Sheer Luxury
Why do people spend extraordinary amounts of money on objects that seem to serve no practical purpose? And what exactly separates luxury from quality?
Inspired by the case of former SNP chief executive Peter Murrell's misuse of party funds for high-end personal purchases, Fraser, Nick and Peter use a series of examples to explore the deeper psychology of luxury.
The conversation moves beyond political scandal into philosophy, economics and psychology, asking why humans are drawn to unnecessary things, whether luxury serves a genuine purpose, and where the line lies between excellence, indulgence and excess.
Transcript
Hello and welcome to the Cognitive Engineering podcast brought to you by Aleph Insights and produced by me, Fraser McGruer. I'm here with Peter Coghill and Nick Hare of Aleph Insights. On this podcast we look at a wide range of topics from an analytical viewpoint.
And today we're discussing Peter Murrell's amazing embezzlements.
Speaker B:Peter Murrell. Well, who is he? He's the former chief executive of the.
year period between:How did he do it? Well, he used to SMP funds.
So these are funds which are meant to be used to promote the cause of Scottish nationalism for personal purchases from the party, right? Yeah, right, yeah, party funds. So submit.
Because he was the, he was the treasurer, he submitted false invoices, falsified party accounts, took out credit cards in the names of other staff members.
I mean, it's a tale as old as time, is it not, that the guy responsible for checking the finances was also allowed to spend those very same finances and hilarity ensued. So what kind of hilarity ensued? Let me tell you about his spending habits. Gaming. Big fan of gaming.
Spent over 2,000 quid on gaming consoles over the years.
in:I mean lots of big things like Motorhomes, bought a Jaguar, I think. But also I think the real joy is in the slightly smaller things that he spent money on. Big fan of coffee.
So he spent:But obviously as a coffee fan you'll know that that's not enough. So he also spent 660 pounds on a coffee cup warmer.
Speaker C:He's got to have the one for.
Speaker B:His motorhome and a stainless steel milk pipe. Milk pipe. He had to get the very best milk pipe. It's the milk pipe that you use for making froth. He liked his watches. He brought some.
He bought a bunch of Bremont watches for four and a half thousand pounds each. And I think some Rolexes and things. He likes his pens. 4,000 Quid on a Mont Blanc Starwalker World time fountain pen. 75 Pound slouch pouch onesie.
Which is a nice thought. I don't know what that is, but keep going.
Yeah, but I think the thing really, out of all of them, the thing which I thought I found most enjoyable to. To think about were these Lalique salt and pepper grinders as a pair for 2, 600 pounds.
Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker B:A pair of Lalique salt and pepper grinders. And these look to me like the kind of thing I would see in a charity shop and bulk at paying five pounds for. They are ghastly.
They're crystal, like these crystal horrible chunky looking crystal things. And so, yeah, I. Anyway, I.
Speaker A:But before you say yeah, I think Peter, you've got some more examples but.
Speaker B:Like you've got some other.
Speaker A:This guy liked his luxury.
Speaker B:He likes his luxury.
Speaker A:Luxury. Okay, Pete, what else you got?
Speaker C: . The, the expense scandal of:So Peter vigors, Conservative, claimed 1,645 pounds for a floating duck house for his garden pond. And it was listed in the expenses as a pond feature. Douglas Hogg claimed for the cleaning, the dredging of his moat at his country estate.
Speaker B:Is he also a Conservative?
Speaker C:Could be, I think. Yeah, it could be. Other claims included horse manure deliveries, trouser presses, dog food and a plug, a sink plug for a sink.
Speaker B:You know, I don't mind the sink plug, actually.
Speaker C:Yeah, okay.
Speaker A:That's okay.
Speaker B:I love dredging. The moat is absolutely brilliant. Yeah, it's just perfect.
Speaker A:But also the sink thing and the one just put. I hope it was, you know, luxury dog food. I hope it was luxury sink plug.
Speaker B:Yes, exactly how you have to be.
Speaker C:This scandal wasn't just individual bad apples. It was systemic. It was across all parties and it was widespread.
And I think what made it so politically lethal was the weird specificity of some of the items that just made it really fun for the press to bang on about and people to sort of get worked up on. Anyway, I. Other examples. Imelda Marcos.
Speaker B:Famous.
Speaker C:Famous. Yeah. The first lady of the Philippines, wife of Ferdinand Marcos, dictator from 65 to 86. And shoes really was the thing.
