commissions, politicians seem especially prone to suffering an onset of Sinodinos syndrome, a distressing condition which compels witnesses frequently to utter phrases like “I can’t remember”, “I don’t recall”, “not in my recollection” etc.  The condition is named after Arthur Sinodinos (b 1957; Australian Liberal Party functionary; senator for New South Wales 2011-2019) who, according to legal legend, while being questioned by an enquiry, set a record for the frequency with which the distressing condition manifested.  Happily, Mr Sinodinos' symptoms weren't thought serious by the Liberal Party government which in early 2020 appointed him Australia's ambassador to the United States. 

Looking his best: Eight photographs of Stuart Robert.

A royal commission is currently enquiring into matters associated with the “robodebt” affair which was an attempt by the previous government to use unlawful methods to calculate what it alleged were debts to the Commonwealth, owed by some who had in the past been in receipt of some sort of benefit, pension or welfare payment.  The commission is, inter alia, seeking to work out the usual “who knew what when” in relation to the unlawful conduct and so far, witnesses have provided contradictory evidence so it will be a matter for the commission to decide which sworn statements seem most compelling.  The appearance of one of the ministers responsible for robodebt, Stuart Robert (b 1970; minister in various portfolios in National-Liberal Party coalition governments 2013-2022) was anticipated more eagerly than most and he didn’t disappoint anyone hoping to see the odd symptom of Sinodinos syndrome, some of his answers among the contradictory responses through which the commission will have to sift.  If need be, the commissioner can recall Mr Robert if any clarifications are needed and there will be some looking forward to that.

Of interest also were Mr Robert’s thoughts on what is meant by “cabinet solidarity” which in the Westminster political system is a one of the principles of representative & responsible government whereby all members of the cabinet are required publicly to support all decisions of cabinet or else resign from the body.  The matter of cabinet solidarity arose after Mr Robert admitted to the commissioner that he publicly defended robodebt despite his own “personal misgivings” and further admitted that during 2019 he made several comments on the scheme he personally believed were false.

Asked several times by the commissioner why he had made comments which he believed at the time were false, Mr Robert told the commissioner he had done so because he was “bound by cabinet solidarity” and “as a dutiful cabinet minister…that’s what we do”.  When the commissioner asked if this meant he was bound by cabinet solidarity to “misrepresent things to the Australian public?”, he replied he wouldn’t “put it that way”.  It seems a generous interpretation to suggest Mr Robert may “misunderstand” what “cabinet solidarity” means but it may be with that degree of delicacy the commissioner chooses to comment on the matter in her final report.  What “cabinet solidarity” really means is that members of the cabinet are required publicly to defend the decision of cabinet even if they disagree with them.  If the disagreement is to an individual a matter of such significance they feel compelled publicly to oppose the decision, then they must resign from cabinet to be free to do so.  It has nothing to do with providing some cloak of cover to enable a cabinet minister to make statements representing something he believes to be false as truth and the system as it’s operated in Australia is actually quite flexible.  Some years ago it was arranged for a minister to resign from cabinet yet remain a minister in the “outer ministry”.  That trick enabled (1) the decision to stand, (2) the minister to keep a higher salary and lots of perks and (3) the “resignation” to be spun as a matter of principle although it was just a way to try to minimize the loss of votes in a particular electorate.

Looking her best: Lindsay Lohan with ankle braclet.

In July 2010, US Customs and Border Protection officers stationed on the Canadian border reported an ankle surveillance bracelet was being worn by Eugene Todie (b 1981) who was being questioned after attempting to re-enter the US using someone else's passport.  The report revealed Mr Todie claimed a friend in the probation service had given him the monitor, pursuant to his request for a way he could “show solidarity” with Lindsay Lohan, then wearing a court-ordered alcohol monitor on her ankle.  Record checks showed Mr Todie, a resident of Buffalo, New York, was on probation for criminal contempt, had surrendered his own passport after being banned from leaving the US and was wearing the bracelet by court order.  Mr Todie was remanded in custody and later appeared in Federal Court on charges including misuse of a passport.

Concord & Concorde

Concord or Concorde (pronounced kon-kawrd)

(1) Agreement between persons, groups, nations, etc.; concurrence in attitudes, feelings, etc; unanimity; accord; agreement between things; mutual fitness; harmony.

(2) In formal grammar, a technical rule about the agreement of words with one another (case, gender, number or person).

