Comments on: Wall Street

By: john

john — Fri, 22 Aug 2003 02:34:56 +0000

The biggest problem with the movie is at the end, they bring Bud out of his office in cuffs with the SEC and postal inspectors in full view, and Gekko (Mr “Information is the most valuable commodity”) apparently hasn’t heard about it, when he goes to meet him in the park and starts rattling off all the deals he illegally made.

By: nick sweeney

nick sweeney — Thu, 24 Jul 2003 12:51:25 +0000

the crown isn’t handing out many baronetcies any more; they did give someone a baronetcy some years back, and it caused a minor kerfuffle of comments. That would be Denis Thatcher, who, having passed on to the great gin palace in the sky, leaves his title to, um, Sir Mark Thatcher, Bt. (A good friend’s father is a baronet, of a line that goes back several centuries: she’s rather sad that his title will pass on to an ‘idiot second cousin’. The silliness of primogeniture through the male line is another reason to dispense with such things.)

By: Henry

Henry — Wed, 23 Jul 2003 17:22:03 +0000

Knighthoods are not inheritable as such. However, baronets, the lowest rank as such of the peerage, are entitled to be called ‘sir,’ and can pass the privilege on to the kids. But the crown isn’t handing out many baronetcies any more; they did give someone a baronetcy some years back, and it caused a minor kerfuffle of comments.

By: C.J. Colucci

C.J. Colucci — Wed, 23 Jul 2003 17:16:15 +0000

Is a knighthood an inheritable title? Do Sir Derek Jacobi’s and Sir Mick Jagger’s (legitimate, male) kids get to call themselves “Sir”? And does knighthood, inheritable or not, get you any special privileges?

By: dsquared

dsquared — Wed, 23 Jul 2003 10:59:23 +0000

And the MP for Epsom and Ewell is referred to as “Sir Archie” Hamilton in Hansard, so it can’t be a completely hard and fast rule, unless they do things differently North of the Border.

By: dsquared

dsquared — Wed, 23 Jul 2003 10:56:43 +0000

Ach! I’ve had a counterexample on the tip of my tongue all morning and just remembered it (though the evidence is weaker than I remember). Lord Burns was always, always called “Sir Terry” when he was at the Treasury. Though “Sir Terence Burns” seems to outscore “Sir Terry” on Google, 87-44. I think that the full name convention might have been enforced more rigorously recently; Treasury press releases dated around 1994/5 all seem to be “Terry”, but by 1999 he’s “Terence”. Eddie George certainly became “Sir Edward”, much to my surprise.

By: Brian Weatherson

Brian Weatherson — Wed, 23 Jul 2003 07:54:27 +0000

Maybe it’s just my poor memory, but I couldn’t remember hearing him referred to any way other than Sir Garfield Sobers. (Maybe it’s just that the ABC is still fussy about some randomly selected points of protocol.) A quick Google search reveals that Sir Gary isn’t unheard of though. Hits for “Sir Gary Sobers”: 504 Hits for “Sir Garfield Sobers”: 2570 Hits for “Gary Sobers” -sir: 3480 Hits for “Garfield Sobers” -sir: 705 So the ‘sir’ is putting pressure on to use the full name, but not overwhelming pressure. Then again, there’s 1800 hits for “Sir Don Bradman”, which can’t be that common, so maybe Google isn’t the best measure here.

By: dsquared

dsquared — Wed, 23 Jul 2003 06:48:32 +0000

I’m not sure about full first name; Sir Gary Sobers comes to mind, though he probably falls under Nick’s sportsmen exemption. >>If our broker told us that, we might be able to put two and two together and figure out what why he’s doing it (big FDA application on bet-the-company drug, CEO dumps stock, how hard is that to figure out?). Would we be in trouble for selling? In principle, there’s a defence here, but I think that your broker would have to come up with a pretty clever explanation for how he found out about an insider sale before the mandatory disclosure was published.

By: nick sweeney

nick sweeney — Tue, 22 Jul 2003 21:50:25 +0000

‘Sir Larry’ sounds so very wrong. Yes: one of the things about a knighthood is that it’s meant to be necessary to go by your full first name. (The college principal for both myself and dsquared went from being ‘P. M. North’ to ‘Sir Peter North’ when he got his knighthood.) There appears to be an exemption, though, for football managers and pop stars. (Sir Bobby, Sir Alex, Sir Mick, Sir Bob.) Anyway, the closest factual comparison is the discussion on whether Sir Anthony Hopkins could keep his title after taking US citizenship. I think he’s still allowed to do so, because the British government doesn’t recognise taking other citizenships as a disclaiming of your British citizenship, even if such a thing is part of the oath of citizenship you take; you have to go to your nearest consulate and swear another oath to be rid of your British passport. So, as a dual national, Sir Tony basically gets to use his honorific in the UK, but in the US he’s plain ol’ Tone. Now, if he were to enter the US on his British passport, or the UK on his American one, then things would get seriously fucked up.

By: C.J. Colucci

C.J. Colucci — Tue, 22 Jul 2003 18:04:08 +0000

Assume for a moment that all Martha Stewart knew was that Waksal was dumping his Imclone stock. If our broker told us that, we might be able to put two and two together and figure out what why he’s doing it (big FDA application on bet-the-company drug, CEO dumps stock, how hard is that to figure out?). Would we be in trouble for selling? If not, should Martha be in trouble? Notice that she wasn’t charged with insider trading, but, basically, for lying when she said she didn’t engage in the insider trading she wasn’t charged with.

By: x2

x2 — Tue, 22 Jul 2003 10:32:28 +0000

Great post dsquared.

By: Nick

Nick — Tue, 22 Jul 2003 08:41:23 +0000

‘Sir Larry’ sounds so very wrong. That must be why they made Olivier a Lord, then. As for the foreign citizens getting knighted, they can’t use the title ‘Sir’ regularly, though I believe it may be mentioned on certain formal occasions within Britain and, should they take British citizenship in the future, then they are entitled to use the title. It can create some strange anomalies – I did hear at some point in the 80s there were discussions amongst whoever decides these things as to whether Paula Yates (then married to ‘Sir’ Bob Geldof, an Irish citizen) was entitled to use the title ‘Lady’ as she was a British citizen.

By: David Weman

David Weman — Tue, 22 Jul 2003 02:36:04 +0000

They can get an Order of the British Empire, or something like that, but they don’t get to be called ‘Sir Larry’, but ‘Larry Lastname, OBE’. ‘Sir Larry’ sounds so very wrong.

By: Jeremy Osner

Jeremy Osner — Tue, 22 Jul 2003 02:22:34 +0000

Can’t non-British citizens be knighted, then? I thought they sometimes were.

By: Richard

Richard — Tue, 22 Jul 2003 00:26:25 +0000

It’s not so much the underpants as the products he’s pushing, I think…