WHEN Christmas comes around one naturally thinks of families,
more particularly what to buy them and how to put up with them. It’s a mug’s
game, as every ounce of inspiration put toward the perfect gift will sure as
eggs be answered with a present you did not want but over which you will feel obliged
to emit squeals of delight. Socks and underpants are at least useful on formal occasions;
the Collected Works of Noam Chomsky never. But one must smile all the same,
because this is Christmas, hand over the keys to the cellar and feign delight
as people who cannot tell if a vintage has turned to vinegar chuck down the
good stuff and eat you out of house and home.
Ah, how sad it is! If only the Professor was a good leftist –
like The Global Mail’s millionaire supremo Graeme Wood, for example – things would
be so much more simple.
When the festive season began, the Wotif entrepreneur solved
all his Yule dilemmas and Christmas catering quandaries by handing out lots and
lots of discharge notices – think
pink slips, not medical diagnoses -- to his staffers, those quality
journalists who have made his site everything that it is and the $15 million in
start-up cash so much smaller.
But family values were not forgotten. Amongst the few not
pushed out the door was South American correspondent Nick Olle.
No doubt it is no more than a coincidence, but young Mr
Olle is Graeme Wood’s stepson.
No doubt it is no more than a coincidence, but young Mr
Olle is Graeme Wood’s stepson.
