View all newsletters
Have the short, sharp Spear's newsletter delivered to your inbox each week
  1. Wealth
August 7, 2011

The European Virus

By Spear's

Politicians soon succumb to this deadly mixture which renders them incapable of making any sensible decisions among themselves

The Holy Roman Empire was finally laid to rest actually as a result of austerity, but let me explain further: austerity, from a-ustos, meaning ‘without wine’, was on this occasion a massive drought, which was so bad that the Tiber became a breeding ground for malaria, and that was curtains for the 1,500 year old ever-closer-union.

A mutant variant has now been uncovered in exactly the same spot, another 1,500 years on, which scientists have named the Euroaria.

This perilous virus apparently begins in the human ear, whence it was first called the Eararia, but when it was first revealed that for some strange reason it affected European politicians who didn’t listen to the people, to the markets, or to each other, the name morphed into Euroaria as they pursued their own constructivist follies.

Politicians soon succumb to this deadly mixture, however, which mercilessly for them but mercifully for their electorates, renders them incapable of making any sensible, even obvious, decisions among themselves.

Put under the microscope, scientists were at an immediate loss to explain how it works at all. It has many moving and unmoving parts, but the two get in each others’ way, so that all possible cohesion and traction onto hard real surfaces is lost and is transferred to the virus’s own body, as it seeks just to get bigger, but for no apparent reason. The breakthrough came when a leading scientist from Porton Down spotted that the virus had no head, which accounted for many unresolved issues.

Asked to describe what this meant in practice, he said: “Well, it’s analogous to a judge ordering prisoners to be given the vote. Or, as if Nelson at Trafalgar had run up the flags saying ‘England expects every woman to claim her rights!’ Or, as if Adam Smith had called his magnum opus ‘How to Destroy the Wealth of Nations!’ You just cannot explain its utter illogicality and its amorphous behaviour, which has no rhyme or reason to it.”

The German reaction has been to seek to disinter the remains of certain old Bourbons and Hapsburgs and Napoleon, to find out if this self-expanding virus existed in medieval and later times. The French are refusing to issue the necessary licences, unless the Germans do the same for the remains of Hitler. The Germans respond that he was an Austrian and so doesn’t count, and anyway his remains are buried under a multi-story car park in Madgeburg, and under the Bill of Rights it cannot be knocked down as it was built with Volksgelden. Meanwhile, the total paralysis continues, despite the ever-mounting threat.

Content from our partners
HSBC Global Private Banking: Revisiting your wealth plan as uncertainty abounds
Proposed non-dom changes put HNW global mobility in the spotlight
Meet the females leading in the FTSE

The man at the eye of the storm, Signor Burlesquoni, has postponed his usual weekend Bunga-Bunga party at his villa, and instead has ordered any economist who can add up and do subtraction at the same time to attend a urination, sorry ruination, of economists. “I intend to bang all their heads together and thrash out a solution!”, as he flashed that stupid septuagenarian grin, full of false hair and teeth, at his own media cameras, punching and high-fiving the virus-infused air.

Meanwhile, the British PM was sensibly helping himself to a cup of coffee from the unattended Gaggia machine, one of the last remaining exports from Italy, before it all finally ends, not with a bang but a whimper.

Select and enter your email address The short, sharp email newsletter from Spear’s
  • Business owner/co-owner
  • CEO
  • COO
  • CFO
  • CTO
  • Chairperson
  • Non-Exec Director
  • Other C-Suite
  • Managing Director
  • President/Partner
  • Senior Executive/SVP or Corporate VP or equivalent
  • Director or equivalent
  • Group or Senior Manager
  • Head of Department/Function
  • Manager
  • Non-manager
  • Retired
  • Other
Visit our privacy policy for more information about our services, how New Statesman Media Group may use, process and share your personal data, including information on your rights in respect of your personal data and how you can unsubscribe from future marketing communications.
Thank you

Thanks for subscribing.

Websites in our network