Serious Personal News

You know the saying that “Man plans and God laughs?” In a smaller context this could cover all our financial planning activities, but I want to go with a bigger picture here. It turns out that I didn’t go to Taos and ski for this month of February. Instead, I just finished a 12-day hospital stay where I was diagnosed with cancer. If you want to stay apprised of my medical status, we are posting details here: https://www.caringbridge.org/visit/davidandeleanorbrode/journal

Caring Bridge is in my mind for broadcasting info from us to many folks. Be a bit cautious. They try to hit you up for money, but it goes to them only and is a bit deceptive. Also, they encourage a social-media aspect of comments and likes and such. I'd largely ignore that, but feel free to participate as you see fit and, of course, please share the site with anyone you see fit.

I’m still working, albeit at a reduced schedule.

Love to you all.

Friends & Family Spreadsheet Help Offer

I regularly get calls from folks who are stuck on some Excel problem. They range from very basic to quite advanced, and I enjoy helping out. I’d like to extend that offer to you, since you subscribe to the newsletter. I like hearing from people randomly and I find the issues to be like a little puzzle I get to solve before getting back to work.

Money in Dickens

Let’s start with a few layers of trivia. You know movies portray that the water breaks and labor for childbirth starts? Well, sometimes the water never breaks and the baby is born inside an intact amniotic sac, or caul.

In 19th century England there was a folk belief that if you were born in the caul then you were protected from drowning for your entire life.

In the Charles Dickens tome (over 1,000 pages!) David Copperfield, the book starts with the title character’s birth in a caul. Subsequently, the caul is raffled off, because somehow just possessing a once-intact post-birth caul gives you some protection against drowning also?

When discussing the value of the caul, Dickens references a whole bunch of monetary terms: guineas, pounds, half-crowns, shillings, pence, etc. Since I was at the beginning of the book I decided to fully understand these units so I could follow along instead of treating them as random values.

So, without further ado, a complete guide to archaic English monetary units in three simple steps:

1. The base, of course, is pounds. You know it’s what they have instead of dollars. But there are also other equivalent words, like pound sterling, sterling, quid, or bob.
2. Next, there are additional subsystems
   1. The most important are shillings, of which there are 20 per pound.
   2. Shillings can further be divided: 12 pence per shilling and 4 farthings per pence. Note that pence is already a plural noun--it’s the plural of “penny.”
   3. Then there’s an entirely different system, based on multiples of shillings:
      1. Guinea = 21 shillings
      2. Crown = 5 shillings
      3. Florin = 2 shillings
3. Thus the full range looks like this (and consider pounds to be like dollars for sub-units):

		Pounds	Like a...
	farthing	0.0010	tenth of a penny
	halfpence	0.0021	quarter-penny
	pence	0.0042	half-penny
	twopence	0.0083	penny
	shilling	0.05	nickle
	florin	0.01	dime
	half-crown	0.125	half-quarter
	crown	0.25	quarter
	pound	1.00	pound
	guinea	1.10	pound

See trix for values in a spreadsheet.

Dickens, of course, draws out the hilarity of the situation. The raffle deal was that everyone put in 12.5 cents to get a ticket, and the winner had to pay a quarter to get the caul. In the end, the woman who won started paying her 25 cents in increments of pennies and quarter-pennies, only to wind up with only $0.23 in total. At this point it had taken so long to transact that they just gave her the caul. She did never drown, though she did assiduously avoid being in or on the water, so maybe that helped as well?

Capsule Book Reviews

David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
So as I said earlier, this monetary unit analysis came about because I had the crazy idea to read David Copperfield. As I normally read on kindle, I had no idea what a commitment this was. Dickens does have amazing language and descriptions, though the language has changed so much over the last 150+ years. The book offers a deep view of industrializing England along with its class divisions and ossified society. But the book stands out for me due to its memorable characters: Copperfield himself, aka Trotwood, Peggoty, Mr. Peggoty, Em’ly, Ham, Steerforth, Aunt Betsey Trotwood, Mr. Dick, Murdstone, Traddles, Agnes and Mr. Wickfield, Uriah Heep, Dr. and Mrs. Strong, etc. Recommended, but with some caution!

Demon Copperfield, Barbara Kingsolver

Then, by chance, I saw Demon Copperhead on a list of great books released in 2022. As Kingsolver is such an amazing novelist (e.g. Poisonwood Bible) I added it to my list.

This book surprised me. From the first few pages there were parallels between David Copperfield and Kingsolver’s new book. I had no advance warning this was going to happen, so it was a delightful surprise.

Demon Copperhead is the nickname of red-headed Damon. This novel definitely follows the rough narrative structure provided by Dickens but also departs from that story in multiple ways. I’d say more that it rhymes than it is a remake of the original. It’s updated for modern times. Instead of the Dickensian horrors of being an orphan, we have the modern horror of being an orphan in the foster care system in Appalachia during the opioid epidemic.

Many of the characters from Dickens appear in Kingsolver. Steerforth becomes Fast Forward. Em’ly is updated as Emmy. Mr. Peggoty is now simply Mr. Peggot and comes with a whole clan, not just a few people in the small family of the original. Peggoty herself is splintered into a few members of the Peggot family. Uriah Heap becomes U-Haul. And so on.

Kingsolver is a solid writer as always. Still, this was hard to read. I resist reading the next page when characters I care for are being hurt, and there was more than enough pain to go around.