(3) A treaty; compact; covenant.

(4) In music, a stable, harmonious combination of tones; a chord requiring no resolution.

(5) As concordat, under Roman-Catholic canon law, a convention between the Holy See and a sovereign state that defines the relationship between the Church and the state in matters that concern both.

(6) In law, an agreement between the parties regarding land title in reference to the manner in which it should pass, being an acknowledgment that the land in question belonged to the complainant (obsolete).

(7) A popular name for locality, commercial operations and products such as ships, cars etc.

(8) In horticulture, a variety of sweet American grape, named circa 1853 after Concord, Massachusetts, where the variety was developed.

1250-1300: From the Middle English and twelfth century Old French concorde (harmony, agreement, treaty) & concorder, from the Latin concordare & concordia, (harmonious), from concors (of the same mine; being in agreement with) (genitive concordis (of the same mind, literally “hearts together”)).  The construct was an assimilated form of com (con-) (with; together) + cor (genitive cordis (heart) from the primitive Indo-European root kerd (heart)).  The "a compact or agreement" in the sense of something formal (usually in writing) dates from the late fifteenth century, an extension of use from the late fourteenth century transitive verb which carried the sense "reconcile, bring into harmony".  From circa 1400 it had been understood to mean "agree, cooperate, thus a transfer of sense from the Old French & Latin forms.  Concorde was the French spelling which eventually was adopted also by the British for the supersonic airliner after some years of linguistic squabble.  Concord is a noun & verb, concordance & concordat are nouns, concorded & concording are verbs and concordial & concordant are adjectives; the noun plural is concords.

The Concorde and other SSTs

Promotional rendering of Concorde in British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) livery.  BOAC was the UK's national carrier between 1940-1974 when merged with British European Airways (BEA) to form British Airways (BA).

Concorde was an Anglo-French supersonic airliner that first flew in 1969 and operated commercially between 1976-2003.  It had a maximum speed over twice the speed of sound (Mach 2.04; 1,354 mph (2,180 km/h)) and seated 92-128 passengers.  Man breaking the sound barrier actually wasn’t modern; the cracking of a whip, known for thousands of years, is the tip passing through the sound barrier and engineers were well aware of the problems caused by propellers travelling that fast but it wasn’t until 1947 that a manned aircraft exceeded Mach 1 in controlled flight (although it had been achieved in deep dives though not without structural damage).  The military were of course immediately interested but so were those who built commercial airliners, intrigued at the notion of transporting passengers at supersonic speed, effectively shrinking the planet.  By the late 1950s, still recovering from the damage and costs of two world wars, France and the UK were never going to be in a position to be major players in the space-race which would play-out between the US and USSR but civil aviation did offer possibilities for both nations to return to the forefront of the industry.  France, in the early days of flight had been the preeminent power (a legacy of that being words like fuselage and aileron) and UK almost gained an early lead in passenger jets but the debacle of the de Havilland Comet (1949) had seen the Boeing 707 (1957) assume dominance.  The supersonic race was thought to be the next horizon and the UK’s Supersonic Transport Aircraft Committee (STAC) was in 1956 commissioned with the development of a Supersonic Transport (SST) for commercial use.

The committee’s early research soon established it was going to be an expensive undertaking so the UK sought partners; the US declined but in 1962 the UK and France signed the Anglo-French Concorde agreement, a framework for cooperation in the building of the one SST.  The choice of name actually came some months after the engineering concord was signed, the manufacturers submitting to the UK cabinet the names Concord and Concorde, it being thought desirable to have something which sounded and meant the same in both languages (the French had already agreed it shouldn’t be called the Super-Caravelle the project name for a smaller SST on which some work had been done in 1960).  The other suggestions put to cabinet were Alliance or Europa.  In the cabinet discussions in London, Alliance was thought to be "too military" and Europa offended those Tories who still hankered for the "splendid isolation" which had been the British view on European matters in the previous century.  Even in the nineteenth century age of Pax Britannica splendid isolation had been somewhat illusory but in the Tory Party the words still exerted a powerful pull.  

Concorde 001 roll-out, Toulouse Blagnac airport, 11 December 1967.

