Lucan’s daily routine consisted of breakfast at 9:00 am, coffee, dealing with the morning’s letters, reading the newspapers, and playing the piano. He sometimes jogged in the park and took his Dobermann for walks. Lunch at the Clermont Club was followed by afternoon games of backgammon. Returning home to change into black tie, the earl typically spent the remainder of the day at the Clermont, gambling into the early hours, watched sometimes by Veronica. In 1956, while still working at Brandt’s, he had written of his desire to have “£2m in the bank”, claiming that “motor-cars, yachts, expensive holidays, and security for the future would give myself and a lot of other people a lot of pleasure”.
Richard John Bingham, 7th Earl of Lucan (born 18 December 1934 – disappeared 8 November 1974, declared dead 3 February 2016), commonly known as Lord Lucan, was a British peer and an Anglo-Irish aristocrat, the eldest son of George Bingham, 6th Earl of Lucan, and Kaitlin Dawson. He was the great-great grandson of George Charles Bingham, 3rd Earl of Lucan, who led the disastrous Charge of the Light Brigade.
Profligacy is for some a positive devotion. The inclination is however as regularly defeated by its reckless extravagance. But for the outsider looking in, the wastefulness frequently affords endless amusement and opportunity for self-aggrandizement.
There are as well a number of unintended profits of the analysis. One, for example, is the ready release of bitter revenge upon the misadventures of others, especially those who by force of some prior entitlement end abusing the privilege to the point of extraordinary and unhappy conclusion. Who doesn’t smirk at the wanton fall of the privileged?
Amusingly but quite conveniently much of the peril suffered by the profligate is shared by those involved; namely, their bankers. Very often people who have spent a lifetime avoiding liability by advancing a sparing and economical lifestyle are blindly unfamiliar with the vulgar retail scope of money lending. Banks indisputably survive upon their alliance with the profligate. Granted the domain of the rich ensures that the constant occupation with the purchase of things (real estate, cars and planes, jewellery and art) propels the wastefulness. Bankers frequently submit to the profligacy because they want the business and mistakenly allow the arrogance of the profligate to govern their lending decisions. It is the profligate’s own revenge for the obsequiousness. I suspect the bankers excuse their ineptitude by arguing there are palatable losses to be suffered in any business transaction.
A more spiritual result of the dissection is that, having all the money in the world, does not guarantee the critical feature of survival. We often perversely delight to remind ourselves that a dead rich man cannot enjoy his former benefits. And while it may sound to be a small and vengeful observation, the greater depth to the investigation is that no man is from birth more favourably positioned than another except by accident. We’re all mere ants on the planet. And while we’re at it, it doesn’t hurt to observe that having a country house dating to 1678 might reasonably present a maintenance issue.
Earlier today I was oddly reflecting upon what is was centuries ago that prompted rich men to dress as they did? The clothing was in my estimate utterly preposterous. It was seemingly an absurd agenda: Get rich, get stupid!
Sanitizing conventional customs is a welcome enterprise. Foremost the failure to do so prohibits awareness of not only the many differences within society but also – and unquestionably more importantly – the many similarities within society no matter where located on the face of the globe. The process is significant not so much for its contamination as for its disintegration. Eliminating the fictitious anomalies so often not tolerated is an improvement; to do otherwise is imprisonment. On a broad scale the divisions can be attributed to gender (dominance), race (class), spirituality (religion), philosophy (politics) and history (folklore). Needless repetition is normally fruitful for a limited congregation; namely, one which thrives upon its predictability and promotion. This leads to encouragement of the identical theme at the risk of the consumer or digesting public.