The nameless old ringmaster of the place, referred to only as Control, was privately convinced that one of his senior figures was a Soviet-run double agent or, in Circus patois, a mole.

NEWYORKER: I Spy

The lack of a ringmaster means decisions about the Dome's contents - such as the gender of the enormous figure that will dominate the body zone - are currently taken on what the Chief Executive of the New Millennium Experience Company, Jenny Page, told Panorama was a 'corporate basis'.

BBC: Panorama - Dome!

Trainor was in the center of it all as ringmaster and head clown.

NPR: Dustbin Bands: The Surreal McCoys

"Here there's not that hierarchy that there used to be, " she said, though she acknowledged that ringmaster Andre McClain rates the train's biggest compartment.

WSJ: Ringling Brothers' Air Apparent

CO-OWNER OF MANHATTAN'S iconic Four Seasons, Julian Niccolini presides over the restaurant's Philip Johnson- and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe-designed dining rooms like a circus ringmaster seating, and playfully teasing, some of the nation's most prominent entrepreneurs and entertainers.

WSJ: Julian Niccolini