There is some dispute about whether the cabinet ever formally agreed to use the French spelling but, like much in English-French relations over the centuries, the entente proved not always cordial and the name was officially changed to Concord by UK Prime Minister Harold Macmillan (later First Earl Stockton, 1894–1986; UK prime-minister 1957-1963) in response to him feeling slighted by Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970; President of France 1958-1969) when Le President vetoed the UK’s application to join the European Economic Community (the EEC which evolved into the present Day EU of which the UK was a member between 1973-2020).  However, the Labour party won office in the 1964 general election and by the time of the roll-out in Toulouse in 1967, the UK’s Minister for Technology, Tony Benn (Anthony Wedgwood Benn, 1925–2014, formerly the second Viscount Stansgate) announced he was changing the spelling back to Concorde.  There were not many eurosceptics in the (old) Labour Party back then.

Concorde taking off, 1973 Paris Air Show, the doomed Tupolev Tu-144 is in the foreground.

The engineering challenges were overcome and in 1969, some months before the moon landing, Concorde made its maiden flight and, in 1973, a successful demonstration flight was performed at the same Paris air show at which its Soviet competitor Tupolev Tu-144 crashed.  Impressed, more than a dozen airlines placed orders but within months of the Paris show, the first oil shock hit and the world entered a severe recession; the long post-war boom was over.  A quadrupling in the oil price was quite a blow for a machine which burned 20% more fuel per mile than a Boeing 747 yet typically carried only a hundred passengers whereas the Jumbo could be configured for between four and five hundred.  That might still have been viable had have oil prices remained low and a mass-market existed of people willing to pay a premium but with jet fuel suddenly expensive and the world in recession, doubts existed and most orders were immediately cancelled.

Eventually, only twenty were built, operated only by BOAC (BEA/BA) and Air France, early hopes of mass-production never materialized; while orders were taken for over a hundred with dozens more optioned, the contracts were soon cancelled.  By 1976 only four nations remained as prospective buyers: Britain, France, China, and Iran; the latter two never took up their orders and by the time Concorde entered service, the US had cancelled their supersonic project and the Soviet programme was soon to follow.  Even without the oil shocks of the 1970s and the more compelling economics of wide-bodied airliners like the Boeing 747, there were problems, the noise of the sonic boom as the speed of sound was exceeded meaning it was impossible to secure agreement for it to operate over land at supersonic speed.  Accordingly, most of its time was spent overflying the Atlantic and Pacific and BA and Air France sometimes made profit from Concorde only because the British and French governments wrote off the development costs.  Concorde was an extraordinary technical achievement but existed only because the post-war years in the UK and France were characterised by national projects undertaken by nationalised industries.  Under orthodox modern (post Reagan cum Thatcher) economics, such a thing could never happen. 

On 25 July 2000, Air France Flight 4590, bound for New York, crashed on take-off out of Paris, killing all one-hundred and nine souls on board and four on the ground. It was the only fatal accident involving Concorde, the cause determined to be debris on the runway which entered an engine, causing catastrophic damage.  In April 2003, both Air France and British Airways announced that they would retire Concorde later that year citing low passenger numbers following the crash, the slump in air travel following the 9/11 attacks and rising maintenance costs.

Lindsay Lohan in The Parent Trap (1998)

Fictional works are usually constructed cognizant of physical reality and technological innovations have always influenced what's possible in plot-lines.  The cell phone for example offered many possibilities but also rendered some situations either impossible or improbable (although Hollywood has sometimes found either of those no obstacle in a screenplay).  The retirement of Concorde also had to be noted.  Not only had it long been used as a symbol of wealth but there was also the speed so plot-lines which included the relativities of the duration of commercial supersonic versus subsonic trans-Atlantic travel were suddenly no loner possible.  Lindsay Lohan's line in The Parent Trap (1998) since 2003 (and for the foreseeable future) is a relic of the Concorde era.     

Tupolev Tu-144 (NATO reporting name: Charger).

The Tu-144 was the USSR’s SST and it was the first to fly, its maiden flight in 1968 some months before Concorde and sixteen were built.  It was also usually ahead of the Anglo-French development, attaining supersonic speed twelve weeks earlier and entering commercial service in 1975 but safety and reliability concerns doomed the project and its reputation never recovered from the 1973 crash.  The Soviet carrier Aeroflot introduced a regular Moscow-Almaty service but only a few dozen flights were ever completed, the Tu-144 withdrawn after a second crash in 1978 after which it was used only for cargo until 1983 when the remaining fleet was grounded.  It was later used to train Soviet cosmonauts and had a curious post-cold war career when chartered by NASA for high-altitude research.  The final flight was in 1999.

