After casting around in vain for over a year in search of an economically literate plan to save the Eurozone which could command the confidence of the financial markets EU President Herman van Rompuy announced today that the Council of Ministers had sub-contracted the search for a solution to a Committee of Wise Men.
"Let's be candid for a change," said van Rompuy in Flemish AND Walloon to gasps from the assembled bureaucrats. "None of the politicians has a clue what to do. Their third class degrees in Public Sector Bollocks from the Strasbourg Correspondence College hardly qualify them as experts. So we've established a committee of great minds from all around Europe to wrangle authoritatively - but reasonably quickly - among themselves and come up with a credible plan."
Then, with a puff of dried ice and a short fanfare, van Rompuy drew back a velvet curtain and the Committee of Wise Men stepped up one by one. First up from France was Vanessa Paradis, the erstwhile teen popstrel and wife of popular typecast pirate Johnny Depp. Noting that Mme. Paradis was not actually a man van Rompuy suggested the Committee of Wise Men be re-named the Committee of Wise Persons. A representative of the European Court of Human Rights promised to circulate this proposal among the Justices for consultation almost immediately and report back with a provisional assessment within five years.
Next up, from Italy, Gianfranco Buffon, the gaffe-prone goalkeeper with the gap-toothed smile. He did a little shimmy, bounded onto the dais, toppled sideways and fell onto a strategically situated, though uninflated, lilo. Following a stunned silence, Buffon unsteadily regained his feet and shouted, "I'm okay, folks" to polite murmuring.
Thirdly, from Germany, a jolly, red faced man dressed as a giant sausage. The audience looked puzzled as the sausage frolicked self-consciously on the stage but background briefing notes revealed that the sausage was an official corporate spokesthing for the giant Herta organization and possessed post-graduate degrees in Advanced Economic Modelling, Complex Algorithmic Analysis and Pork Extrusion.
Finally, from the UK, Bob Carolgees and his expectorating appendage Spit the Dog. Bob and Spit, post-modern puppeteering pioneers from the early eighties, left the prime-time variety arena far behind in the nineties when, after becoming the subjects of a research project at CERN in Motivational Entertainment in Resource-Deprived Environments, they were blasted off to the International Space Station and only escaped recently by hijacking the final Space Shuttle mission and piloting it more or less competently back to Earth.
As van Rompuy led the audience in a round of increasingly enthusiastic applause the esteemed Committee were ushered into a sound-proof booth in the corner of the room where they immediately began their deliberations. Looking on was Head of Global Economic Knowledge at the Royal Bank of Scotland, Tam McSkint who, when pressed for a pertinent observation, vomited over his shoes.
