Boris Johnson does his best to make up for global clown shortage – Susan Morrison

Taking inspiration from Boris Johnson, Iain Duncan Smith and co, Susan Morrison contemplates a new career as a clown, a very different kind of elf to those seen on Lord of the Rings, or deck crew on a boat to Chile.

Joy be unbounded, two possible career options have just opened up for me. Yes, I know I have my bus pass, and that technically I have reached an age where slippers, armchairs and Werther’s Originals beckon, but the way things are going there is a strong chance I could be recruited as deck crew for a tramp steamer heading for Valparaiso because Iain Duncan Smith wants us to be working till we’re 152 years old.

Obviously, the state pension age will have to be raised. Again. I suspect the birthday at which we will qualify for the state pension has been secretly pegged at the Queen’s age and state of health. I think the theory goes that if Liz can still host dinner parties and look a darn sight smarter than the US president, then us moaning worker class can just zip it and get down that mine.

Secondly, we just aren’t producing enough Scottish people. Last year we produced more Tunnocks tea cakes than fresh-baked Scots. The fertility rate is 1.42, and we need to up productivity to 2.1. Thanks there to the Scotland’s people website which provided those figures and also led to me wandering about for hours trying to work out how you can have 0.42 of a child?

Clearly, I am not to blame since I attained an above average production target of 2.00, so forgive me for my mild smugness. One of them can make gin. 27 hours in labour was worth it.

This is the fault of young people, clearly. It’s time to stop looking at those phones and do your duty, people of breeding age, although given the news from India recently where a 72-year-old woman gave birth to twins I do wonder if this is where ol’ IDS gets his ideas from.

We face a nasty perfect storm of the state pension fast becoming an impossible dream, and everyone in Scotland being called up to man the pumps or at the very least, staff Greggs. It looks like we shall all be working till will fall off the perch. At least we’re doing that faster than before, which is a productivity target we didn’t really want, like an increase in motorway cones being deployed.

Leap before you are forced, good people and find a career for later life, and I have found mine. I’ve got my sights on being a clown or an elf.

There is a world shortage of clowns. I know. All they have to do is look at what passes for the front bench of our current Government and there’s carload right there.

Why, one of them even turned up in a hospital the other day, presumably to cheer up the kiddies, only to be verbally hammered into his big clown shoes by a parent who had the cheek to complain that the NHS was falling to bits.

What a terrifying thought, waking up from surgery to have BoJo leering at you. Worse, Jacob Rees-Mogg. You’d think you’d died with that desiccated face looming over you. He’s got six children, by the way. Just warning you. He’s outbreeding us, but I doubt that any of his brood will ever wind up doing an emergency shift at Wetherspoons to keep our economy moving. Not with a name like Sixtus Dominic Boniface Christopher. Wouldn’t fit on the name badge for a start.

So, I quite fancy a job involving a plastered-on smile, shambolic clothes and one of those honking horns. Oh, we’re back at Boris again. In fact, perhaps his people should get him one of those Harpo Marx horns for the campaign trail. Makes more sense than him talking.

Again, we seem to be facing some sort of global extinction when it comes to elves. I would be a realistic elf. Short, bad tempered and able to turn milk with a single glance, not that ethereal nonsense you saw in Lord of the Rings.

Elves were bad news if you crossed them. Cross little old Scottish ladies would make brilliant Grotto elves. No kid would misbehave on my watch, sister. That wee terror asking for a mega-expensive this and that whilst his poor mum gets paler and paler? Trust me, one old lady swinging in to ask about his behaviour at school would crack that grin off his fizzog.

Old Scottish ladies know everything, even how much you play up in the classroom, sonny.

Obviously, we’d have to negotiate the elfin tights situation. Gotta be heavy duty support all the way. As in denims.

Drink and be merry, before it’s too late

I can’t help but notice that Scotland’s falling fertility rate is linked to the decline in young people drinking alcohol.

Seriously, young people! Get off that wellness craze right now and raise your glasses. Where on earth do you think previous generations of Scots came from? Your country needs you mildly merry and chatting each other up.