Boeing 2707.

While perfecting supersonic military aircraft during the early 1950s, Americans had explored the idea of SSTs as passenger aircraft and had concluded that while it was technically possible, in economic terms such a thing could never be made to work and that four-engined jets like the Boeing 707 and Douglas DC8 were the future of commercial aviation.  However, the announcement of the development of Concorde and the Soviet SST stirred the Kennedy White House into funding what was essentially a vanity project proving the technical superiority of US science and engineering.  Boeing won the competition to design an SST and, despite also working on the 747 and the space programme, it gained a high priority and the 2707 was projected to be the biggest, fastest and most advanced of all the SSTs, seating up to three-hundred, cruising at Mach 3 and configured with a swing-wing.  Cost, complexity and weight doomed that last feature and the design was revised to use a conventional delta shape.  But, however advanced US engineering and science might have been, US accountancy was better still and what was clearly an financially unviable programme was in 1971 cancelled even before the two prototypes had been completed.

Lockheed L-2000.

Lockheed also entered the government-funded competition to design a US SST.  Similar to the Boeing concept in size, speed and duration, it eschewed the swing-wing because, despite the aerodynamic advantages, the engineers concluded what Boeing would eventually admit: that the weight, cost and complexity acceptable in military airframes, couldn’t be justified in a civilian aircraft.  As the military-industrial complex well knew, the Pentagon was always more sanguine about spending other people's money (OPM) than those people were about parting with their own.  Lockheed instead used a slightly different compromise: the compound delta.  After the competition, Boeing and Lockheed were both selected to continue to the prototype stage but in 1966 Boeing’s swing-wing design was preferred because its performance was in most aspects superior and it was quieter; that it was going to be more expensive to produce wasn’t enough to sway the government, things being different in the 1960s.  Reality finally bit in 1971.

Depiction of a Boom Overture.

In mid-2021 US airline United announced plans to acquire a fleet of fifteen new supersonic airliners which they expected to be in service by 2029.  It wasn’t clear from the press release what was the most ambitious aspect of the programme: (1) that the Colorado company called Boom, which has yet to achieve supersonic flight, would be able to produce even one machine by 2029, (2) that the aircraft can be delivered close to the budgeted US$200 million unit cost, (3) that what United describe as “improvements in aircraft design since Concorde” will reduce and mitigate the sonic boom, (4) that it won’t be “any louder than other modern passenger jets while taking off, flying over land and landing”, (5) that sufficient passengers will be prepared to pay a premium to fly at Mach 1.7 in a new and unproven airframe built by a company with no record in the industry or that (6) Greta Thunberg (b 2003) will believe Boom which says Overture will operate as a "net-zero carbon aircraft".

Unlikely to approve: Greta Thunberg.

The suggestion is the Overture will run on "posh biodiesel" made from anything from waste cooking fat to specially grown high-energy crops although whether this industry can by 2029 be scaled-up to produce what’s required to service enough of the aviation industry to make either project viable isn’t clear.  Still, if not, Boom claims "power-to-liquid" processes by which renewable energy such as solar or wind power is used to produce liquid fuel will make up any shortfall.  Boom does seem a heroic operation: they expect the Overture to be profitable for airlines even if tickets are sold for the same price as a standard business-class ticket.  One way or another, the path the Boom Overture follows over the next few years is going to become a standard case-study in university departments although whether that's in marketing, engineering or accountancy might depend matters beyond Boom's control.

Camarilla

Camarilla (pronounced kam-uh-ril-uh or kah-mah-ree-lyah (Spanish))

(1) A group of unofficial or private advisers to a person of authority, especially a group much given to intrigues and secret plots; cabal; a clique.

(2) The confidential advisers to the Spanish kings.

(3) By extension, an unelected individual in a position of influence in government.

