I have long felt a close affinity with Shackleton. “The pair of you are soul brothers,” Nancy often says.

We share uncannily similar ideas on how to marshal the men in our care, though I would tend to me more personable with them, and the suggestion of a certain standoffishness in Shackleton’s personality did him little credit.

“Mister, mister,” the young boy began, eyes dancing in his head, “my father says Nancy is the brains of your operation, so he does. Is that true, sir?”

Oh how we laughed, Nancy and myself. Our annual trip to the schools of the parish for the It’s Noel What Knows, You Know question and answer sessions always stimulates the fun side of our well-rounded personalities.

Two questions follow me around. One is “outside of yourself, Noel, who was the hardest, wiriest, toughest, and stoutest of them all?”*
The other is: “Do you ever regret the hunger strike?”

“You’ve referenced a few books recently,” a reader writes, if you’ll excuse the apparent contradiction in terms, “and I’d like to hear more. What would you recommend for businesspeople to read in these trying times?”