Fear to Tread
Your Correspondent has encountered some phobias in his time, with the sight of an approaching doctor’s needle making family members go queasy, to open spaces suddenly stimulating a panic attack (and subsequent disappearance) in a friend. One also remembers a documentary of Howard Hughes (Entrepreneur & Film-maker) where it was said, a fear of contact with germs turned him into a tissue-touching recluse, but more recently this correspondent stumbled upon a new one, thanks to the French M.P. (Member of Parliament) Thomas Thevenoud.
Thomas (a recent junior minister for foreign trade in the governing Socialist party until it was discovered he had paid no income tax & no rent on a Parisian apartment in the last three years) explained that a fear of paperwork (administration forms) was the reason he failed to pay his obligatory income tax & rent over that time period.
Since his explanation, there have been may doubters of Thomas and his condition, (his own socialist party sacked him from government, expelled him from the party, and demanded he resign his seat- he has refused so far, at time of writing) but if his phobic condition is genuine, there is a simple solution to alleviate his discomfort, (any reader of this column who is acquainted with Thomas could pass this on to him) hire an accountant.
He’ll find hiring an accountant will be bring a comfort, similar to the effect of sound advice to phobic-needle patient, to look away and expect a small pinch; or a paper-bag to a panicked-gripped agoraphobe who wandered out-doors; or a pair of latex gloves to a germ-obsessed recluse.
For those who doubt Thomas sincerity (relating to his alleged paper phobia), there is an alternative phobic condition he may be suffering from, which may be more plausible for them; tight-arsed syndrome (or in layman’s terms, a fear of letting money go).
If Thomas is genuinely suffering from tight-arsed syndrome, there are two possibilities this correspondent suggests that could alleviate him from his fear of releasing money; the first is a temporary solution- obtain a few bottles of plonk and get pissed; the second is a more permanent one- get married.
