Publishers note: We apologise for this posting, we had asked for something of substance, yet are left, at the last moment with only this.  Trite and inaccurate as it is.  

Fermentations by IRA MAINE.

I am very concerned that our beloved leader is stewing about a bit of fermentation I have inadvertently failed to bring to a head.  We were required, in hot house conditions, to cogitate, ruminate and speculate on this subject until a sort of cranial microbial ferment, a critically created  journalistic compost, rich, heaving and stinking of fecundity, would bring us shouldering out of our brown and crumbling darkness and into the life sustaining day.  This strategy, of itself a notion possessed of impeccable credentials, reckoned without the fickle fecklessness of our management team and their eagerness, the moment the smallest profit is arrived at, to exercise their right, as they described it, to attend essential ‘fact-finding missions’, together with ‘International Brainstorming Seminars’ in both France, the UK and the United States.

As a result, and left to our abandoned devices, I think it only fair that those of us who continue to steady the helm, who have maintained, through thick and thin, certain gentlemanly standards, when others had so lightly and shamelessly cast honour aside in favour of a vulgar mess of foreign potage, should benefit in some important ways.

Now, in this business of fermentation, I would not like to give (to our junketeers) the impression that we are attempting, in their absence, to foment a ferment in order to form a formidable force to fling down the citadel.  Far from it.  Fermentation you want and you shall have, but with one essential condition, without which I don’t see how we can possibly continue.

Not to put too fine a point on it, Quantum would like, nay, insists, that he be allowed sit behind your desk, in your big comfy swivelly chair, and bark impressive commands down the inter-com., even when there’s no one in the outer office.  This casual exercise of naked power, he tells me will create such an intellectual ferment within him that we won’t be able to keep track of his enormous output.  (I’m not at all sure what he means by this…)

Casting your eye over these disconcerting developments, I’m not sure you can fully appreciate how demanding this situation is, and how it is calling on all of our powers, as diplomats, negotiators, and all round ‘hard men’ just to keep the pot boiling.

Just to round up and round off, trouble has arisen in Singapore after an undercover ASIO operative was discovered to be encouraging the locals to rebel.  He is to be arraigned before the beak next Tuesday accused of attempting to ‘Ferment Asians’.

And further, dear Leader, I have had to despatch bags of placatory lollies to all of our correspondents, so on your return you may find that this necessary expense has left the coffers a tad depleted. I would also like to know if it is safe to have your inflatable friend dry cleaned?