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"For Want of a Nail" consequence streams (and webs)

Have I Got News For You decides against having Boris Johnson as a guest in April 1998:

- Boris is not brought to the attention of the wider public and made famous as a loveable upper class buffoon. Without this, he isn't asked back again & again and also onto other shows. Without this media profile, he doesn't get selected as Conservative candidate for Henley and also lacks the profile (and material) to do his books. He remains a columnist and Spectator editor, though this means when his repeated affairs come out, they're affairs by a columnist & editor (one with an employee) and not by a beloved public figure who can wave them off.

- Andrew Boff becomes the Tory candidate for Mayor of London in 2008. This could mean he wins an extremely narrow mayoral election against Livingstone; he is a less famous figure than Boris but is also someone it's harder to go after as he's not got a record of gaffs (nor much of a public record at all!) and as an openly gay man is a symbol of the 'new Tories'.

- The Mayor of London is someone who supports the AV vote referendum in 2011. That gives it an extra Big Name supporter, one that could resonate in London and among Conservatives, and one that can loudly say that London uses a non-FPTP system anyway. When it emerges that Cameron did somer dirty tricks with the No side to make the AV referendum a mess for Clegg, it's not a minor story: now Cameron did dirty tricks against his own Mayor and on a closer vote. Cue numerous butterflies.
 
Does AV still fail or does it pass? If the former, still major, if not then maybe the dirty tricks aren't as big or don't emerge but still large butterflies.
 
Charles I's elder surviving daughter Elizabeth (1635-1650) does not catch pneumonia in a heavy rainshower while playing on the bowling green at Carisbrooke Castle, Isle of Wight in 1650 - she and her brother Henry (younger siblings of Charles II and James II) had been held hostage by Parliament and then the New Model Army during the Civil War and after Charles I's execution in 1649 were interned at various estates pending agreement to exile them to France to join their mother Henrietta Maria. Elizabeth died before the arrangements were finalised, due to carelessness about supervising her by her captors. (Tomb extant in Newport, I o W.)
As a result of this death Charles II's only surviving sister as of the Restoration 1660 was the much younger Henriette Marie, 'Minette' (b. 1644) who his mother then married off to her French Catholic cousin Philippe Duke of Orleans, Louis XIV's homosexual brother (see 'Versailles' on TV). HM became Catholic to do this; their daughters were Catholic so were banned from inheriting the English/ British throne by Parliament in the Act of Settlement 1700. So when James II's daughter Queen Anne dies childless in 1714, their distant cousin George of Hanover (grandson of Charles I's sister) inherits GB. But Elizabeth was older, cleverer and more strong-willed than HM: she could well have insisted on marrying a Protestant in the 1660s to conciliate English elite anti-Catholic feeling. Probably choosing a N German Protestant prince or a Dutch cousin of William III? Her children are thus next in line and eligible for the throne in 1714 - no Hanoverian succession. The entire Royal Family history of UK since is different; and GB diplomacy in C18th is altered by no link with Hanover. George I to IV etc remain marginal German princes.
 
Charles I's elder surviving daughter Elizabeth (1635-1650) does not catch pneumonia in a heavy rainshower while playing on the bowling green at Carisbrooke Castle, Isle of Wight in 1650

Never mind the daughter of the King - if Anne Marie de Bourbon, Mademoiselle de Condé can handle getting jilted by the Duc de Maine a bit better, or not get lung disease for a few more years (c. 1700 doctors really had no fucking clue what was going on, did they?) and end up marrying a Margrave of Ansbach as was suggested - any (Protestant) kids will, since their mother’s mother’s father’s mother’s father is James I, be, er, still ahead of the Hanoverians.

So depending on the lung health of a very minor Bourbon offshoot princess in 1700 - Britain can welcome in the House of Hohenzollern.
 
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1) in 1767, a new theatre was planned for the Comédie-Française. From 1779-1782 it was built in Paris, and called the Odéon after a Frenchified version of the Greek word for theatre. Despite this, the Comédie-Française didn't actually move in in the end.

Showed the current one to Jack last Wednesday as it's quite close to the Palais du Luxembourg, seat of the Senate. It does lean heavily into the Greek heritage.

