Your country needs you... 23.10.08
I'VE been searching the
house for a belt this week, but so far haven’t been able
to find it, which, for me is a cause of great concern
and stress.
You see I’d like to think that I’m going to be able to
do my bit for my country and apparently tightening my
belt is the thing to do. But what if you haven’t got a
belt?
Well the chances are that if you haven’t, you may well
not be able to afford to buy one now to go tighten and
you might well get arrested for treason.
Which is why I’ve been searching. I’m pretty sure that I
have one somewhere in the house, but I must admit that I
found it difficult to look for stuff in the dark.
I suppose I could have switched on the light for a wee
while, but I would have felt so unpatriotic switching on
a light that doesn’t have one of those energy saving
bulbs. |
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Yep, we’ve all got to save,
save, save because by the looks of things from now on
every time we move a muscle we’re going to have to pay
for it.
I always imagined a call to patriotism as something very
different from what we got in last week’s budget, but
hey, who am I to argue if being patriotic means that
from now on everything is going to cost us more and the
double whammy is we’ll have less money to pay for it.
It would be enough to make you think about leaving the
country, but nobody can ever say again that our
politicians aren’t cute, cos they even thought of that
and slapped a tax on travelling too.
But, hey, we’re all in this together, which should be
comforting I guess.
I mean, it shouldn’t really matter that only a few
actually caused this whole darn mess, sure there are
plenty around to help clean it up, roll up your sleeves
folks, your country needs you.
Ahem, just make sure you know that if you are feeling
very patriotic and thinking of rushing in to help save
the day it will, most likely come at a cost. In fact it
could cost you eight cent a litre and €200 then to park
when you get there. You’d better take the bike.
But if you do you had better make sure you don’t fall
off, because a trip to Accident and Emergency now will
cost you €100.
Being patriotic sure is costly, and I wouldn’t bet on
things changing for a while…because betting would cost
me too! It’s all very depressing really, but not enough
to drive me to drink or cigarettes…they’re too bloody
expensive.
Still when you think on the main messages - tighten your
belt, roll up your sleeves, it would seem as if there is
a clothing theme to this whole getting the country back
on track.
And hey, maybe the answer to everything lies in the
wardrobe and I’ve been wondering are there areas in the
whole clothing sector where the country could save
massively?
Of course there are. I know this could come as a shock,
but let’s start with the whole underwear thing. Is it
really necessary? I mean we all have outer layers on
anyway.
I can just imagine people thinking this is crazy and
ridiculous and just downright unacceptable, but think
about all the money we could save.
For a start there is the purchasing of the underwear,
that’s quite an amount of money unless you are one of
those people who just has two sets, one for the week and
one for Sundays. |
Then there is the whole
cost of washing and drying that underwear – and hey the
savings there would help the environment too.
And there are other factors too, like the time it takes
to decide which underwear to put on, and the time spent
walking to the drawer and opening it and finding that
underwear. That is all valuable time that could be more
productively spent paying other taxes.
The best advantage will however come when the government
sits down to formulate their next budget.
Because then we could remind them of that old saying -
“You can’t take knickers off a bare… |
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A DROP OF
PORTER is
the weekly
column of
Inishowen
Independent
editor,
Liam Porter. |
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