Speaker B:That's all people think of now.
Speaker C:Shoes as a political symbol, really. Spending many, many millions of pounds worth of.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:I mean, she was like a different pair of shoes per day. Right. She had hundreds and hundreds of pairs of shoes. And that's what's gone down in history.
Speaker C: to:Built a personal palace deep in the jungle, which had its own airport, capable of landing Concord known as the African Versailles. So, like, that's some pretty big money there. $5 Billion over the course.
Speaker B:Well, luckily. But luckily the people. People of the. Of the Congo are not. It's not like they're starving.
Speaker C:Yeah. It's not like they're one of the.
Speaker B:Desperate need of development.
Speaker C:Yeah. And then what? Just one more. The. The Joe. Joe Low, The.
The financier, I think financed the film Wolf of Wall street in a brilliant bit of irony, because that was about. The film was about sort of defrauding excess of the system. Yeah. So that was a 4.5.
Speaker A:So I missed the point there. But he's. So what was he. That was embezzlement in itself to do that or what's.
Speaker B:Who is he?
Speaker C:Well, he bet. He. He. He. One of the largest financial frauds in history was 4.5 billion looted from Malaysia state investment funds.
He spent 250 million on a super yacht and funded the film.
Speaker B:Oh, that's very cool.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker C:So, yeah, sort of a sense of irony about it. So he does it with class.
Speaker A:Yeah. No, I like that.
Speaker B:Well, no, common. Common. I think there's a lot of common threads here, aren't there? I mean, it's the crime, obviously. We've got the embezzlement issue.
They're sort of taking funds and using it for other stu. But the real joy is the complete frivolity of it. And I think this is so to go to. Let's look, focus on.
I want to focus on the Lalique salt and pepper grinders.
Speaker A:Right. Just. Just before you do, Nick, just to help frame this discussion, I'm trying to work out, are we discussing luxury? Are we discussing embezzlement?
Speaker B:No.
Speaker A:Right. Are we discussing. So what are we talking about?
Speaker B:So I think what we want to drill into is what. Why is it that it's the same sorts of utterly useless, ridiculously expensive things that seem to crop up.
Why is it that the same people who like embezzling also seem to like buying Lalique salt and pepper grinders for £2,600? As you know, Fraser, I'm a bit of a frugal, earthy, authentic, simple man. And I prefer, because I prefer the simpler things in life.
I have only a 70 pound Peugeot pepper mill and a separate olive wood salt cellar for my Maldon sea salt, which has a marble lid. And I, and I, I, I find, I find having actually matching salt and pepper mills, I find that a little bit now because they're different things.
Salt and pepper are different things and require different delivery mechanisms. Now I, okay, I acknowledge that a 70 pound pepper grinder does. For me, that is a luxury item, right?
But compared to a 3,000 pound Lalique salt and pepper set, it makes me look like Diogenes of Sinope. So what I think we want to drill into is what makes something a luxury item? What kinds of people feel the allure of a luxury item?
And is there something pathological going on there? Is there some common thing that makes people want to acquire ridiculously expensive, pointless things which are gold plated? And what is that?
What is that, that urge?
Speaker C:What's going on?
Speaker B:What is the personality type that loves luxury?
Speaker C:There's an interesting dimension to that as well, which is why would you, why luxury for luxury sake? You know, like the motorhome business was bought. It was a hundred, it was more than a hundred thousand pounds worth of motorhome.
And the police concluded that it drove four miles in the three years he had it. Amazing, because it was never used.
It was bought parked somewhere kind of obviously to keep it secret or to not draw attention to it and then not used.
Speaker B:It's quite possible that the salt and pepper shakers were simply sitting on his. Maybe he's not the kind of man who likes salt, I don't know. But I mean, it's the sort of thing like the acquisition of an inverted commas.
Luxury items is something that, you know, has been identified. We are going back. This is a very old urge and the urge to criticize it goes back.
So the Romans had this concept of luxuria, which is of course where we get the term luxury from. And it sort of means this, it is this desire for luxury.
One thinks of Donald Trump and his gold plated everything as a kind of modern day example of this. But it's essentially the vice that drives you to excess very closely Aligned to the concept of decadence.
And in the, you know, in the Roman might, the Romans really, you know, valued this ideal of austerity. You think of Cato the Elder, you know, and the fact that austerity is what makes the Romans the Romans.
