ABSTRACT
It went like this. In a series o f works with titles such as Car Number Plates and H istory, the Big Chief provided his redskins with his details o f what was ‘worth’ seeing in particular fields o f knowledge (or ‘trails’ as he called them).1 A glance at the index of People, for instance, reveals that while a Bank o f England mess enger is worth seeing, your mother is not; a schoolboy is worth seeing, provided he has got his straw hat on. In this way, item by item, a canon o f good, true and beautiful sights was defined. Even within this canon, however, certain decorums had to be observed. Some things, though worth seeing, were clearly not as worth seeing as others. An order o f precedence had to be formulated, and the Big Chief was the man to formulate it. To assist him in this enterprise he resorted to a simple mechanism - the points system. Redskins who saw something worth seeing scored a certain number o f points. Redskins who saw something more worth seeing scored more points. So there. Someone tossing the caber, for instance, was more worth seeing than a soccer match; and though, being palefaces, you might never have guessed it, a monk (thirty points) was more worth seeing than a nun (fifteen). Beyond the monks and caber tossers was a tiny elite o f sights so overwhelmingly worth seeing that redskins were called upon to declare the day on which they saw one o f them a ‘red letter day’
and report the sighting directly to the Big Chief (Wigwam-bythe-Water, London EC4), who, if he was convinced o f the authenticity o f your story, would send you a pen. The most frequently-mentioned member o f this elite (figuring in five o f the Big Chiefs works) was the organ grinder. There were 1,500 points going for each book. If you won all 1,500 you were allowed to move up one place at the Council fire, wear an extra feather in your headband - colour and shape depending on which trail you had won your points on - and claim a rank. The name o f the rank also varied according to trail; a high score in the area o f The Land, for example, would make you a First Class Honours Geologist.