An interesting butterfly to consider if Napoléon doesn't come to power is the impact on stage art. Only four or five theatres had a licence to operate under the Ancien Régime in Paris. The Révolution did away with that and thirty to fourty stages sprung up during the 1790s decade. Most of them collapsed financially because there was no way for even Paris to sustain that kind of activity, and it was a worry to Napoléon that such economic mismanagement be not repeated under him, as well as allowing himself more control on what was said and played on those stages. So he reintroduced the privilège system and allowed some eight theatres in Paris, with only two dedicated to lyrical works.

This was to have massive consequences in the fight between the archconservative classicists and the wild-haired romantics when it came to the creation of romantic dramas on the more famous and 'sacred' stages like the Français leading to the battle of Hernani when performances at the newer and much less considered Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin would only cause some slight frowning of eyebrows.

But even so, under the Restauration and the July monarchy, that eight number was rapidly increased... except for the lyrical stages. And as Paris was one of the centers of opera at the time, if not THE center, this had European and worldwide consequences on music, to say nothing of the creation of the early operettas by Hervé and Offenbach whose format is entirely predicated on flouting the rules imposed by the ministry as they can get away with. For starters, the official Théâtre de l'Opéra basically only agreed to known quantities to be played, so if you were a new composer, you'd have to turn to the Opéra-Comique, and if the manager (most often directly imposed by the minister himself) did not like you, you were out of luck, possibly for a decade or more. Getting a third official lyrical stage opened in Paris became a liberal serpent-de-mer in the press all the way to the 1850s. Victor Hugo certainly took advantage of his peerage and then his election to the Assemblée to argue for full revocation of the privilège system and freedom from most censorship at the 1848 constitutional convention. And some scores or librettos (particularly those that flopped, but only them) nowadays only survive from the archives of the Ministry when they were submitted for approval, because the theatres which contained them had an upsetting tendency to go up in flames.

Most of this because one Corsican was a control freak and somehow it was his nephew who abolished that particular bit.
 
Thande: this is amazing ! I never quite understood the bizarre name of that peculiar TV channel. Thank you for filling that gap in my knowledge.

Had Eugene Poubelle been born with a different name, a dust bin or trash heap would not be called a poubelle in French. Of course that caused endless trouble and hassle for his heirs.
Same for Gustave Eiffel, although it is far more glorious to bear the name of an iconic landmark rather than a trash can :unsure:
A more recent UK example is Belisha beacons (the flashing orange ones at zebra crossings), named after Leslie Hore-Belisha, the Minister for Transport who introduced them in the 1930s. This means that the name of one of the most junior office-holders in Ramsay Mac's Ministry at the time has survived almost a century later, after everyone except historians has forgotten all the others, except Neville Chamberlain and then only for appeasement. Of course, hardly anyone actually knows that Belisha beacons are named after anyone, any more than I imagine most French people know poubelle was somebody's name.
 
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A more recent UK example is Belisha beacons (the flashing orange ones at zebra crossings), named after Leslie Hore-Belisha, the Minister for Transport who introduced them in the 1930s. This means that the name of one of the most junior office-holders in Ramsay Mac's Ministry at the time has survived almost a century later, after everyone except historians has forgotten all the others, except Neville Chamberlain and then only for appeasement. Of course, hardly anyone actually knows that Belisha beacons are named after anyone, any more than I imagine most French people know poubelle was somebody's name.
IIRC his weren't even the flashing ones, they didn't come in till the 50s.
 
There was a capetian king of France that lost his heir when his son horse tripped on a pig that was running in the streets of Paris. It was in the 1100's. Most immediate consequence: the very pissed off king immediate got a law punishing anybody who let domestic animals running free in Paris streets.

Also: 99.9% of people think Roland Garros was a tennis player. No he wasn't: he was an aviation pioneer. Susan Lenglen was a tennis player, so maybe it is the reason why people assume Garros was, too.

The bishop that got Joan of Ark burned at the stake had the unfortunate (but quite appropriate) name of Cauchon = cochon, PIG.
 
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Here's an interesting one for you.