And Seneca, you know, the philosopher who thought this was antithetical, that luxury was antithetical to having a philosophical life through to, you know, and you can see, obviously, you can see that echoed in Christianity today the idea of, you know, Prudentius, the poet who was highly suspicious of self indulgence and excess and that, you know, the body is a prisoner of the lawless tyranny of pleasure. And, you know, and that this is some, this urge is something we should all be fighting against, that actually avoiding luxury is somehow virtuous.
And of course, you can see this everywhere. It's not just a Western European thing. I mean, the Chinese, the Confucius encouraging moderation and self restraint.
Lao TZ said, I've heard that the successful merchant carefully conceals his wealth and acts as though he had nothing. That the great man, though abounding in achievements, is simple in his manners and appearance.
Get rid of your pride and your many ambitions, your affectation and your extravagant aims.
Speaker C:I think it's interesting, the rejection of luxury is a core tenant of quite a lot of social movements, political movements. I'm thinking things like cynicism, Stoicism, communism.
The idea that you want to reject luxury because it gets you closer to some other ideal state is.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Have you heard of a man called Siddhartha Gautama?
Speaker A:Indeed I have, yes.
Speaker B:Better known as the Buddha, of course.
I think he, you know, I suppose more impressive in that he rejected a lot of earthly wealth, that he had to pursue a path of, you know, of austerity and.
Speaker A:Well, no, so he knows. So he did reject. It was a middle path, the middle way.
So, yes, it's a rejection of, let's say, luxury of excess, but it's also a rejection of the opposite. It's a rejection of asceticism as well.
Speaker B:And so everything does you good, I think.
Speaker A:Might be, yeah, he's like, yeah, but of this bit of that but don't go too mad about it kind of thing.
Speaker B:I think in Islam it's quite similar as well. They have, you know, this concept of israf, which is wasteful excess, which is discouraged.
So look, I mean, the thing is this idea that there is this, you know, the pursuit of luxury is bad, is really common.
Speaker A:So which.
Speaker B:Hang on. Yeah, go on. Which tells you that the pursuit of luxury is a thing and it's a thing that is recognized as bad.
So, you know, I think perhaps if we drill into what it is. What is luxury?
Speaker A:Exactly that. Right, this is what I was going to say, because you've gone through a sort of. A few kind of. Let's say we call them definitions or examples there.
Does luxury mean too much? Right. And.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:Part of it is that.
Speaker B:Who's to say?
Speaker A:Yeah, part of it is maybe that, but part of it is kind of. There's something slightly formative about it, there's something that's slightly ostentatious about it.
So it's more than just, let's say it is too much or let's say it's superfluous. But is there a difference between something being superfluous and being ostentatious?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Right. And I think it sort of. It covers a few different things. And is that what we want? And also. And then how that ties into the human psyche. Right.
Speaker B:Yeah, I think this is. It turns out to be really interesting.
Speaker A:Yeah, absolutely. It's more in depth, it's more complex than one might imagine, or certainly I did. So we've got two options before us here.
We could get a dictionary and have a look, see what it says. Luxury.
Speaker B:Or let's vibe it.
Speaker A:Let's vibe. Nick Hair, our Vibe master.
Speaker B:So I think there's.
I think it is closely linked to the concept of quality, but I actually, I think it's helpful to define these two things which can exist in different combinations. So quality is simply how well does a thing perform its intended function?
Let's say, and I think, as you suggested, actually, that luxury is superfluous things. How many superfluous, unnecessary decorations, functions. You know, I've got.
If you've got a pen that plays the EastEnders theme or whatever, it's like, can. It's the things that. That aren't actually related to the function or don't.
Aren't necessary for the function, but which are, you know, a chair, a simple wooden chair is a chair, but perhaps we want one which is super comfortable and has loads of cushions and it's like ultra comfy. And I think, you know, if we want to sort of. Let's try and think of things that.
Where we can very definitely distinguish luxury from quality is, first of all, is things like, you know, designer clothing, where it's like, well, we've got. Actually, what you're paying for is the logo, which isn't necessary for clothing. It's actually almost fighting it.
Gold Plated electronics, a gold plated phone. It's like, it doesn't. It definitely does not do anything about the function. It's the opposite. It's, you think, overly ornate furniture.
Things like the Victorian pianos with the little candle holders and lampshades and the ornate legs that you can't see, which don't actually make the piano any better at being a piano. But I think the ultimate.
