Some things have a long reign. For example, QE2.

Others a short one (eg after the fuss on the Netscape float in 1995 things changed rather fast for them…maybe a metaphor for what Facebook faces for its future as a public listed company now).

40 years ago Monty Python parodied Australian wine, playing to long standing prejudices.

But the tables (table wine!) turned pretty quickly after that silly smugness. Top Oz wine have been highly rated for many decades now.

A lesson for us all when making firm judgements – eg about implications of the current wave of anxiety on the Euro wobbles and Austerity (along side the rise of China). Marx said “History repeats itself, first time as tragedy and second time as farce”. A hundred years later the poet Steve Turner said: “History repeats itself – has to, no one is listening”. But maybe the future may not be what we predict from our current mindset and far more than a repeat of the past.