| Despite being in yearly
receipt of a squillion quid grant, the management at Scottish Opera found themselves a bit
short of the necessaries this week to pay staff salaries - but have successfully snaffled
an advance on next year’s hand out. "I don’t know how this has
happened," A SO insider told The JT, "but, what
with one thing and another, we appeared to have already burned our way through this
year’s cash. Funnily enough, exactly the same thing happened last year. Tch, what are
we like?" It is understood that a fraught meeting with funders, The Scottish Arts
Council, SO managers rolled out some celebrity squawkers skilled in singing shoutily in
Foreign to impress the grant givers.
Drawing deeply from a European treasury of
arias, the SAC hacks were treated to excerpts from the Spanish classic: "Somos
pobres. ¿Puede usted darnos un préstamo? " – (Trans: We are skint.
Gonnae gies a sub?) |
And from the great
German Lieder tradition, "Am Donnerstag erhalten wir einen
Sozialversicherungsscheck "- (Trans: We get oor giro oan a Thursday,) "dann
können wir Sie zurückzahlen ." – (Trans: We can pay you back then. ) Finally,
a tearful committee buckled under an impassioned reading of the Italian heart-rending "Diaci
i certi contanti o il soprano del mezzo sarà infornato!"- (Trans: Give us some
cash our the busty fat wumman gets her jotters!)
The cash advance from the SAC was made on the strict understanding that SO management
do not make a similar request in the next financial year. But as JT readers already know
the European operatic tradition is influenced by Wagner’s Ring Cycle, as in:
"We’ve run out of money. Quick! Ring the Arts Council!" |
