Wednesday 21 March 2012

Wicked rumours

Malicious rumours are being spread that my blog posts are created in Chinese sweatshops by exhausted children working 23-hour days and paid the equivalent of 5p a week.

This is simply untrue, as a quick phone call to our head office would easily confirm.

Our 147-strong staff work in luxurious conditions
in our purpose-built production centre in Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, and all receive exceptionally generous salaries compared to other less reputable blogging enterprises. World-class chefs, beauticians and hairdressers are on hand day and night to tend to their every whim, and chauffeur-driven limousines make light work of any travel needs.

But don't take my word for it. Here's what 25-year-old concept-facilitator Mandy Mouthwash has to say: "I just love working at nickhereandnow so much. It has totally changed my life. For the first time my creative talents are being recognised and appreciated. I feel I'm making a real contribution to the well-being of society. Not only that, but the guys here are drop-dead gorgeous."

The scurrilous rumours of Chinese child-labour are based on an alleged interview with 7-year-old Wah Shing in one of the tabloid newspapers.

He claims to have been trapped into blog-slavery several years ago and despite repeated attempts to escape his inhuman conditions is still forced to write continuously with no meal or toilet breaks and even when his fingers and eyeballs are bleeding from overuse. Frequently collapsing from malnutrition and exhaustion, he is mercilessly revived with buckets of ice-cold water until he resumes work.

Unstinting inquiries by my staff have failed to locate the elusive Wah Shing, who is clearly a monstrous journalistic invention with as much substance as Tinkerbelle.

I have put the whole distasteful business in the capable hands of my lawyers, Sue Grabbit and Runne.

Pic: The nickhereandnow head office at Chipping Norton

16 comments:

  1. Nice office space! Bytesfromtheburbs works out of the back of Honda minivan. Not glamorous, but we get the job done.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Bijoux - We all have to start somewhere. I started my blog in a public convenience in Milton Keynes, just behind the gasworks.

    ReplyDelete
  3. ...and all receive exceptionally generous salaries compared to other less reputable blogging enterprises.

    Yeah... what are you insinuating????
    I only whip my staff occasionally. Trust me, they love it.

    Sx

    ReplyDelete
  4. I would love a couple of child slaves....
    they would be excellent at cleaning my chicken coops from the inside!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Scarlet - I understand whipping afficionados are also well provided for at Chipping Norton. We endeavour to cater for all tastes.

    John - A pity there's no Bob-A-Job Week any more. That would have supplied a couple of child slaves....

    ReplyDelete
  6. you do know that my former dastardly employers were at Chipping Norton (still are actually) and that they think their factory is a "facility" to rival the one in the photo?

    the universe has a weird symmetry at times :)

    ReplyDelete
  7. Kylie - Ah, so Chipping Norton is also a suburb of Sydney? Perhaps it would be a suitable spot for our staff to get some creative inspiration, Aussie-style. Toss a tinny on the barbie, Sheila....

    ReplyDelete
  8. Those aren't suicide nets I see under the windows of your head office, are they, Nick? My eyes aren't that good - a legacy from my own time as a blog slave.
    You do wonder why everyone is so damn keen to continue to buy Apple when you hear about the conditions in their Chinese factories. It doesn't seem to have had any effect on them.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Nick:
    You do realize that Wah Sing was actually a dwarf and was 42 years old and put undercover by The Daily Mail?
    He has told them EVERYTHING.
    You and Rebekah will make excellent cell mates.
    XO
    WWW

    ReplyDelete
  10. I wish I had a factory full of workers to do my blog bidding

    ReplyDelete
  11. Jenny Woolf - Suicide nets? How very dare you. Our staff are blissfully happy at all times. We did have a suicide a few years back, but that was just a guy who couldn't get over his favourite jeans shrinking in the wash.

    It is astonishing that people are so blasé about conditions in the Apple factories. The trouble is so many products nowadays are made in dubious Chinese factories, what do you boycott first?

    ReplyDelete
  12. www - Wah Shing is no more real than the four-eyed Martian who shot John Lennon. I have nothing to hide, my hands are clean.

    Myra - I thought you did have. How else would you have the time to write such encyclopaedic posts about obscure eccentrics?

    ReplyDelete
  13. Staff? Oh, can I have some please? They don't even have to blog if they don't want to; they'd be very welcome to do housework.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Speccy - Now don't you go poaching my staff with Speccy-style golden hellos and fat bonuses. I won't take it lying down. Anyway, I don't think housework appeals to them very much.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Okay. I accept that you are not guilty. Just as insurance, you can consider shifting the blog business to India. We are better as outsourcing destination. I shall personally ensure that none of the staff sweat.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Ramana - Thanks for your kind invitation, but I think my staff are blissfully happy where they are. So blissed out in fact that they sometimes ascend into nirvana and aren't seen for days.

    ReplyDelete