How Jobcentres have turned into a Circus of Horrors

All you need to know about the state of the economy is the news that dozens of people in Blackpool have applied to be a knife-thrower’s assistant.

Within hours of the vacancy being posted on the Jobcentre Plus website, applications from hopefuls were flooding in.

You might assume that because the job is with the Circus of Horrors, semi-finalists on Britain’s Got Talent, they are all simply desperate to get into showbusiness.

Applicants for this glamorous position should be 'courageous, confident and not suffering from aichmophobia, a fear of sharp objects'

These days, everyone wants to ‘live the dream’. But there must be easier ways to break into the big time.

Applicants for this glamorous position should be ‘courageous, confident and not suffering from aichmophobia, a fear of sharp objects’. You should also have a good life insurance policy.

 

Dr Haze, the ringmaster, said: ‘We need someone to stand on a board and have ten knives thrown around them. What makes it worse is that the knives are on fire. I don’t like doing it, it is pretty scary. The knives come at you at about 30mph.’

I’m surprised elf’n’safety haven’t got round to banning knife-throwing. At the very least, you’d expect them to insist that the knife-thrower’s assistant wears one of those over-sized Kevlar safety suits, like the bomb disposal squad in The Hurt Locker.

You wouldn't catch me volunteering to stand in front of Marvo the Magnificent and let him hurl flaming knives in my direction

Even so, you still wouldn’t catch me volunteering to stand in front of Marvo the Magnificent and let him hurl flaming knives in my direction. Especially if he’d just stumbled out of Yates’s Wine Lodge.

That dozens of people are prepared to put themselves in harm’s way for a modest wage illustrates the lengths to which some will go to find work.

Not all of those who have applied to join the Circus of Horrors can necessarily be motivated by the lure of the greasepaint. Could the enthusiastic response to the advert have more to do with the fact that unemployment in Blackpool is currently running at just under 25 per cent?

You might assume that because the job is with the Circus of Horrors, semi-finalists on Britain's Got Talent, they are all simply desperate to get into show business

Now the summer season is over, that figure is destined to rise still further. There simply aren’t enough jobs to go round.

We hear an awful lot about those who can’t, or won’t work, and are content to spend their lives on benefits. There are legions of layabouts who think the world owes them a living and have no intention of getting a job.

But we hear less about the tens of thousands of good people who are actively, frantically engaged in a fruitless, soul-destroying search for gainful employment.

Many have applied for hundreds of jobs, only to see those which are available filled by cheap foreign labour.

Some people will take anything, even if they are over-qualified, rather than waste their lives away on welfare.

That, I’m assuming, is why dozens of people in Blackpool are queueing round the block for a job as a knife-thrower’s assistant.

They can’t all be Polish!!      Article Curtosey of The Mail Online Richard Littlejohn.