M’aidez, m’aidez

Happy May Day, comrades, and long live the revolution. You can still join the brothers for an afternoon of marching and shouting in the May sunshine if you leave the office sharpish.

And it seems that marching and shouting are just about all the dudes at the PCS (Prop: M Serwotka Esq, controller the pen-pushers in various branches of the government machine) will be doing for a while, since they’ve arranged an unhelpfully titled day of ‘industrial action’, which should perhaps read ‘bureaucratic inaction’ on this very day.

I believe they’re striking because HMG is closing down the Job Centre Plusses (‘Job Centres Plus’?). Maybe they have a point – if the guys who help unemployed people have been made unemployed, who’s going to help them?

Here are some jobs the meaning and purpose of which escape me:

• Visual merchandiser


• Female hygiene operative


• Minister of Excellence


• Head of Proposition Development

Sharper eyed readers will note that the UK Sunday papers picked up on the Abercrombie and Bitch story featured in this very column ten days previously. The writ is in the post, gentlemen.

Out and about for some client drinks last night. The topics of conversation (in chronological order) are listed below:

• Sufficiency of working capital headroom (it’s all down to judgement)


• Impact on the year end audit of the requirement under IFRS to determine fact patterns (makes it much longer and more expensive)


• Likely effect of the new Companies’ Act on directors’ responsibilities (nothing)


• Whether South Africans who live in Putney are posher than South Africans who live in Earlsfield (probably, but there are fewer of them)


• The minimum amount of outside space a rental flat full of South Africans needs to have a braai (about 0.4m2)


• What roasted guinea pig (something of a signature dish in Ecuador, I gather) might taste like (bony chicken, probably)


• Guessing how many Polish dudes there are in London (the assembled conversers came from all corners of London, and they all had a Polski Sklep in the neighbourhood)


• Whether there’s a correlation between personal wealth and the waviness of one’s hair (yes - supported by empirical evidence from the high powered bankers standing at the other end of the room)

Can you guess the point at which the warm chardonnay kicked in?

And finally, next time you get lucky enough to see your London NHS GP and are told that ‘it’s probably a virus, I suggest you rest’, it’s time to get all pushy and North American on their complacent asses – here are three questions to ask them. I sense, however, that the responses will be a brusque (1) Nothing; (2) No; (3) Of course not, please leave immediately.

Enough already, I need to get ahead of the curve on my anchor tailored insights collateral deck. At least I think that’s what he said.