In her economics mock in July she calculated that ’440 billion was the answer, but the real answer was nearer five times bigger
Mid-Term Report on:
Europa “Fiddlesticks” Emu
Age 12¼
Europa has had a trying time of late and often appears disorientated by her own ambitions and dreams. In her economics mock in July she calculated that €440 billion was the answer, but the real answer was nearer five times bigger. She lost credibility with the examiners as a result, and was forced to retake her exams this weekend, but again she failed to step up to the plate.
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It is with regret that her behaviour in public has also fallen below the standard required – constant indecision, false announcements, numbers that don’t add up, bickering over the wrong issues, slanging matches, including with the nice American honorary visitor to the school Mr. Tim Nice-but-Dim Geithner, who is only trying to help despite his own very similar problems at home, like running out of money at the bursary to pay the bills.
Europa has, under this pressure, let her appearance go and has taken to wearing too much make-up and has lost the plot about developing a plan for life, as she keeps on buying one-size-fits-all dresses with silly yellow stars on the same blue background material regardless of changing fashion, as though she has become stuck in past perceptions that no longer have any relevance.
Europa started out as a girl everyone thought would be a winner, but disillusionment with her failures to live up to her early promise and billing has lead to a great deal of scepticism over her real value and future prospects. She is in danger of letting down her early supporters, illustrious former masters such as Messrs. Heseltine, Howe, Clarke, Hurd and many others now gracing, or not gracing, the common room; they are now hanging their heads in shame as they fell for all those empty promises.
It is fast becoming crunch time for Europa, as if she even survives the examiners this time, she will now have to take another exam – her finals this time – on November 3. Europa must revise her simultaneous quadratic equations over the next two weeks: how to bury losses, save banks, announce debt default losses for bondholders and provide new availability of funds for bail-outs, all at the same time – that’s the simultaneous bit.
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This will require brains, hard work, higher mathematics coupled with a much subtler level of deviousness than she has deployed thus far, all based on hard numbers where smoke and mirrors will no longer fool anyone. Unless Europa can turn over a new leaf and quickly face reality, we fear all will be lost and she will be remembered in the annals of the school’s history as one who promised everything and achieved nothing, other than destruction of her own dreams and other’s broken existences.
It will be a sad demise for all who held up such high hopes for her just a few years ago when she entered this school. Her nickname of Fiddlesticks was in jest when she came here, as she maintained she could make numbers do anything anyone wanted and still come up with all the answers, but now she is fast becoming a latter-day impersonation of Nero, and Rome is about to start burning.
With Europa, you see, it just keeps getting worse, far worse: we started out with problems in the hundreds of millions, when she couldn’t control her account in the school’s tuck-shop, which soon became billions and then turned into trillions, as her spending on make-up and other delusionary substances got out of control. It is all too much for our loyal staff, who cannot wait now to see the back of her, provided her bills are paid of course.
[Note to the Bursar: get ready to slap in a writ fast and seize whatever you can in the event of her probable bankruptcy.] Apologies to our readers: as the euro-shenanigans has descended into complete farce, we can no longer report seriously on what is, or isn’t, going on, and so have no option but to respond to farce in kind, in the spirit of the one-size-fits-all euro-mantra.
