Two new ways of making money

My search for financial security continues. So here are two new entrepreneurial ideas to be submitted to the Dragon’s Den of the Internet. Cash incentives to be sent to me in a plain brown envelope please.

No. 1. Smokers Airlines. My idea for this came when I heard some years ago that some friends of my parents were no longer taking their usual annual holiday in Tenerife because the airlines had banned smoking. Their need for nicotine was so great, that they were only able to bear the shortest of flights. Since then of course, smokers have been restricted even more, being driven out of restaurants and bars, public buildings and workplaces. This is driven by more than just concerns about health and ‘passive smoking’: all non-smokers can now take part in the joy of persecution, allied to the joy of feeling superior to those who apparently can not control their chemical desires. What better idea, therefore, than to enable this persecuted minority to gather together when they travel. Smokers Airlines will be staffed entirely by chain smokers and will only accept bookings from people who can produce a doctor’s certificate proving they are a smoker. Free cigarettes will be handed out when people board, and nicotine patches when they leave the plane and have to endure the smokeless terminal building. All our planes will of course have voluminous ash trays and plentiful supplies of fire extinguishers.

No. 2. Crash helmets for pedestrians. This idea came to me when I went last weekend to Holland to visit my son. The streets, pavements and squares were full of cyclists. All railways stations and public buildings had acres of cycle racks. Every piece of railing or fence had several bikes padlocked to it. Among all the thousands of cyclists, not one wore a crash helmet. This was not because the Dutch are neglectful of safety, but because cyclists are the dominant traffic life form in the Netherlands. There is no need, as there is in England, to signify vulnerability by wearing bright clothing or a shiny crash helmet. Indeed, pedestrians in the Netherlands are the most endangered traffic life form - my wife was run over twice by cyclists while innocently walking through Amsterdam and Leiden.

Selling the idea of crash helmets for pedestrians will of course require a substantial marketing budget. This will involve media scares about attractive young people (preferably female) who have suffered brain injury as a result of falling over while walking. The danger of tripping up and falling down would be emphasised. Papers would note that this is most likely to happen to young people and vulnerable elderly people, and suggest that crash helmets should be made compulsory for pedestrians in these categories (as a first step). An MP (supported generously by the crash helmet trade association) would introduce a private member’s bill before Parliament. The crash helmets will of course all be made in China.

If these ideas don’t make money, I can always go back to my original idea of complimentary therapy.

Compliments not complements