1830-1840: From the Spanish camarilla, the construct being cámara (chamber; room) + -illa, the diminutive Latin suffix.  The Spanish cámara was from the Old Spanish camara, from the Vulgar Latin camara, from the Classical Latin camera (a vaulted building; arched roof or ceiling), from the Ancient Greek καμάρα (kamára) (something with an arched cover, a vaulted chamber).  A doublet of cambra, the Latin was the source also of the Italian camera, the French chamber, the Old Church Slavonic komora, the Lithuanian kamara and the Old Irish camra.  The suffix -illa was an inflection of -illus (nominative/vocative feminine singular & nomminative/accusative/vocative neuter plural).  The suffix -illā was the ablative feminine singular of -illus, itself a misinterpretation of the diminutive suffix -lus on such nouns as sigillum (signum + -lus) and used freely.  It was used to form adjectives from nouns.  Literally translated from Spanish it means “little room” and, in English, the origins of the cabinet, the “kitchen cabinet” and Privy Council are not dissimilar.  Outside of the formal workings of the Spanish court, word tends to be used with suggestions of something secret, sinister and conspiratorial and from this Modern English picked up cabal.  In Italian, camarille is the plural of Camarilla, a feminine proper name, from the Latin, feminine of Camillus, cognomen of several members of the gens Furia, from camillus (noble youth attending at sacrifices), possibly from Etruscan.

Camarilla of renown

Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) & Martin Bormann (1900–1945), the Berghof Terrace (1942).

Bormann attached himself to the Nazi Party in the 1920s and proved diligent and industrious, rewarded in 1933 by being appointed chief of staff in the office of Rudolf Hess (1894–1987; Nazi Deputy Führer 1933-1941) where he first built his power base.  After Hess made his bizarre flight in 1941, Hitler abolished the post of Deputy Führer, assigning his offices to Bormann and styling him Head of the Parteikanzlei (Party Chancellery), a position of extraordinary influence, strengthened further when in 1943 he was appointed Personal Secretary to the Führer, a title he exploited to allow him to act as a kind of viceroy, exercising power in Hitler’s name.  Known within the party as the “Brown Eminence” (an allusion to an éminence grise (literally “grey eminence”) one who exercises power “behind the scenes” and the brown Nazi Party uniform), he maintained his authority by controlling access to Hitler to whom his efficiency and dutifulness proved invaluable.  He committed suicide while trying to make his escape from Berlin in 1945.

Sir John Gorton (1911-2002; Australian prime-minister 1968-1971) & Ainsley Gotto (1946–2018), Melbourne, Australia, 1970.

Aged 21, the picturesque Ainsley Gotto was appointed personal private secretary to the prime-minister, something which raised eyebrows at the time though had it been reported (the press then more restrained in their intrusions into people’s private lives), that she was at the time having an affair with the leader of the opposition’s chief of staff, that would have been a sensation.  Gorton was less conventional than his predecessors and made no secret of his fondness of sometimes having a drink with younger women so unsubstantiated rumors of course followed.  Also alleged was that she exercised undue influence, one sacked minister blaming his demise on: “It wiggles, it's shapely and its name is Ainsley Gotto.”

Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR, 1882–1945, US president 1933-1945) & Harry Hopkins (1890–1946), Washington DC, 1941.

Harry Hopkins held a number of appointments in the Roosevelt administration (including at cabinet level) between 1933-1940 before being attached to the White House staff as the president’s personal advisor, especially in the key aspect of managing the US contribution to the British war effort at a time when the country was a non-belligerent and a substantial part of public and political opinion favoured maintaining neutrality.  After the attack on Pearl Harbor, his role in foreign affairs became more overt and he functioned essentially as Roosevelt’s personal emissary to both London and Moscow.  His influence waned in the later days of the war as US preponderance in military matters in the Pacific & Atlantic theatres and the supply of materiel to the Soviet Union meant political negotiations moved to the background.  Additionally, his health was failing and he died within a year of the end of the war.  In the post-war years he was criticized for being at least naïve in his estimation of Stalin's intentions and the very nature of the Soviet state but that was something which could be said of many at the time, including Roosevelt.

Boris Johnson (b 1964; UK prime-minister 2019-2022) & Dominic Cummings (b 1971), London, 2019.

Although he had for years been circulating in populist right-wing politics, Dominic Cummings really came to nation attention for his role in supporting a yes vote in the Brexit referendum (2016) which led to the UK leaving the European Union (EU).  One reward for this success was being appointed chief adviser to Prime Minister Boris Johnson upon his assumption of the premiership.  Johnson would have had his reasons but it’s suspected Cummins rather though the prime-minister might prove “the empty vase into which I poured water” as Spike Milligan (1918-2002) once said of Peter Sellers (1925-1980).  Things didn’t quite work out like that although sections of the press were never subtle in ascribing a to disproportionate influence which some hinted verged on the improper.  In the end it was not constitutional impropriety but denials and cover-ups over COVID-19 related lockdown transgression which saw his role in government sundered.  He wasn’t the first camarilla to have squandered the extraordinary possibilities offered by occupying a position of power without responsibility.