The ultimate, if we really want to kind of forensically separate quality from luxury, is things that don't have any function at all. And I think the ultimate for me would be a Faberge egg or something. It's like, you know, when I first learned.
eggs when I went to Russia in:Is literally, it's a really ornate egg. What does it do? It doesn't do anything. Right. It's not even like, well, it, you know, it's a fancy tie clip or something and it has a funk.
I mean, it really doesn't do anything other than be a very fancy egg. And that's. I think that's. That's perfect. That's the perfect illustration of what luxury entirely, entirely unconstrained by function looks like.
So anyway, that's it. As my proposed definition, quality there.
Speaker A:Is.
Speaker B:About the things, how well something performs. Luxury is about how above and beyond it goes, how many things it has that it doesn't need to perform.
Speaker A:Absolutely.
Speaker B:And you can have both. It could be a brilliant example of something and also have a load of superfluous decoration on top.
Speaker A:And also, I'm gonna hand over to Peter, but I'm pretty confident that I'm the first person to ever say this. Oh, yeah. Okay. And so. So a mini challenge within that is, I'm gonna say this is pose the question or make the statement.
The superfluous is actually very necessary. And yeah, I know I'm the first, you know, that sort of. I've just. That's my take on this. You know, just putting that out there, Peter.
And maybe we might come back to that.
Speaker B:But come back to Voltaire.
Speaker A:Sorry. To McGrewer. Oh, sorry.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker A:And so, Peter, remind. What have you got? What? You're going to come up with something here?
Speaker C:Well, a little bit about why people covet.
Speaker A:Yes. Okay. So the psyche element, right?
Speaker C:Yeah. So we do signaling lots. I kind of try and avoid that other than to say, well, a Big part of luxury is to signal sort of membership of certain groups.
We'll move on for that.
Speaker B:No, I think. But it's definitely worth pointing out that signaling has to be part of this.
But I think the superfluity, it works even better in that regard because it can only be a signal in this case of wealth or something.
Speaker C:Yeah. So, but aside from the signal, I think an interesting dimension is kind of self signaling. It's messaging to yourself a certain level of things.
So what I mean is, like, there's an, there's a sort of aspirational consumption thing to it. So if you're, if you're able to afford a Faberge egg and you can buy it. Right. You're sort of bit. You're able to.
You're proving to yourself that you're able to buy a certain kind of lifestyle. It's sort of self validation that you are able. You have a certain level of disposable income or success or.
Speaker B:Yes. And interestingly, actually, as, as if I was an owner.
Speaker A:Sorry. Yeah, go ahead.
Speaker B:If I was a czar, I would look down on people who bought Faberge eggs because Faberge used to give the eggs to the Romanovs. They would make them as an Easter present. Yeah. So the really cool thing is to be given a Faberge egg by himself.
Speaker C:Well, there's an interest. There's an interest. There's an interesting sort of consumer. Well, it's not, it's anti consumer, but in, in the world of handbags.
I know, Fraser, you're big into handbags. I, I don't know if I'm pronouncing this right, but Hermes, I've never seen one of these.
Yeah, okay, so they, they, they engineer scarcity in their product. You can't go into the shop and say, I'd like that handbag, please. They will not.
They will very politely say that they don't have anything currently available. What you have to do in order to get hold of one of these is either pay way over the odds, they go for 10 to 20 times more than their sale value.
On the second hand. Second hand. So as soon as you walk out the shop with one, it's worth 10, 20.
Speaker B:How do you get one from a shop?
Speaker C:To get one from a shop, you basically have to buy.
Buy into the shop by buying small things, scarves and whatever else they sell, accessories, buttering up, smoothing up to the sales assistant endlessly. You have to spend, you have to spend a lot of money basically on the thing before they'll even let you.
Speaker B:But I Would suspect if you said, right, I want that to happen, so I'm going to do all these things. They might spot it.
I wonder if it reminds me of the, you know, that German, that club in Berlin, Berghain, which is like, they have this incredibly strict policy that they only let people in if they have in some way demonstrated their commitment to the right kind of music, to the right kind of house.
Speaker C:I need to say for legal reasons that this is only ever alleged. It's not an official process. And in fact they do deny it. But interesting. There is a antitrust.
Okay, there's an antitrust lawsuit going on at the moment that I was basically arguing that you should be able. You should. If something is for sale, you should have the right to buy it.
