People

In business, or indeed in any walk of life, referring to someone as a dinosaur is seldom a compliment. We are expected to immediately imagine someone who was once successful but has now outlived their usefulness and whose ideas, attitudes and methods are stuck in a past we disapprove of from the perspective of our more 'enlightened' age.

All of which is a shameful slight on a class of animal that ruled the earth, the seas and the skies for 160 million years. We've only been around for about 200,000 years at best — and last time we looked, none of us had yet evolved our own wings or flippers. The board of directors of Dino Inc would make a formidable, if somewhat unorthodox, team. We would suggest a brontosaurus as chairman (steady, big, well liked), a highly mobile sales team of pterodactyls and ichthyosaurs (covering land, sea and air) and perhaps a triceratops as finance director (looks more scary than he really is, but don't cross him).

Of course, that leaves the CEO, for which there is really only one candidate — the tyrannosaurus rex. Yes, it is a bit 'old school' to rule by fear, and snacking on junior staff members is not something to be approved of. But for sheer presence, willingness to get stuck in, ruthlessness in pursuit of goals and scaring off the competition, Mr Rex has a CV to be admired.

The dinosaurs left behind a legacy that still fascinates us today. We want to bridge the yawning chasm of time and meet them, we want to gaze in wonder at their magnificence and understand the true history of our planet. But mostly, we want to find out if there's going to be a boardroom power struggle, and make a fortune selling tickets.

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