> raiders call a shareholders' meeting but fail to provide other shareholders adequate and timely notice,
Pretty much mostly unrelated, but this bit touched a spark.
I remember reading some, unknown book, ages past. And somehow related to the story was one of these Board of Directors meetings. The Board was obliged to publicly announce the meeting.
The board, indeed, publicly announced the meeting. In Chinese, in a small, Chinatown newspaper, nowhere near where the meeting was to take place.
Just one of those clever "letter of the law" gimmicks. Always struck me as funny. (The protagonists organized a massive campaign and managed to find the announcement, so the nefarious deeds were eventually punished.)
Reminds me of Douglas Adams’s description of where the Aliens posted their plans to bulldoze Earth:
“But the plans were on display…”.
“On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.”
“That’s the display department.”
“With a flashlight.”
“Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.”
“So had the stairs.”
“But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.”
The aliens' plans were, if I remember right, posted for display in a nearby star system, with a similar 'it's your own fault if you didn't bother to go look' justification.
The indie book series Dungeon Crawler Carl, which is entirely unlike Adams' work in most ways but clearly takes some inspiration from the malevolent absurdity on display, uses a similar premise where the demolition-causing aliens let the pharaohs know 40,000 years ago and that serves as sufficient legal notice.
Entirely unnecessary nitpick: they are Vogons. Had me questioning myself for a moment if I'd consistently misread their name[1]!
[1] this could have been quite likely since it wasn't until I was about 18 years old that I realised Kawaski motorcylces were in fact Kawasaki motorcycles!
Every time I read that part of the book I am surprised that there was no actual leopard. Somehow my brain stored that scene that he had to fight a leopard in the dark basement with no easy way out because of the fallen stairs. Yet clearly the leopard is only on the sign (or is it?)
Yes. The leopard sign is a non sequitur meant to further emphasise that this is precisely not the place one would expect to look for the item in question. It could have been a sign about anything but the "Beware of the leopard" is perfectly unrelated to the topic. This is the kind of thing Adams had a real genius for.
My understanding was that the sign was an entirely bogus but rather worrisome warning, put there as a somewhat deceitful tactic to dissuade people from reading the real notices (about demolition, for instance).
Pretty much mostly unrelated, but this bit touched a spark.
I remember reading some, unknown book, ages past. And somehow related to the story was one of these Board of Directors meetings. The Board was obliged to publicly announce the meeting.
The board, indeed, publicly announced the meeting. In Chinese, in a small, Chinatown newspaper, nowhere near where the meeting was to take place.
Just one of those clever "letter of the law" gimmicks. Always struck me as funny. (The protagonists organized a massive campaign and managed to find the announcement, so the nefarious deeds were eventually punished.)