Tim Bourke worked as a senior executive in the agri-food sector and as a consultant in various areas of industry, together with educational and social research projects. He has also had a long term involvement in politics at academic, policy and grass roots level. An elite thinker, he passes much time observing and commenting on the machinations of humanity down the ages and across the continents. He enjoys nothing more than engaging with the great unknowns of the day. He delights in posing the abstruse question that requires an acrobatic mental agility to lead to the solution. William Scally's working career spanned the semi-state corporate spectrum, the political arena, and working as policy adviser to various governments. He also worked as a public policy consultant and lecturer in adult education. A quintessential analyst and formidable interlocutor, he takes considerable pleasure in putting the knowledge quotient of family and friends on trial. That he has access to the solutions increases his enjoyment tenfold, as the quizzed strain their brains not alone to arrive at the answer but, frequently, to arrive at the very question.