Speaker B:Interesting. I mean, I mean, I think we do need to be careful that we are at the moment are talking about something which is artificially scarce. And in fact, it.
We are also, as it happens, these are things, these are things that also happen to be luxury goods. And it is imp. I mean, there is pro.
It's probably the case that there is a correlation, but, but not necessarily, you know, that, that, that luxury, to be perceived as luxury has. Has to somehow be scarce.
Speaker A:But, but also. Sorry, because it makes me think, I mean, we're using, it's helpful for. To try and understand the problem, but by using fairly extreme examples.
Let's say Faberge or Hermes Scarfe or whatever, right? But actually we're faced with these decisions all the time, even common folk like us, right? Which is, you know, if you're given a.
Because if you're a multi billionaire, okay, and you've got a choice between this thing that costs, you know, 10 grand for a watch and this thing that costs 20 grand for a watch. Well, first of all, I mean, you might as well go for the 20 grand one, right? And is it just about signaling, right? Or is it.
Let's say, I think there's ways to shave back at some of the things that make something different from something else, Right? And actually we make these decisions all the time.
So let's say I want to go and buy a T shirt and this one's got a Nike whoosh on it and this one is just plain. I think you could probably say that qualitatively there might not be any difference between the two T shirts.
You could make the case that, you know, well, you know, this one cost 20 quid and that one cost 15 quid. For me, 10 or 15 makes no difference. But you know what?
I'm Gonna go for the Nike one because am I signalling or do I have a perception that it's a better quality product?
Speaker B:I mean, let's assume that you are aware that they're the same quality and you are choosing the luxury mod you're paying extra for, you know, for a superfluous feature.
But, and I think that's a, this is a good place to ask the question of, I mean, and I think the concept of quality is this, a good X is, has an objective character to it.
It could be assessed, you could come up with criteria which we could agree on, on how good a T shirt must be, how long it lasts, how well it fits all of those things. Taking that as a constant, you know, then it's a question, well, what actually, what counts as superfluous?
And I think this is a much more subjective judgment that inevitably changes over time.
Having a item of clothing at all, you know, of handmade clothing or any kind of clothing, you know, 10,000 years ago would have been, would have been luxury.
Now having a clothing, having an item of clothing with a design on it, well, the design is having a design at all rather than just wearing plain clothing. Luxury like it is, it's, strictly speaking, it feels, well, it's a bit superfluous. We don't need that for it to be a T shirt.
But what if you don't want a T shirt? What you want is a nice looking T shirt that you can go out and, you know, and, and, and look cool in, if that's the function.
And, and this is where I think, you know, it, it becomes harder then to say, well, that, you know, the Lalique salt and pepper grinders, oh, that's luxury. You really don't get very much more for £2,600 than you do from £70 and then you probably do from a fiver.
But I mean the thing is that actually that's not, it's not superfluous.
If what you want is a pair of really nice, horrible looking, naff, chunky ladder and they go really nicely on your, with your chintzy dinner set, then, you know, my, so my Peugeot pepper grinder isn't going to fit with that kind of, you know, that kind of aesthetic.
So, so, so actually it isn't like, I mean, from that point of view, it's luxury from, it's luxury because it, you really do not need 2, 600 quids worth of grinder. But actually if, you know, if the answer is, well, I want it to go really, really nicely in this room,.
Speaker C:Right, that aesthetic might have its own utility in the sense that if you, if you're in the business of meeting regularly with billionaire clients who have this same kind of taste, I'm thinking like the Donald Trump world, he needs to message a certain kind of decadence to people he deals with. He feels he does, he feels he does, but he can't.
He wouldn't get away with decorating his, with Mar a Lago, with John Lewis value stuff because it wouldn't fit the kind of, the kind of stick that he's sure.
Speaker B:I mean, as it happens, I actually think, you know, that it would be a more successful strategy in terms of people respecting him, probably in terms of what he wants. Which, which brings us back, I think, to this idea of a vice, like.
Speaker C:With people like us respecting him, but not with some of the people he needs. He's trying to smooth.
Speaker B:I suspect that the average billionaire.
Now I don't have one to hand, I don't have a billionaire to hand, but I suspect the average billionaire is going to think a Peugeot pepper grinder, which is very geared around its, its function and being a very high quality pepper grinder is.
They probably have a bit more respect for that, I like to think, than they would for someone who's got utterly pointless, pretty ugly Lalique pepper grinders. So, you know, I, but, but I suppose what I'm saying is that really. Yeah, that actually.
