NUCLEAR FLARE-UP
Post ArmageddonWorld Looking Bleak for Trouser Wearers
WITH war raging in Continental Europe and the future of the planet in the hands of a tinpot Russian dictator, the world is currently in a perilous state. Not since the Bay of Pigs crisis in 1962 has our planet teetered so close to nuclear war.
With Vladimir Putin getting more unhinged by the day, we may be months if not weeks from an Armageddon-style conflict that plunges the planet into an unsurvivable nuclear winter. And that would be terrible news for the British trousers industry.
“It’s not scaremongary to say that a thermonuclear conflict that turns the planet into a dystopian wasteland could spell the end of our trousers business,” said Gordon Partycurl, head of the Consortium of Trouser Manufacturers. “Making a pair of trousers involves a long chain of interconnected operations, and disruption at any one stage could bring the whole process to a halt.”
At best, trouser-making would be slowed down by an international nuclear exchange, but Partycurl feared that such a cataclysmic exchange of atomic weapons could even see the British industry terminally damaged.
“Those individuals who survive the initial firestorm will be scratching around the rubble looking for cockroaches to eat, so it’s unlikely that they will get
it together enough to plant cotton seeds and get the trouser making process going again,” he said.
And even if some forward-thinking survivors did manage to grow cotton on the scorched and barren wasteland left after World War III, it’s unlikely that they would ever become a pair of classic-fit cotton chinos or loose-fit smart/casual cords. “Making trousers is a specialised skill that employs over a million-and-a-half people worldwide,” said Partycurl. “If just half of those are vapourised to dust in the initial nuclear firestorm, that would immediately cut output of the product by fifty percent.”
“The other half could be suffering from horrific burns or radiation sickness, and so would probably phone in sick, even if their place of work had somehow survived the bombs,” he added.
But for those hoping that a skeleton staff of survivors would keep the trouser industry going, Partycurl had more bad news. “The trouser manufacturing industry is highly energy intensive, whether it’s weaving the cotton threads into cloth, sewing the garments together, or distributing the finished product to the sales point,” he said. “And in the
“People will be fighting each other for fuel,” he continued. “If you have just given yourself a mohican haircut and hijacked a petrol tanker, killing the driver, you’re probably going to want to use that fuel for keeping warm in the sunless environment of the nuclear winter, or for cooking cockroaches to eat.”
“Only the most forward thinking would use it to start the production of a range of fashionable, yet affordable trousers that are smart enough for work, but comfortable enough to wear at home,” he added.