In the beginning was the six-day week. Toil without end.
From the void, God created Heaven and the Earth and Time and Motion and the study thereof.
In the firmament, He set arc lamps and divers illuminations: the sun by day and the moon and stars at double time.
On the first day, God created merry hell until the Angels ended their dispute and settled for a pay rise in line with inflation.
On the second day, He created a tier of tertiary management to place between the creatures of the Earth and the creatures of the inner cities.
On the third day, God created factories and an industrial infrastructure as well as rats and micro-organisms with which to infringe Health and Safety regulations.
On the fourth day, He created the closed shop, industrial relations and all that these entail.
On the fifth day, God created the pursuit of pleasure for profit, sharp practices, blunt instruments and the diseases of economic disaster and urban decay.
On the sixth day, God created tension and stress-related disorder, riots and their police, skulls and bludgeons, sundry petty malices and cheap tricks too distasteful to mention.
On the seventh day, He rested and decided to get up late. At lunch, He made up His mind to do it all as a TV movie. Angelo Gabrielli, His agent, thought it was a great idea and, over a glass of Liebfraumilch, they dreamed up a press release and leaked it to the major dailies.
From the void, God created Heaven and the Earth and Time and Motion and the study thereof.
In the firmament, He set arc lamps and divers illuminations: the sun by day and the moon and stars at double time.
On the first day, God created merry hell until the Angels ended their dispute and settled for a pay rise in line with inflation.
On the second day, He created a tier of tertiary management to place between the creatures of the Earth and the creatures of the inner cities.
On the third day, God created factories and an industrial infrastructure as well as rats and micro-organisms with which to infringe Health and Safety regulations.
On the fourth day, He created the closed shop, industrial relations and all that these entail.
On the fifth day, God created the pursuit of pleasure for profit, sharp practices, blunt instruments and the diseases of economic disaster and urban decay.
On the sixth day, God created tension and stress-related disorder, riots and their police, skulls and bludgeons, sundry petty malices and cheap tricks too distasteful to mention.
On the seventh day, He rested and decided to get up late. At lunch, He made up His mind to do it all as a TV movie. Angelo Gabrielli, His agent, thought it was a great idea and, over a glass of Liebfraumilch, they dreamed up a press release and leaked it to the major dailies.
© BH 1983
Strange how some things weather over time but don't quite wear out.
Back before 1983, the gospel according to industrial relations seemed the only truth. Then Thatcher broke the miners in the seventies and the legacy of that attrition tore up the rule book. As paragraph 23 sub-section 12 faded into memory, the jobsworth mind of dyed-in-the-wool shop stewards tranferred to other bureaucracies. The media star rose in the heavens along with cynicism and cheap-skate sensationalism.
So we fell from grace, or at least from one state of gracelessness to another. All we did was swap sicknesses, in the end going down the pan at the same inexorable rate.
God looked down, looked upon His works and thought, 'Did I do that? Not bloody likely!'
Very little has changed now you come to think about it.
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