I’ve spent the past few days doing my best Florence Nightingale impression, nursing Mrs and Toddler RMWLC back to health from the oinky misery of Swine Flu.
Thankfully, I was spared the same horrid fate thanks to a flu jab arranged by my agency.
Not so Mrs RMWLC who, despite being an NHS professional, was left jab-less.
This is as it should be.
Say what you like about the Western worldview, when it comes to esteeming those roles in society that deserve it most, we’ve got it pretty much bang on.
After all can you imagine what would happen if, in the event of a pandemic, marketing types were unable to work? It doesn’t bear thinking about.
With no one to produce a steady stream of pointless communications persuading people to buy stuff they don’t really need, our society would surely crumble.
Douglas Adams covers this theme with aplomb in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
The Circling Poets of Golgafrincham decided to rid themselves of the useless third of their population (including hairdressers, telephone sanitisers and, yes, advertising folk).
So they concocted a story that their planet would shortly be destroyed by a 'mutant star goat’ and sent them away in a giant spaceship, B-Ark, promising to follow shortly.
The other two thirds of the population of course did not follow and ‘led full, rich and happy lives until they were all suddenly wiped out by a virulent disease contracted from a dirty telephone’.
Now, I'm aware that Adams mistakenly lumped ad folk into the ship of useless people. But my point is this.
As another year draws to a close, let’s take a moment to salute how marvellous and important we all are.
And be thankful that, should a plague wipe out most of our population, we’ll still be around to propagate the human race with a new breed of shallow, self-obsessed halfwits.
Merry Christmas one and all!
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