I’ve been musing on Parkinson’s Law. Not the famous one (“work expands to fill the time available”) but another from the same book: Parkinson’s Law of Triviality.  “The time spent on any item on the agenda will be in inverse proportion to the sum involved.”  (If you’re wondering what this has to do with high heels, fear not: we’ll get there in a moment.)

[image error]

Here it is in action, in a chapter called “High Finance”. A group of men – this was 1957, remember – meet to approve spending plans. The it...