British Zombies bemoan UK brain drain

Britain’s zombies are feeling the pinch as the brain drain that has been affecting this nation for a number of years intensifies.  As the recession bites deeper and funding dries up, record numbers of highly qualified professionals are departing from these shores to settle abroad, leaving businesses and institutions bereft of talent and the undead of a quality food source. 

According to statistics there are now 3.247 million British-born people living abroad, of whom more than 1.1 million are highly-skilled university graduates.  The most popular destinations are English-speaking countries such as the USA and Canada, and holiday areas like France and Spain.  Countries, believes Ken Gregson of the RSPCZ, which most zombies cannot afford to emigrate to. 

‘When they die most zombies have their bank accounts closed and their savings shared between relatives and the taxman.’ he says.  ‘Those that do have some money stashed away in some mouldering sack find that their passports expired decades ago or that they are unable to get travel insurance on account of being declared legally dead.  Consequently many of our shambling cousins are unable to follow their primary source of sustenance.’

Zombie expert Professor Thadeus Hutton (1907-1986) concurs.  ‘Highly-qualified professionals are being actively targeted by countries such as Australia and New Zealand.  Tasty doctors, succulent teachers and hearty scientists are going in droves, leaving us with tasteless hairdressers, bland road sweepers and dull and insipid media studies students.  Our quality of ‘life’ is suffering as a result.’

Hutton is dismissive of critics who point out that emigration is offset by the large numbers of highly-skilled immigrants moving to Britain to replace those leaving.  ‘Your average dumpling-brained Czech or pickled cabbage Pole isn’t a patch on a light-yet-filling Cambridge physicist, and have you tried one of those Indian computer programmers? My backside was red-hot for days! Mind you I had accidentally left it lying on the radiator all week, but my point remains valid.’ he maintains.

 (Written 3 Mar 2009)

Jobseeker’s support group decries ‘criminal boot camp’ slur

A self-help group for jobless young people in Worcester has hit out against accusations that it is nothing more than a front for illegal activities.  ‘Job Seekers to Job Doers’ was the brainchild of Worcestershire housewife Mavis Stevens who, moved by the plight of the city’s unemployed youth, set up the group with her ex-army drill sergeant husband. 

‘My nephews were all unemployed, and they’d spend all day loitering around the dole office with their mates.’ says Mavis, ‘so Jack and I decided to lick them into shape whilst encouraging them to use their initiative in finding work.  It was a short, sharp shock and they didn’t like it at first, but soon they knuckled down to it.’

Within weeks the group boasted over a dozen members, who Mavis put to work scouring the streets and hedges for discarded bottles and cans.  They would then take the bottles back for the deposit and sell the rest her brother’s scrap yard.  Unfortunately for ‘Job Seekers to Job Doers’, this work coincided with a spate of break-ins at breakers yards, recycling plants and bottle factories and fingers began to point at the group. 

Mavis strenuously denies any connection to these thefts.  ‘By the time these incidents were reported, my lads were already doing other things.’ she maintains.  ‘Some of them were undergoing an IT training programme, whilst the others were on a project digging test bore holes for a gravel company.’

Suspicions were again raised after a group of Mavis’ boys went mob-handed into the local library and took over the public computers.  Witnesses maintain that they spent hours surfing websites such as Google Earth and Google Ocean as part of their ‘IT training’.  In the meantime another group was seen roaming the countryside armed with shovels and metal detectors before heading off to the coast with an inflatable dingy and scuba gear.  Shortly afterwards a number of archaeological and shipwreck sites were discovered to have been looted.  ‘Again, just a coincidence.’ says Mavis. 

‘I wouldn’t know a priceless Celto-Roman hoard if it bit me, let alone how to value it in line with recent auction prices, get in contact with an unscrupulous private collector via a non-traceable middleman and make an exchange at a disused service station on the Kidderminster road at 3 o’clock in the morning.  I’m just a housewife trying to do my bit for society.  By the way, you don’t know if the National Trust is looking for any tour guides do you?’

Police admit that, despite a number of complaints filed against ‘Job Seekers to Job Doers’, they have no plans to investigate the group.  ‘There is no evidence to suggest that these people are engaged in any kind of criminal activity.  As far as we are concerned Mrs.  Stevens is just a philanthropic member of the public trying to find gainful employment for these lads; as a matter of fact I know that Mavis is hard at work as we speak, organising several bank jobs for her boys.’ said Chief Inspector Maj.  David Stevens (ret.).

(Written 3 Mar 2009)