Economists

There is a new creature sitting at the Assistant Economist’s desk just behind me. His predecessor, Alex, has moved on after being one of the few to stick around for close on two years. There is no better way of measuring the passage of time than monitoring the Assistant Economist: the Chief goes on and on, but the Assistant changes on an annual basis. I think it must be a sort of clerical equivalent of Logan’s Run. They arrive within a few months of graduating, stay a year and then disappear into the void. They never get past 23 years of age.

I have seen only two of them elsewhere in the Department. One, a wily critter by the name of Adam, is unchanged and haunting another floor, proving that escape is possible. The other, Ted, has substantially changed his appearance and I managed to walk past him in the street without recognising him until he hailed me. I think he is in organisational hiding; the natural world does not like economists. When he worked here, he was a jejune¹ and unsophisticated (if that’s not a tautology²) youth with a Billy Whizz haircut. The last time I saw him, his disguise was complete. He was a few inches taller (or so it seemed), with floppy blond hair cut not unlike Jarvis Cocker in the mid 90s. He was wearing a trendy suit and looked a great deal like one of those frighteningly pretty and part-plastic male fashion models that appear in the Sunday glossies, standing over a roasted swan as if to carve it and about to weep at the beauty of it all.

There is something odd about Economists.


¹See me display my impressive vocabulary!

²And again. In the same sentence!

Economists

There is a new creature sitting at the Assistant Economist’s desk just behind me. His predecessor, Alex, has moved on after being one of the few to stick around for close on two years. There is no better way of measuring the passage of time than monitoring the Assistant Economist: the Chief goes on and on, but the Assistant changes on an annual basis. I think it must be a sort of clerical equivalent of Logan’s Run. They arrive within a few months of graduating, stay a year and then disappear into the void. They never get past 23 years of age.

I have seen only two of them elsewhere in the Department. One, a wily critter by the name of Adam, is unchanged and haunting another floor, proving that escape is possible. The other, Ted, has substantially changed his appearance and I managed to walk past him in the street without recognising him until he hailed me. I think he is in organisational hiding; the natural world does not like economists. When he worked here, he was a jejune¹ and unsophisticated (if that’s not a tautology²) youth with a Billy Whizz haircut. The last time I saw him, his disguise was complete. He was a few inches taller (or so it seemed), with floppy blond hair cut not unlike Jarvis Cocker in the mid 90s. He was wearing a trendy suit and looked a great deal like one of those frighteningly pretty and part-plastic male fashion models that appear in the Sunday glossies, standing over a roasted swan as if to carve it and about to weep at the beauty of it all.

There is something odd about Economists.


¹See me display my impressive vocabulary!

²And again. In the same sentence!

Death of Pie

I have a slight headache. I never get headaches. I guess I’m a little more tired than I thought; I shall probably wander off around 5pm, get some fresh air and see if there’s anywhere around here who will sell me ceramic glue. In what I am told was a "freak" accident over the weekend, colonel_maxim contrived to break the lid to my TARDIS cookie jar. Luckily it is a clean break and can be repaired with a blob or two of glue and some elastic bands.

Back here at the office, every time I go into the coffee point (or the Mutia Escarpment as I shall now call it) to recharge my mug, I am reminded that I was lucky enough to have missed yesterday’s inevitably dour office party (4pm until late; how nice for it to fall outside core hours…). The reminder is in the form of two basins limned with aluminium foil, and filled with the mangled corpses of mince pies. Veritable sweetmeat plague pits they are. The coffee room is the fabled pastry graveyard, a glimpse of which has spurred on many a Victorian adventurer…

Thus is prompted the first use of the seasonal icon.

Death of Pie

I have a slight headache. I never get headaches. I guess I’m a little more tired than I thought; I shall probably wander off around 5pm, get some fresh air and see if there’s anywhere around here who will sell me ceramic glue. In what I am told was a "freak" accident over the weekend, colonel_maxim contrived to break the lid to my TARDIS cookie jar. Luckily it is a clean break and can be repaired with a blob or two of glue and some elastic bands.

Back here at the office, every time I go into the coffee point (or the Mutia Escarpment as I shall now call it) to recharge my mug, I am reminded that I was lucky enough to have missed yesterday’s inevitably dour office party (4pm until late; how nice for it to fall outside core hours…). The reminder is in the form of two basins limned with aluminium foil, and filled with the mangled corpses of mince pies. Veritable sweetmeat plague pits they are. The coffee room is the fabled pastry graveyard, a glimpse of which has spurred on many a Victorian adventurer…

Thus is prompted the first use of the seasonal icon.