The II Earl

  Encouraging Others to Be Kind, Selfless, Giving and Openly Emotional Anger is a normal feeling and can be a positive emotion when it helps you work through issues or problems, whether that’s at work or at home. However, anger can become problematic if it leads to aggression, outbursts, or even physical altercations. It’s said a gentleman is a man with good manners, kind and honest… but I´m not sure many people would consider him a gentleman. In this article I would like to add quotes on enemies to flesh out a fuller picture of how I see it. “If a man does not master his circumstances then he is bound to be mastered by them.” ―  Amor Towles “Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.” ―  Confucius “Angry men are blind and foolish, for reason at such time takes flight ...

The Man in The  Brooks Brothers  Shirt I n 1993, five-odd years under new owners Marks & Spencer, now widely agreed to have veered the brand drastically off course, Brooks Brothers took out a six-page advertorial in The Atlantic Monthly celebrating its 175 years in business. Literary heavyweight  George Plimpton  was hired to write the text, which combines history with everyday goings-on at the Madison Avenue flagship. * * * Under The Golden Fleece By George Plimpton Asked to check out Brooks Brothers on its 175th anniversary, I thought it best to outfit myself for the visit from head to foot in their clothing. It was not too difficult, since I have been a patron for years, as was my father before me, and his father before him. I missed out only on the shoes. I have an unnaturally wide foot, a triple E, and their shoe department stops at a single E, shoes that would have caused a wince at every step if I could have squeezed into them. But the rest was all theirs ...

B ack in the 1950s, the bourbon industry was still very much recovering from prohibition in America which had ended less than two decades earlier. Nearly all distillers were focused on the arduous (and, some would say, idiotic) pursuit of making ends meet in a business model that demanded they invest fortunes to produce a product that required years and years of maturing before any return was realized. And the distilleries at the time reflected this single-minded pursuit. Like the whisky they were making at the time, distilleries were harsh, intense, and largely unappealing – as unattractive a place to spend time as any noisy, dangerous and intense plant in the post-war industrialized world. And yet one individual had a bigger vision for what a bourbon distillery could be. What if, instead of just a site where you produced and manufactured bourbon whisky, a distillery was a welcoming, charming place where you could host vis...