George W Bush (George XLIII, b 1946; US president 2001-2009) & Karl Rove (b 1950), Washington DC, 2007.

Coming out of the roughhouse of Texas politics, Karl Rove was described usually as a political strategist but his range was extraordinary, encompassing everything from data miner & analyst to campaign manager and media handler.  He masterminded a slew of Republican victories in Texas and beyond but is most associated with George W Bush’s gubernatorial and presidential successes.  Bush was generous in naming Rove the “architect” of these victories but in private also bestowed the most illustrious of all Texan terms of endearment: "Turd Blossom".  Although serving as White House Deputy Chief of Staff (2005-2007), the essence of his role was as Senior Advisor to the President and during these years he came to be described as “W’s brain”.  Historians mostly haven’t yet gone that far but do acknowledge his success in mobilizing the reticent Republicans and evangelicals and others to emerge from their basements and vote in 2004, narrowly gaining Bush his second term.

Tony Abbott (b 1957; Australian prime-minister 2013-2015) and Peta Credlin (b 1971), Canberra, Australia, 2014.

Peta Credlin drew interest when employed as Chief of Staff to Tony Abbott as leader of the opposition but was a lightning rod when she fulfilled the role when he was prime-minister.  Anyone who doubts misogyny exists in politics can’t have been paying attention to the treatment Ms Credlin endured, the rumors of affair between her and Abbott utterly unsupported by even a scintilla of evidence.  It was wasted effort really because her reactionary politics of hatred, division and dog-whistling surely offered sufficient scope for critics of her brand of shark-feeding populism.  The office however probably constrained her a bit because in her new role as a commentator on the Murdoch-run Sky News, there’s much more latitude, the business model to say something outrageous or in some way actionable, enjoy the reaction and then issue an apology, if need be accompanied by an out-of-court settlement.  Still, she did come up with one really good line: Her labelling of Malcolm Turnbull (b 1954; Australian prime-minister 2015-2018) as “Mr harborside mansion” was better than anything a man could think of so there’s that.

Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924; US president 1913-1921) & Colonel Edward House (1858–1938), New York, 1916.

Colonel (a non-military, honorary title) House was President Wilson’s closest advisor between 1914-1948 and despite lacking a background in European affairs, was the senior US diplomat at the Paris Peace Conference (1919).  Disappointed and feeling deceived by some of the decisions taken at Paris and agreed to in his absence by House, Wilson broke with him; after returning to the US, they would never meet again.  To his dying day House believed his estrangement from the president was engineered at least in part by the second Mrs Wilson.

Woolsack

Woolsack (pronounced woo l-sak)

(1) A sack intended to carry wool (sometimes wool-sack).

(2) The speaker’s chair in the House of Lords, one of a number of cloth-covered seats or divans, stuffed with wool, once used also by law lords, but best known as the seat of the Lord Chancellor and now the Lord Speaker.

(3) A reference to the historic Lord Chancellor's office.

(4) The historic name for the modern Australian wool bale.

1250-1300: Middle English compound word wool + sack.  Wool came from the Middle English wolle, from Old English wull, from Proto-Germanic wullō (cognate with the Saterland Frisian wulle, the Low German wull, the Dutch wol, German wolle and Norwegian ull.  All are thought derived from the primitive hwĺ̥hneh, thought also to have influenced the Welsh gwlân, the Latin lāna, the Lithuanian vìlna, the Russian во́лос (vólos), the Balau влас and the Albanian lesh.  All meant variously “wool, hair, fleece”.

Sack was from the Middle English sak (bag, sackcloth) from the Old English sacc (sack, bag) and sæcc (sackcloth, sacking), both from the Proto-Germanic sakkuz (sack), from the Classical Latin saccus (large bag), derived from the Ancient Greek σάκκος ((sákkos (bag of coarse cloth)).  Ultimate source is though Semitic, possibly Phoenician.  Word was cognate with the Dutch zak, the German Sack, the Swedish säck, the Hebrew שַׂק‎ ((śaq, sack, sackcloth)), the Aramaic סַקָּא‎, the Classical Syriac ܣܩܐ‎, Ge'ez ሠቅ (śäḳ), the Akkadian saqqu and the Egyptian sꜣgꜣ (to gather together).  There are sack factions among the etymologists.  Some suggest sack was originally Egyptian, a nominal derivative of sꜣq that also yielded the Coptic sok and made its way into Greek by way of a Semitic intermediary.  Others reject this view on the technical grounds that an originally Egyptian word would be expected to yield the Hebrew סַק rather than שַׂק (only they understand this stuff).  This faction posits the Coptic and Greek words are both borrowings from Semitic, with the Coptic word perhaps developing via Egyptian sꜣgꜣ.

