Who knew?

I received this email this morning: 'Due to unforeseen events in the Canadian Tourism industry, we have been forced to postpone and/or cancel the Next Best Job competition.'

Firstly, the timing of the devil: I was half way through editing my hot-air-balloon video when my inbox pinged. Secondly: 'postpone and/or cancel'? Doing both seems a little greedy. Thirdly: 'unforeseen events'? 

Poor old Dean Horvath: happily waking up in his mansion every morning, sending for the butler to bring him his gold-plated toast, and then - WHAM: the butler suddenly doesn't come.

'Where is my gold-plated toast?' Dean probably said this morning. 'Come to think of it, where is my butler?'

'You don't have one,' his cocktail-maker explained as he packed his bags.

'What do you mean I don't have one?' Dean cried. 'Where is that man with the black suit that brings me my breakfast, goddamit?!'

'He's gone,' the nanny explained, putting Dean's silver under her jumper. 'You can't afford him anymore.'

'Why the hell not?!'

'Because there's a recession,' the pool cleaner said, pouring cement into Dean's pool.

'A re-what-now?' Dean asked.

'A recession. It means that people don't have money for luxury holidays anymore, apparently. A lot of people don't have money for baked beans either.'

'Baked beans?' Dean said in confusion. 'Is that like caviar?'

'No,' said the personal pilot, unscrewing the wings from the private plane. 'Everyone's broke, Dean.' 

'Well,' Dean responded. 'That makes no sense. Can't they just sell a few paintings or something?'

'We're going to try,' said the silver-polisher, taking Dean's paintings off his walls. 

'This is outrageous,' Dean probably shouted. 'Why didn't anyone tell me?!'

'We thought it might blow over. Canada normally doesn't get involved in world politics: we thought the economy might also be exempt. Apparently not.'

Poor old Canada. Poor old Dean. The recession is picking off its victims one by one: apparently it just decided to chew up the upper half of North America last. It's a bit of a shame - seeing as I've already made my video and packed my bags with cheap shampoo that I was hoping to swap with the expensive shampoo in five star hotel bathrooms - but that's life. 

I'll finish the video off (it's not very good, to be honest: it is, as my friend pointed out, a little like the Blair Witch Project by air), and then I'll go on the Guardian Job site and try and find something that doesn't sound nearly good enough to be untrue.