Heroes And Villains.

Take a good look at this man.
His name was Isembard Kingdom Brunel.
He built everything.

Can you imagine this man, pictured in front of his Great Eastern, being told that his design belonged to the company, and that he was no longer required; that the double-monocoque box-section hull was going to be sold to Hearst Shipping, so that Great Eastern could shut down and the manager could live off the profits?

Can you see him accepting that?
Can you see anybody in the Victorian age accepting that?
But modern mediocrities like to think of themselves as the inheritors of the Victorian 'upper crust'.
They anxiously try to buy the favour of the rich by adopting all the paraphernalia of rich men's sports and pastimes, in the miserable hope that they will garner 'good name' and praise for the qualities they treat like the Sacred Conch.
"I'm boss so you have to do as I say!"

Brunel gained his engineering degree in Paris.
If you remember, Paris had just settled a long account with such bastards.
But he came back to England to work.
And the English let him be.
He set his fee, did his work and was recognised.

But the modern English don't know any longer how to see a good thing. They only want to get the lion's share with a hyena's attitude.
This expertise and Brunel's can't co-exist in one country.
So there is a cultural Chinese Wall to stop the two types recognising one another until too late.
But it doesn't work.
So British Engineering is fighting a guerilla war for survival; but nobody is making 'it' or anything else any more.