we have ways to make you de-stress
It seems to be generally agreed that we are all feeling very stressed right now, and what we need to see us right is some very expensive tweatments, if the rash of advertising for spas, massages and detox programmes is anything to go by.
Just now when I went out to t'bank to see if my account was still there (thieves and short-selling hedge funds permitting) I passed 'The Rejuvenation Spa - where ageing is optional' (sigh), and Canary Wharf's latest doomed business venture, Massage Express ('Relax ! Rejuvinate (sic) ! Escape !' cried their leaflet). Both of these were deserted, although at Massage Express the manageress was attempting to haul three big protesting blokes through the doors to view her wares.
Clearly this was not the kind of massage they had in mind - a sort of giant Pod into which you are supposed to insert your stressy body ('no need to undress or get oily (sic)'. Frankly, anyone who remembers Barbarella's encounter with Duran Duran would think more than twice before getting fully dressed into a machine like this one, and I suspect the days of Massage Express may be numbered. Anyway, I headed back to the canteen where I was assailed by a team of people urging me to eat small pieces of fruit, apparently under the impression that most of us live on chips.
Meanwhile, the huge 70 percent discount sale signs are coming down now, especially in the kind of shops where shapeless grey sweaters cost £150. I think they've realized it's pointless trying to get us to spend and are adopting the Mont Blanc approach - take it or leave it. Or maybe they're counting on the Obama Effect to get us back into the spending mode again.
The fact is that knowing all the bank shares are plunging, and everybody's job is even more in peril than before, is strangely not stressful. Like being part of a herd of animals on the veldt who see their mates being dragged into the bushes by lions but carry on grazing, the feeling that nobody is safe has a strangely tranquillizing effect. Until you hear the dreaded words 'in consultation' .....
Comments [0]