The other evening I caught a TV show which featured a millionaire who was planting a multi-million-dollar vineyard. He didn’t think he would make money from it; in fact, he was expecting a loss. He said it was for love, not money. He had also carved out a huge cave in a rock cliff-face in which to live. The boy, who was also watching, made a comment about “the crazy things that people can do with too much money”.
What a great thought! It put me in mind of follies, an architectural term for a grand, expensive, and possibly whimsical or fantastical building that has no practical purpose. They were an extravagance, often silly, but they certainly communicate something of the imagination and passions of those that commission them.
So, imagine that you have a disgusting amount of money. You have already spent money on anything you could possibly wish to spend it on. Cars, houses, ponies. Cars and houses and ponies for your children, and your family and friends, and their family and friends. Around-the-world trips, donations to charities and worthy causes, paying off debts of struggling countries, research in every field of human endeavour. And yet you still have a never-ending supply of money. What now?
Say it in llama! Did you know that llamas have banana-shaped ears, while an alpaca's are curved? *nods*
My first thought was not grandiose architecture, but perhaps a whimsy. I would develop a breed of mini alpacas. What? I adore the idea of a little alpaca romping around our yard! I think it would be grand.
And then: a breed of large, intelligent rabbits. I like rabbits a lot. And then a breed of conveniently-sized dogs that are intelligent, attractive and not too naughty (this seems to be an unfortunate failing of dogs that fall between “small” and “medium” size).
And so it seems that, in my heart of hearts, I want to be a mad geneticist.
Three further ideas occurred to me:
A real-life recreation of The Land of Treats from Enid Blyton’s The Magic Faraway Tree stories, complete with soda rivers and jam tart flowers. I must admit to reading these books over and over as a child, which may explain my great excitability over food as an adult.
An array of every computer gaming system ever invented, installed with every computer game ever created, that I could peruse at my leisure. (There is this terrible-but-amazing dinosaur-mystery-adventure game called Lost Eden that I have a yearning to re-play.)
A chocolate bar invented by myself. This would involve much research, experimentation and expert consultation. Possibly it would be named the Mazfolly, and involve some combination of raspberry jelly (jello), caramel, peanuts, oats, white chocolate, cookie dough, or cookies.
What would your grand folly be?
I’m not sure what my folly would be, but I’m pretty sure if I created a chocolate bar, my dear Maz, it would have chocolate in it, not that white cocoa butter stuff.
BTW, re: your tweet about RSS stripping out image and caption styling, that’s a Good Thing. Makes people actually visit here!
(Not me though: I come here regardless.)
During an act of sheer folly, I consumed a plate of fried alpaca and refused any offering of guinea pig. The image of the ‘guinea pig on a skewer’ still haunts me to this day yet our poor alpaca friend bares little thought.
Later in my grand travel folly, I was invited to hunt armadillo after several shots of the strongest tequila (but that is another story).
You mentioned world trips as being exhaustable but I disagree! My folly would surely be perpetual travel. One perfect surfboard, some kind of super satelite internet, the most powerful yet compact laptop and a steam account that ‘never runs out’. Off I’d go exploring the world by day and gaming by night. *sigh
@Steve
Oops! Oh, indeed. I should have listed milk or dark chocolate as well – I especially love dark chocolate. I do think white chocolate has its own appeal, though, and not enough chocolate bars utilise it.
Hm. Maybe a squishy cookie dough with white chocolate chips (similar to a Mars bar’s nougat, but a bit more cookie-dough-like) and a layer of raspberry jelly on a cookie base, coated in dark chocolate. Mmmm.
I’m unsure about the WordPress and RSS thing. Of course, it’s great if people come to visit… but I’m aware that a lot of people only read through RSS, and it’s a bit embarrassing for the formatting to come out wrong… for my blog post to seemingly have an unrelated llama diversion (which it does, but not in the main body text).
@Emerson
Oh my! That is a grand folly! How was the alpaca? I think I would also refuse guinea pig… I want to try and de-westernise my brain from being scared of non-standard meats, but I can’t help but feel extra sorry for small creatures.
Or maybe that’s my western squeamishness at play again? With small animals, you can’t disguise the fact that you’re eating a small animal, whereas with larger animals, you can cut off a nice steak and ignore the “animal” aspect.
And yes – I don’t think I could ever run out of places I’d want to see in the world
Though it is always nice being “home” for a while (wherever that may be).
@mazil
To be honest, alpaca may or may not have rendered me ill for several days, almost cutting short my trip to Machu Picchu but it was kind of tasted like lamb as far as I recall.
Our Western squeamishes are strange, aren’t they?
I imagine tuna really hate dolphins, jealous to the enth.
I was walking across a farm the other day and a white goat hid amongst the sheep. They are remarkably similar yet us Westerners don’t eat the goat thanks to some Pan based myth (or pan fried, I’m not sure).
Home is also a grand folly I guess. I’m wearing slippers. Is there a greater folly?