Speaker A:Yeah. But also, let's be careful because I think. What are we careful of?
We started talking about luxury and having a utility or superfluousness having a utility, but we started going, talking about signaling. But I think what you were talking about earlier is it doesn't have to be just signaling.
And so actually that sort of, you know, that sort of McGrewer Voltaire phrase of superfluousness being very necessary.
Well, actually, you know, there's a lot of wisdom on what I'm saying there because that can be illustrated by something you mentioned to me once when you used to talk about. When you talked once about when people talk about, you know, this, this the land of hospitals.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:Where. When people talk about, oh, we could. Why, why are we spending money on that when we could build a hospital with it?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And what do these people want? Just a whole land of hospitals.
Because if you follow it to its logical extension, the sorts of things we're talking about, we could all sleep on the floor. Right. And actually it is necessary because life would be pretty fucking awful and dull and grinding if everything was just strictly functional.
Speaker B:Functional. It would be like Peter's House.
Speaker C:No, we would all put on our Peter, our statistic gray uniform in the morning.
Speaker B:Yeah, no, but I think this is, and I think this is a really good challenge to, I mean look, I'm suspicious of people who are driven to acquire luxury and I think it's right to ask why and whether or not there is this sort of pathological yearning for something.
And I think in the case of Donald Trump is very clear that he's mentally ill and, and, and is hoping that the next gold plated thing will somehow bring him inner peace and acceptance and it won't. And I, and I think so.
I think the, the relentless acquisition of, of luxury things as a kind of self medication is clearly something we should be suspicious of. But to speak to defend luxury. Yeah, I mean it is the defining feature of civilization is doing things you don't strictly speaking have to do.
I mean everything we do is a luxury. As I said, we can sleep on the floor, we can live in a cave.
You know, what we consider necessities now are all at some point in the past would have been considered superfluous. You know, windows, plumbing.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:Air travel, luxury.
Speaker C:When I was a boy.
Speaker B:Yes, exactly. But you know how I remember when I first sort of learned about this being thinking well that's mad.
You know, the idea that the definition of where the poverty line is keeps going up over time because you know, at some point it. Have you got a radio? That's, that's, you know, you need a radio. If you haven't got radio then you're poor.
But you know, now it's like, well, if you haven't got a, you know, decent sized TV then you're considered poor. But no, actually, yes, that is how it works.
You know that things that once upon a time are superfluous gradually creep into necessity and you know, necessity for us to be able to regard ourselves as a normal member of society.
Speaker C:Running water and electricity are human rights.
Speaker B:Right, exactly. And I think that's the right way, you know, or at least it's a completely defensible way to think about it.
But the other thing is, you know, that actually superfluous.
And I think this is going back to Voltaire probably that kind of the intention of what Voltaire is getting at is that going needlessly beyond is something that, you know, drives really, you know, excellence drives some of the finest example, finest products of civilization.
So I'm thinking of things like cathedrals or Stradivarius violins or fine Persian carpets, performing art, all of those sorts of things like going above and beyond is. Is actually what separates us from the savages. Would be what I would say.
Speaker A:Well, yeah.
Speaker B:If I was defending luxury.
Speaker A:Quite. And I think, you know, that the fact that this constant change and when you go beyond the hierarchy of needs, whatever it's called. I forget.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:It's that change actually within itself shows a consistency that there's always something.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker A:And that there's always something that's going to be luxurious. Okay. It's changing over time. But what is consistent is that thing. Right.
And so that sort of brings it right back to, well, what is consistent throughout all this is the thing that wants that humans. Okay. Human psyche. So long story short, we nailed it. We've got this. We figured it all out. Right. And so the extension from there is that luxury.
It's not good. It's not bad. Right, Too much luxury. No, not good. Okay. Too little luxury. I don't like that. Somewhere in the middle.
Speaker B:So a bit of luxury of what you fancy.
Speaker A:Does something like a little bit of. What's it called? A Peugeot Citron. Citron. Pepper thingy. Bob.
Speaker B:Yeah. Yes. I just point out that Peugeot made pepper mills before they make cars.
Speaker C:Did they?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Cool. Yeah.
Speaker B:It's not. I haven't bought it because I. Oh, I love Peugeot and I want a Peugeot branded thing. I bought it because there's one with your Ferrari.
Speaker C:Your Ferrari nutmeg mill.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah. But I mean the, the Peugeot really do make the best pepper grinders in the world. Right? I mean, it's not.