Dvorak was very unsure about accepting a teaching position in the US and was won over by his wife who successfully argued that the large pay offer was worth it. He left after a couple of years partially due to home-sickness and partially due to his employers loosing a lot of money in the Panic of 1893 and cutting his wages.

Now the Panic of 1893 was in part affected by politics in Argentina that were very unstable since the crop failures and coup of 1890 and brought to a head by another coup in 1893. Theoretically the latter coup could be pushed earlier, cutting investment as IOTL and triggering the panic a year earlier.

Ms. Thurber thus has less money to offer Dvorak, the deal isn't good enough to persuade him and he never goes to the United States.

As a consequence of this the New World Symphony never gets written, at a stroke removing one of the most popular and iconic pieces of music ever written.

Decades later Warburtons will have to find a different song for their adverts, and as a knock on effect of that there will have to be a different musical shorthand for 'working class Yorkshire'.
 
Hm, what if the Panic of 1893 is delayed?

You might get an extra year or two of Dvorak in America, but he was starting to get somewhat depressed due to increasing homesickness so he's going to move back to Prague sooner rather than later.
 
Here's an interesting one for you.

Dvorak was very unsure about accepting a teaching position in the US and was won over by his wife who successfully argued that the large pay offer was worth it. He left after a couple of years partially due to home-sickness and partially due to his employers loosing a lot of money in the Panic of 1893 and cutting his wages.

Now the Panic of 1893 was in part affected by politics in Argentina that were very unstable since the crop failures and coup of 1890 and brought to a head by another coup in 1893. Theoretically the latter coup could be pushed earlier, cutting investment as IOTL and triggering the panic a year earlier.

Ms. Thurber thus has less money to offer Dvorak, the deal isn't good enough to persuade him and he never goes to the United States.

As a consequence of this the New World Symphony never gets written, at a stroke removing one of the most popular and iconic pieces of music ever written.

Decades later Warburtons will have to find a different song for their adverts, and as a knock on effect of that there will have to be a different musical shorthand for 'working class Yorkshire'.
Speaking of which, Dvorak conducted a concert at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago of the same year, which also led to a remarkable number of firsts. While the Wiki article is a little exaggerated, you've got things as chocolate brownies, those commemorative stretched pennies in a press, Scott Joplin's music (writer of "The Entertainer"), Braille printing, and Mr Hershey deciding to go into chocolate (OK, not all of these are positives).
 
Speaking of which, Dvorak conducted a concert at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago of the same year, which also led to a remarkable number of firsts. While the Wiki article is a little exaggerated, you've got things as chocolate brownies, those commemorative stretched pennies in a press, Scott Joplin's music (writer of "The Entertainer"), Braille printing, and Mr Hershey deciding to go into chocolate (OK, not all of these are positives).
Not to mention Disney World
 
The De Havilland DH-95 Flamingo that brought De Gaulle from Bordeaux to Londres on June 17, 1940 was also used many times by Churchill when he come to France and met Paul Reynaud.
During one of these trips, the vulnerable aircraft lost is pack of Hurricane escorts and had to return from Bordeaux to Great Britain alone, crossing Brittany and Northern France were the air battle raged. The Flamingo was flying at wave level over the Channel when he come across an unfortunate British evacuation ship that was being straffed and bombed by the LW. The pilot kept his cool and discretely ran away from the fight at full throttle. No german pilot saw him, they instead concentrated in crippling the boat and his crew.

In the chaos of Bordeaux, June 17, 1940, nobody, not even De Gaulle, could remember what was the type of the aircraft that brought him to London. It took until the 90's when the DH-95 was identified.

Jacques Chirac wife Bernadette is called Chodron de Courcelles, and she is the niece of Geoffroy Chodron de Courcelles, who was in the plane with De Gaulle that June 17.

Chirac was born on November 29, 1932. During the war, his family had taken shelter at Henry Potez home at Le Rayol (Henry Potez was an avionist and a good friend of Marcel Dassault, and both banker was Chirac father, Abel François Chirac. Those three made fortunes out of the Front Populaire nationalisation of the aircraft industry, in 1936).
When the war broke out, Potez and Chirac fled Paris and went to Le Rayol.
The day Chirac celebrated his tenth anniversary, he was a mischievous child running on the hills over Toulon harbor. All of sudden he heard huge explosions, smoke was everywhere, and the Earth shook. The French fleet had just scuttled itself to escape capture by the Nazis !

so for want of a nail...

