The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors had us stumped this week when it publicised its pan-European webinar: ‘The impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on Real Estate in Europe – A black swan or a grey rhino event?’

Black swans? Grey rhinos?

It got worse.

RICS’ chief economist, Simon Rubinsohn was quoted and he appeared to bring wounded pheasants or partridges into the picture with his reference to a leg down: ‘It goes without saying that this is an unprecedent shock to the economy and that a short-term recession is inevitable in Europe over the coming months. The critical issue from a macro perspective is whether a second leg down can be avoided, once the virus has run its course, and/or another sovereign bond crisis emerges.”

Suitably confused EYE turned to the internet and found that according to Investopedia ‘A black swan is an unpredictable event that is beyond what is normally expected of a situation and has potentially severe consequences. Black swan events are characterized by their extreme rarity, their severe impact, and the widespread insistence they were obvious in hindsight.’

(It will only muddle things further if we mention that apparently there are also grey swan and white swan events.)

As for the grey rhino, that is a metaphor for missing the big, obvious thing that’s coming at you. Unlike a swan (which, as you know,  according to legend can break a man’s leg with a blow of its wing. Ladies are exempted) it gives you a choice. Either you get trampled, or you get out of the way, or you hop on the back of the rhino and use the crisis as an opportunity.

You probably knew all this, didn’t you? Well, EYE didn’t, because the limit of our zoological knowledge is what Sir David Attenborough has told us and we don’t remember anything about getting trampled by a massive swan or leaping on the back of a one legged rhino.

It was very tempting to do an April 1st spoof on the back of all this but, frankly, we think things are confusing enough as it is.