Sludge

On Gold Fever

A treatise on gold-fever by Professor Sludge (Professor of Speculation at Fort Knox College, Dunedin).

It all started some fifteen days ago when Mr. George Brown (one of the British Foreign Secretaries) staggered into the Prime Minister's study. This in itself was nothing exceptional except that on the occasion in question Mr. Brown barely had time to put his arm around his superior and giggle "Give us a kiss Goldilocks . . . ." before he crashed to the floor in a heap foaming at the mouth.

Noticing the ghastly golden hue of the stricken Minister's face (both of it) the PM nervously clambered into a pair of fumigated boots and stumbled in the direction of his private secretary Mavis Lust. She slipped into a filing cabinet just in time to prevent herself from entanglement with Harold's hot-line leaving him to put himself through to the Ministry Vet.

By this time the Prime Minister's speech had become decidely incoherent and he could only manage to gasp into the mouthpiece "George . . . . gold fever. . . "

Within minutes the Ministry Vet was surveying the tragic scene. His first act was to declare the Foreign Secretary "an infected area" whereupon the Army were called in to tow him away. A barrier of disinfected pound notes was then hastily spread around the Bank of England and the Stock Exchange was flushed out with millions of gallons of the Tide of History.

At this point it would be as well to remember that this sort of thing had indeed happened before whilst methods used to prevent it had always failed ignominiously. However Harold's motto has always been "If at first a policy proves disastrous, try it again". The only way to wipe out gold-fever is to wipe out gold leaving the country in a state of healthy bankruptcy.

So as he goose-stepped across his desk, now wearing fumigated jack boots, Harold promulgated the following decree:

Be it noted that from this day forward a bunch of frightened clapped-out tenth-rate intellectuals (to wit Her Majesty's Government) do Hereby decree that the substance commonly known as gold or in Treasury circles as "Chancellor's Heartbreak" be exterminated from the realm forthwith

God Save Our Majority! Harold the Absurd"

Meanwhile the outside World waited with hated breath for the outcome. Still the highly complicated machine of World finance ground onwards. (This system consists of spending twenty million dollars a day in hewing gold from out of a large hole in South Africa and immediately sticking it back into an even larger hole in Kentucky).

Then came the breakthrough. It was suddenly realised that the Foreign Secretary had in fact contracted a mild form of aural gold-fever caused by listening in to too many Swiss keyholes, a malady that has since struck several government officials from the Prime Minister upwards. It is now certain that the British pound will not be devalued again until next Thursday at the earliest.