Who Knew?

I was reading section B of the Vancouver Sun today.

Comments on a couple of things that gave me pause:

First was the headline: "No Evidence Gasoline Prices Spike Before Long Weekends".  This being the beginning of the Canada Day long weekend, my first thought was that this is a 'news' article about nothing happening........  Curious.

The second item to draw my attention was a column by Stephen Hume about what might have counted for knowledge in 1597, particularly about the coast of British Columbia.  The column is dwarfed by a two-page, accompanying image.  For some reason (perhaps because of the image size), I found myself reading the photo credit.  It was attributed to (wait for it).......  "The Masters and Benchers of the Honourable Society for the Middle Temple".

I kid you not.

So, in the face of this mouthful, I immediately stopped reading the paper and went looking on the web for this enterprise, fully expecting, due to the spelling of honourable, that this had to be something British.

Well, indeed!

Along with the above link, Wikipedia has an item about the society, so I guess I have just just been out of the knowledge loop.......  Yet another learning late in life.

Shucks, there is even a Facebook page.

Although it claims to be a society of men and women, not surprisingly, considering its origins, women seem to be scarce in the membership roles.  And while apparently based in the legal community, I see that members now include people with designations such as academic, cricketer, television presenter and politician.

I looked without success for information about the process of membership.  I was thinking that I would just love to be able to say that I belong to a club with a name like that.

In the end, I consoled myself with the Woody Allen quote from the movie, Annie Hall:  "I would never want to belong to any club that would have someone like me for a member."

Not that it appears they would.