The Horsesack

The Woolsack is the seat of the Lord Speaker in the House of Lords, the UK’s upper house although until the constitutional reforms of the twenty-first century, that was the role of the lord chancellor, an office dating at least from the Norman Conquest though references to the title appear as early as 605.  The New Labour government attempted in 2003 to abolish the office but a review determined it couldn’t be done without an act of Parliament and that was a distraction the government at the time preferred not to inflict on itself.  Instead, enabling legislation providing for the creation of the office of Lord Speaker and a redefinition of the role of lord chancellor was drafted in 2004 and, after a few squabbles, received royal assent a year later with the structural changes effected by 2006.

The Lord Chancellor (once styled as Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain) is in the UK’s order of precedence, the highest-ranking among the extant Great Officers of State, out-ranked only by certain royal personages and the Archbishop of Canterbury.  A lord chancellor is appointed by the sovereign on the advice of the prime-minister and before the acts of union which made them constituent parts of Great Britain, there were separate lord chancellors for the Kingdom of England (including the Principality of Wales) and the Kingdom of Scotland, the office of Lord Chancellor of Ireland disestablished in 1922, consequent upon the Anglo-Irish Treaty (1921) which granted Ireland a considerable autonomy which in the years to come would evolve into independence.  That the office of Lord Chancellor for Ireland existed as early as the twelfth century seems certain but whether this was something distinct from the English office is unclear and the oldest surviving records which verify a separate Irish office date from the thirteenth century.  For centuries the Irish appointee was a clergyman, usually English and while lay chancellors tended to be the rule after the Reformation (no cleric appointed after 1665), Irish-born appointments were rare before the mid-nineteenth century.

Emulated woolsack: A pregnant Lindsay Lohan in Sandro Ona sack dress, April 2023.  Historically, crocheted garments were fashioned from wool but the outer fabric of Sandro's Ono was 100% cotton (the lining 62% viscose & 38% polyamide) illustrating what's possible with modern techniques.

Today, as minister for justice, the Lord Chancellor sits in cabinet and is responsible for the administration and independence of the courts.  In this detail things differ from the Australian practice because in the UK, both the attorney-general and solicitor-general sit in parliament, although, by modern convention, the former now does not attend cabinet except when summoned to provide advice.  New Labour’s constitutional changes not only moved the roll of presiding over the Lords to the newly-created lord speaker but also ended the lord chancellor’s roll as head of the judiciary in England and Wales and presiding judge of the Chancery Division of the High Court, these duties assumed respectively by the lord chief justice and the chancellor of the High Court.  The rationale of the changes in 2005 was to give constitutional effect to the separation of powers (in the British context a division between the legislature & executive (which passes and administers the laws) and the judiciary (which interprets and enforces the laws).  In practice, the distinction had for many years been observed but structurally, it looked very murky, the lord chancellor as a cabinet member belonging to (1) the executive, on the Woolsack as presiding officer in the Lords belonging to (2) the legislature and as a judge in the chancery division, belonging to (3) the judiciary, ruling on laws he or she had earlier participated in passing.

It was the fourteenth century Edward III (1312–1377; King of England 1327-1377) who commanded his Lord Chancellor, when in council, should sit on the wool bale which became known as The Woolsack, the king wishing to draw attention to the crucial importance of the wool trade to the economy of medieval England.  In 1938, to symbolize imperial unity, the Lords directed the Woolsack be re-stuffed with wool from throughout the empire at which point it was discovered the Woolsack was actually stuffed with horsehair.  Even when re-stuffed, because of the construction, some horsehair had to be added to ensure structural integrity, the Lord Chancellor, (Quintin Hogg, second Lord Hailsham, 1907–2001; first entered parliament in 1938, Lord Chancellor 1970-1974 & 1979–1987), noting in 1986 that “wise Victorian ancestors” were responsible for the substitution.