Ken Johnson, the author: Remember the Knowledge Economy? It might have worked like this:
Scene: A scruffy Groom stands in the scruffy market square holding a scruffy horse on a piece of string.
Agraa: Groom, I'll pay the date of the battle of Waterloo for that horse.
Bengip: You thieving loon, do I resemble a fool? Are you trying to take the bread from my children's mouths?
Agraa: It's a very ordinary horse. Head, tail, four legs, nothing special. I'll not pay a nepit more.
Ken Johnson: Nepit is a real word. It means a unit of information. Look it up in Wikipedia if you don't believe me.
Agraa: Johnson, with a fact like that you could buy a return air ticket to Henry VIII.
Ken Johnson: I've already been there. It's not worth the recipe for cheese on toast, quite honestly.
Bengip: Raise your price, customer Agraa, and you can have the horse, his name and his favourite food.
Agraa: Very well, then, I'll keep the date of the battle of Waterloo and buy a postage stamp and two biscuits with it. For the horse, I offer you the date and place of the Field of the Cloth of Gold. But I am generous only because I know you.
Bengip: Now you're talking. Deal done and sealed! Here is the horse. His name is Fishbouncer and he eats cornflakes.
Agraa: In the wrong order, the English Pale of Calais in 1520.
Bengip: Have you nothing smaller?
Agraa: No. I just dug some currency out of the knowledge mine and it's still in big hard lumps. I need to buy a couple of things to get change.
CASH REGISTER KA-CHING!
Bengip: In that case I must give you change. Georges Gonthier proved the Four Colour Theorem in 2005. Sign here, please.
AGRAA WRITES A SOSHUNISSAN HIEROGLYPH ON BENGIP'S NOSE.
Bengip: Look after him well, customer. His value rises daily as he learns much and speaks little.
POLICEMAN STOPS AGRAA.
Policeman: 'Allo, 'allo! Where do you think you're goin' on that 'orse? This is Market Fissure. It's a one way street.
Agraa: Is that a fact?
Policeman: Yes, it is.
Agraa: I will lodge it carefully behind my ear so that later today I can afford an extra digestive biscuit.
Policeman: Oh, no, you won't. You'll use it to pay the fine.
AGRAA GALLOPS OFF INTO THE DISTANCE.
Policeman: Oy! Come back 'ere.