Speaker A:It is for just 70 quid. Why not? Right.
Speaker B:Well, I, I mean, I, you know, it's lasted me several years now and it's going to go on forever and I will never ever buy another sort of. But you look. Buy cheap, buy twice. Fraser.
Speaker A:Yeah, wise. I like it. Well, look, we could stop there, but actually, let's just finish this off.
I think we've got our question presents itself to us and we already have our answer. What's your favorite luxurious thing? Peter, we know.
Speaker B:We already know. I won't bang on anymore about. But can I just say it comes. It has a little removable tray and so, you know, that's even better.
You can grind your pepper in advance and then just take it out of the little removable tray. Or you can take the tray out and grind the pepper because under the tray there's a hole. It's really, really well designed.
Speaker A:Beautifully designed.
Speaker B:They should do cars. Perfect sort of cubic shape as well. It's really love. I mean. Yeah, yeah. I'm sold on it device.
Speaker C:Yeah, well, I'm afraid my, my, my, my, my stoic utilitarian lifestyle rejects all luxury. So I'm struggling to think of an example. It's got.
Speaker B:He bought a bike with two gears instead of just one gear. That's the. Absolutely beat himself up about it for weeks.
Speaker C:No, I don't really can't. It's bicycles. I do spend more than I need to on bicycles.
Speaker A:Yeah. Bicycles in themselves are your luxury. Right. And you're sort of, you know, devoted to special interest in them, let's say. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker C:I do seek them out, specific ones, rather than buying an off the shelf.
Speaker B:So Peter is our very much are sort of at the Diogenes end of the spectrum. But now over to you, Fraser, the King Midas, the arch hedonist. What would be up there with you?
Speaker A:So I am surrounded by luxury. You know, I'm surrounded by superfluousness.
Speaker B:Can I just point out you have a hammock in your living room.
Speaker A:Well, yeah, which actually I really is one of his living rooms.
Speaker B:One of his four living rooms.
Speaker A:That's very much a Brazilian connection. I do like a hammock.
Speaker B:I mean, but you've, you know, you've got. Your house is full of luxury items falling overfluous items which nevertheless create a lot of value and, and make the place feel like.
Like it's a, you know, instead of a. A kind of austere fortress. Yeah.
Speaker A:And so. Well, so actually you're forced to exist. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, actually, look, just to round this off, and in typical fashion, let's talk about that hammock briefly. Okay. Let me tell you something about hammocks.
Speaker B:Oh, yeah.
Speaker A:And it's kind of arguing against having it. It feels like a luxury. Maybe something like that. Here's the weird thing about hammocks. The lovely thing about a hammock is to lie in it, right?
And if you read a book, watch the tv, do you know what happened? You will fall asleep because it's so comfortable and it's just a lovely little bit of luxury.
But the moment you try and use it for what you would think you're meant to use it for, it becomes impossible. So I have spent many a time gone, right, Oh, I love a hammock. Got my hammock. I'm already comfortable here. I'm going to sleep now.
I'm going to bed and fall asleep in this hammock and have a lovely night's sleep. Impossible.
Speaker B:It knows.
Speaker A:It knows they're impossible. So. So, yeah, make a.
Speaker B:You know, I think there is something there which is deeply connected to the concept of luxury somehow. It's sort of like if. And I think that's the lesson is if you're pursuing it, if that is your goal, then you'll be disappointed.
But if you allow it to be simply, you know, in the service of something else, then I think if, you know, if Derek Parfit was here, he. He'd say the same, because the pursuit of luxury is bad, but luxury has a side effect of some other thing, like. Like pursuing excellence.
Big thumbs up.
Speaker C:I think it's okay to have luxury things as long as they're given to you as a gift.
Speaker B:Is that.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:Anyone there wants to give Chuck me a Faberge egg or two.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:Or another Peugeot thing. Yeah. Well, look, what can I say? We've done it again.
Speaker B:We've nailed it between us.
Speaker A:We've done it between us and Derek Parfit and Voltaire. We've got this all stuff sorted. All right?
Speaker B:Good stuff. That'd be a great trip down the pub, wouldn't it? Derek Parfit and Voltaire and Imelda Marcos.
Speaker A:Yeah. And of course, yeah. And Nick, Peter and Fraser. There we go. Yeah, lovely. That was fun. All right, we'll stop there.
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