RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31580, 18 January 1968, Page 12

RANDOM REMINDER

ECONOMIC CRISIS

An economic survey of the festive season would show that it was more difficult than usual to do the Christmas shopping between 8.30 p.m. and 9 p.m. on Christmas Eve, because of the reluctance of management to employ sufficient staff to sell non-exist-ent goods to customers with more good intentions than money. The delivery of Christmas cards early this month may be attributed to a similar outlook by the postal authorities. The dustmen collected

fewer full bottles than empty ones this time, and fewer of them; more wooden toys were delivered by S.C. with the paint still wet. At parties connoisseurs of whisky were perturbed by the deterioration of their favourite brands as served by their friends. One home brewer is said to have admonished a guest for taking the tops off the bottles with his teeth in an effort to damage the tops and thus render them unfit for use on the next brew. Even among the young ones, the hard facts of life

are becoming known. There is a 12-year-old who has been encouraged most warmly to apply himself to his studies during the academic year, but who has found that satisfactory advancement is prejudiced by lack of equipment: he simply cannot keep a pen. So this Christmas, his present to his mother was one designed to help her on her way, and to permit him to further his education: it consisted of seven ballpoint pens. He said he would have bought more, but he had run out of money.