Reading the headlines tick through in the last 24 hours its clear that the 'retirement' of the Island's top civil servant, the Chief Secretary, last week has perhaps been the catalyst for even more resignations and retirements right across the Manx public sector spanning (so far) the DHSC, the Human Resources Office and the DfE. In fact to many it feels almost like the Chief Minister is now methodically working through some sort of list.
As we watched the announcements pop up in our newsfeed today we were reminded of the plot of Chuck Palahniuk's 2018 novel Adjustment Day where the Fight Club author foretells the arrival of a one-day American revolution named not unsurprisingly - Adjustment Day. Palahniuk's story-line covers several months over which angry men from all across America have been organising, planning, and recruiting like-minded companions to be the leaders in a new American nation. In preparation for this new nation the men have been spending months reading a mysterious book with a blue-black cover. They share this book only with those they trust and as a result compile a list of people who they believe deserve to die. These are politicians, professors, journalists, and scholars who are part of the politically correct American elite. The resultant list is then placed on the internet allowing everyone to directly add names so that in effect the whole of the USA is enabled to vote online for their most hated person - Palahniuk names the list America's Least Wanted. Once all the names are collected a value is then added against each name in accordance with how many public votes it had received. This value translates to votes that will be conferred in the new American government - and the only way to collect a vote to be a leader is to kill that person and then hand in their ear.
Now to save you the time it isn't even a very good book - but the central idea is something that seems to be slowly playing out in the IOM now (without the death and the Colonel Kurtz-style obsession with severed ears).
So maybe all we need now is for the public to post up its definitive online voting list for Alfred to rip through? So perhaps its now time for all concerned IOM residents to contact their MHKs and make their views known on future suitable candidates for The List in advance of Alfred's forthcoming Adjustment Day?
Chuck Palahniuk's Adjustment Day.
