John Hackworth spent his career in the motor industry, mostly marketing and selling cars and vans. He graduated in engineering at the University of Southampton in 1964 (and thus is very old!), gained a 'Masters' in business at Imperial College and a PhD externally at Cranfield Management School in 1986. His PhD thesis in econometrics was published by Cranfield under the title 'How Many Cars in the 21st Century'. On entering retirement he published a paper a few years ago in 'Economics Letters' entitled 'Uncertainty and the Yield Curve'. Nowadays, in addition to family and village activities and house maintenance he has taken to thinking about life the universe and everything; hence the book.