One of outsourcing’s great success stories has just resurfaced for its irregular appearances on the nation’s TV screens – that’s right, cricket.
Exported to Commonwealth countries in centuries past, England’s greatest gift to the world has created thousands, if not millions, of jobs worldwide as whole nations of menfolk have taken to rubbing their groins in a bid to polish up hard red balls, while their women have taken up the needle to ensure the seam of the aforementioned spherical projectile is neatly stitched up.
Of course, there will be plenty of needle about as the UK’s biggest and most successful prisoner rehabilitation programme – Australia – demonstrates what a good loser it is by handing back the Ashes to the successful England team.
For those of you unfamiliar with the Ashes, they are a pile of… um… ashes, allegedly derived from the burning of a cricket bale (small piece of wood). These are then transported in a little urn between Australia and England.
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Guru notes that while the tournament is on, there is a window of opportunity for UK-based boomerang manufacturers, as their Aussie counterparts will be busy crying into their beer and calling in sick. Hopefully, the Brits will be able to get a good return on selling bent bits of wood to our Antipodean cousins and, like a boomerang, the Ashes will be winging their way back to Blighty.
(As Personnel Today goes to press, it seems as though we are going to give the Aussies a one-match head start to make a real competition of it.)