Had Churchill Flamingo been shot down, De Gaulle would have been stranded in Bordeaux (and probably shot), screwing France, and also screwing a young Chirac, many times: no France, no fifth Republic, no Bernadette, no scuttling of the fleet.
 
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I'm really not seeing how you can argue any of that depends on the other bits. Interesting coincidences but hardly a consequence steam.
 
Pixar "brain trust" is also packed with "for want of a nail". for example, Inside Out pitch come from one member of that "brain thrust" observing his pre-teen child and wondering what was going within that young head.
The very nature of the "brain trust" concept made it extremely vulnerable to the "for want of a nail" scenario. For example, had that child not been born, or born a boy, Inside out may have never happened.
 
Pixar "brain trust" is also packed with "for want of a nail". for example, Inside Out pitch come from one member of that "brain thrust" observing his pre-teen child and wondering what was going within that young head.
The very nature of the "brain trust" concept made it extremely vulnerable to the "for want of a nail" scenario. For example, had that child not been born, or born a boy, Inside out may have never happened.

Treasure Planet was originally pitched in the 80s, before the creative team were persuaded to make Little Mermaid instead.
 
Here's a Pixar thing:

- After Steve Jobs was fired from Apple, he became a shareholder in early Pixar - which had routinely had problems with technology not being good enough yet for what they wanted to do, ongoing cash issues, and nobody but Jobs wanted to invest. So if Jobs isn't fired, he's less likely to invest in Pixar due to being busy. Thus eventually Pixar quietly goes under before Disney sign a film deal with it.

- Disney are already a business partner with Pixar and so they buy up what remains - it's not as big a deal for them so CGI films happen later. Dreamworks Animation were catching up with what Pixar had already done but now, due to the longer timescale, will be rushing to beat Disney to the market and aren't starting from second-place. As Dreamworks and Katzenberg want to beat Disney to the punch, they get the resources at the right time.

- Antz is the first CGI animated film. (I'm going with Katzenberg's claim that the idea predates hearing about Bug's Life, but if not this, then something) Global hit! Disney's first CGI film is out soon after - it's probably the long-in-production Joe Jump (nobody's yet considered "what if a game villain is the lead and he's called Ralph?") as, ala ReBoot on TV, setting it inside a computer helps get around any early CG issues - but they're now in second-place. The perception grows that 3D is Dreamworks' game like 2D was Disney's - there's no Pixar brain trust making blockbusters for Disney - and it becomes the influence of a new era, rather like it did anyway but sooner & more so. And of course, no Pixar people to help rejuvenate Disney proper. Now we're into the Dreamworks Renaissance, until someone can cut in past them.

- Having lost first place and without Pixar to rely on and with it becoming desperate to get a mega-hit 3D film, Disney likely has a period of "THROW IT AT THE WALL SEE WHAT STICKS" creativity, ala Hollywood in late 60s to Star Wars. So if you like weird flights of fancy and all that, this is actually a good period for you regardless of how well it does financially. This could mean Brenda Chapman, making a name for herself at Dreamworks (she was OTL part of The Prince Of Egypt), goes to Disney to make her pet project, The Bear And The Bow, after Dreamworks (now with a house style) decides this isn't really their thing. Disney's desperate! Hell, this Merida's a princess, that's handy for merch....

- Disney's period of disruption may disrupt the buyout of Marvel or Star Wars, more likely Star Wars - it took a lot to get Lucas to sell. So right now, the third trilogy is making it to cinemas and it's as George intended and nerds worldwide are seeing it whatever they said about the prequels, YOU KNOW THIS.
 
George Lucas divorce on top of that. It had massive ripple effects, including the above (Jobs being fired, Pixar) and of course the crappy prequels, Marcia being the creative force and no longer there... it just stroke me as an evidence: did Toy Story robbed the prequels of their creativity, in some way ? A lot of good things from the first Star Wars trilogy migrated to the Toy Story trilogy...
 
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