Before you and I were born, C.S. Lewis gave an address to a group of students, on the topic of “The Inner Ring”:
There are no formal admissions or expulsions. ... The only certain rule is that the insiders and outsiders call it by different names. From inside it may be designated, in simple cases, by mere enumeration: it may be called “You and Tony and me.” When is very secure and comparatively stable in membership it calls itself ‘we.Â’ When it has to be expanded to meet a particular emergency it calls itself “all the sensible people at this place.” From outside, if you have dispaired of getting into it, you call it “That gang” or “they” or “So-and-so and his set” or “The Caucus” or “The Inner Ring.”
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Lewis first examines the phenomenon and how it affects individuals, then explains what he believes is the correct reaction to it. It bears repeated reading, whether or not you agree with his conclusions.
Today my wife, Karen attended a hospital workshop where she recognised one of the other attendees as an acquaintance from her university days. While she was telling me about this Doctor Shane, we figured out that not only was he an old acquaintance of Karen’s, but that he was a long lost friend of mine from high-school.
Interesting: a google shows a Dr Shane Trevithick that flies around Sydney, saving people’s lives. There can’t be that many Shane Trevithicks in the world, let alone Sydney.
Anyway, because Shane probably hasn’t made the connection between Karen and me, Karen is going to go back and re-introduce herself. But before she does, she’s going to ask him if he’s still upset with Channel 9 71 for cancelling re-runs of The Professionals back in the 1980s. Heh.
I’m looking forward to catching up again.
1 Update: I am informed, by someone whose memory I trust far more than I trust mine, that it was Channel 7 that screened The Professionals.