A cost-effective Christmas

Business gurus may have started to rethink their doctrine of corporate down-sizing, but the cult of cost-effectiveness seems with us for good. But what would be the result if your true love were to apply commercial judgements to your Christmas present list? Christmas has intercepted a memo from Integrated Gift Solutions Ltd which suggests that Christmas will never be the same again…

Dear Customer

The partridge will be retired, but the pear tree will be replaced by a plastic hanging plant. This should save your true love the time previously spent watering and pruning.

The two turtle doves represent a redundancy that is not cost effective, so one will be eliminated. However, the three French hens will remain intact, being protected under the EU's common agricultural policy.

The four calling birds are to be replaced by an automated voice mail system, with call waiting option, which we will be glad to install free of charge.

There is concern that the five gold rings represents an asset based on one commodity. The portfolio will be diversified to include platinum, tungsten and other precious and semiprecious metals.

The six geese-a-laying will be retained, but only if their goose-egg productivity increases following retraining. Since seven swans-a-swimming are purely decorative, they will no longer be supplied.

The concept of eight maids-a-milking is to be reviewed, not least because it represents a male-female imbalance in the workforce.

Nine ladies dancing is unsatisfactory: there is always an odd-one-out resting at the side. From now on eight ladies will be employed to dance full time.

MPs, being cheaper than Lords, will be recruited as from next year. It is anticipated that the recruitment of former Conservative MPs will be particularly easy in a few months time. Note that, unavoidably, there will be a deleterious effect on the leaping ability.

Eleven pipers piping and twelve drummers drumming make a heck of a racket, and will be replaced by festive mood music on a CD player with volume control.

Finally, note that operational research has suggested it is inefficient to spread delivery over twelve consecutive days. Please accept all goods to arrive together sometime in February.

Happy Christmas from us all at Integrated Gift Solutions Ltd

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