‘Imagine a world without risk. A world without danger or worry, a world where everything goes according to plan.
‘Well, for as little as £9.99 a month you and your family can enjoy just that. So many people have benefited from our scheme that we’re now offering a cast-iron guarantee that you’ll enjoy a risk-free life or your money back. One happy customer told us that his doctors were amazed following his heart transplant because he’d invested in…’
He lost reception and the radio hissed, he was left with the sound of the engine and the endless road. These adverts were beginning to irritate him; they’d changed the way people thought. Everyone now expected things to go right not just some of the time, but all of the time. The world wasn’t like that though, things went wrong, humans and machines and computers went wrong, they fell apart and made mistakes. He remembered back to a time when risk was part of life and no-one would dream of using the term ‘zero-risk’: a term which the government now never tired of using.
His own thoughts weren’t good company and he leant down to tune into a different station. The lights from on-coming cars flitted through his car like the wings of a moth and he must have missed the curve in the road because his front wheels buckled upwards. He was sent skidding and sparking into a hail storm of bright headlights. As his car came to a standstill, crumpled and hot with silent spinning wheels, the radio finally found its station
‘For peace of mind call us today and invest in a life with zero-percent risk.’
Dr Kevin Hinkley is a GP in Aberdeen.
