Inventing ‘the box’ and avoiding Agincourt (ft. Sunil Patel)

Medieval England, 1415. The Battle of Agincourt is looming, Henry V is rallying his troops, and comedian Sunil Patel has gone straight to a tavern to ask a group of merchants if anyone's got a job going. His pitch: "I have a very particular set of skills that will only become apparent once you give me the job." The merchants are intrigued. They probably shouldn't be.

Sunil's approach to 15th-century England: refuse military service under any circumstances, befriend a portly moustachioed merchant, and pitch an invention so vague that nobody can explain what it actually does. "Patel's Device" is delivered with total conviction — it opens doors, it impresses people, and it may or may not be a box. His real secret weapon is that he can read and write, which in 1415 puts him ahead of roughly 95% of the population. Whether that's enough to build an empire while England's most famous battle rages on without him remains to be seen.

The real Agincourt saw Henry V's outnumbered English army annihilate the French through a devastating combination of longbow tactics and muddy terrain. Oxford in 1415 was a university town with a dark underbelly, and the merchants were the rising class. Sunil knows which side he's on. The swords can wait.