Bookie Event Horizon

The late, great, sainted Douglas Adams hypothesised a "shoe event horizon". This was the point at which the only shops on the high street would be shoe-shops.

But now I see that this was hopelessly optimistic. Because, when all is said and done, shoes are some kind of product - something you make. Something where human ingenuity is involved.

But no. It's not shoes that are taking over the horizon. It's bookies.

I don't want to agree with Harriet Harman, but it does seem a bit much.

To restate the "shoe event horizon" theorem. In a depression, increasingly the only shops left on the horizon are bookies. And so the only people with any money are bookmakers and those who work in bookies shops.

But when a bookie's employee comes out of the bookie, the only shops available are bookmakers. So they order a pizza and while away their time in the bookies. Who returns the compliment the following day waiting for a pizza himself.

In the end all that is left of the economy are the bookies, and the dole. The taxman takes a percentage of the profits off the bookies, and gives it to the unemployed. Who, desperate at the low rates of dole being paid, gamble it in the hope of enough to live on. It's a game of diminishing returns, where the only person who gets rich is Ray Winstone.

One day, the laws of economics determine that the only person with any money at all is Ray Winstone. Who discovers there are no food shops left. And the last pizza place just closed. And he's just an animated head.

At which point it all kind of grinds to a halt. And you can't even buy a pair of shoes.