Life of Riley: Stop the world and get me a newspaper
@column intro = I suffer so much from the heats. It gives me pains to wake each morning and see no cloud larger than a fifty cent piece. We get toasted, roasted, grilled, stewed and carbonated on one side or another — and when well-done each day, are eaten up at night by bugs.
Before such fierceness the only shield we can muster is a general application of sun protection factor 15+.
Each year the oven door opens above us and we are scorched. Thirsty and sweaty, instead of running from its beams we seek a torrid affair with its sultry heat by offering it a sacrifice of our flesh. You see, only mad dogs and holiday-makers go out in the noon day sun.
Singed by sun bathing, our ruddy limbs — now solar powered — are then turned to the tasks at hand. I hate to tell you this folks, but the respite (so good while it lasted) is more or less over. From here on in it's off the beaches and back to work — this one to their desk and that one to their machine — because free enterprise doesn't take time off. If we are to fill that huge hole in the nation's current accounts or tackle unemployment we need everyone back at work — even if they all, unfortunately, can't be "employed" (i.e. fired up with prospects and a wage) — doing their bit to bring back the good times. You've had your fun. Now put the past behind you and let's get down to business.
You may notice that the legislation passed during the last sitting of parliament — before the summer recess — now begins to come into effect. While you were soaking up the sun on a shoreline somewhere the Commonwealth cut back (again) and your job (if indeed you still have one) can now be interpreted somewhat differently by your boss.
Despite the resolutions and plans you may have made at midnight a few weeks back during the first few bars of Auld Lang Syne, for most of us 1997 is not going to be a good year. (Remember you read it here first: 1997 sucks!)
It is not my intention to encourage a morbid general yearning to join those dear departed whose deaths were recorded in the holiday road toll. My point instead is this: we're on the back foot.
I have no plan nor major scheme to win back what we lost while sunbathing. But keep in touch and I'm certain as the year unfolds possible strategies will be explored in these pages.
@column intro = O Green Left who visits us
In times of woe
To discuss
The ways that we
Can go.
@column intro = Lead on, paper of the dawn;
Tabloid champion.
Sing out for all to hear,
Backed by a rousing chorus:
"Wanna buy a paper?"