st poet since Masefield, and the best economist since John Stuart Mill. The interviewer looked startled. Was she talking instead to the successor of Don Quixote, Emperor Norton and Walter Mitty? Probably. But not to worry. Fantasies are good things. They don’t become delusions until we start believing them.

Sick Men of Europe” paper from February 2010 and “Don Quixote Thanksgiving” from November 2010 go into the grea

Sick Men of Europe” paper from February 2010 and “Don Quixote Thanksgiving” from November 2010 go into the grea

ies viewed remotely via CNN, or better, modelled via a computer simulation. The roles of the nobleman and artist found a convergence in the figure of Don Quixote, a fool who aspired to the chivalric codes he'd read about in antiquated texts. But this fantasy was a liberation; allowing him to contend with base

ed last year have been borne out, and are getting much worse (I spent the weekend reading legal documents on a Eurozone break-up, just in case). Like Don Quixote, Europe went on its journey for all the wrong reasons, adopting a half-pregnant monetary union to support a political objective that had arguably alr

Sick Men of Europe" paper from February 2010 and "Don Quixote Thanksgiving" from November 2010 go into the grea