A Christmas Carol 2009

Newspapers were dead: to begin with.
There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of their burial was signed by the BBC, the Internet, Twitter and the credit crunch.
The bleakness of their future was echoed by that of the world outside.
Snow swept through England, into London and onto an abandoned street that had once been a hub of 'business'.
A single sign adorned the frosty Fleet Street scene: 'Marley & Scrooge: Newspaper Propreiters'.
Follow Scrooge now as he boards his top of the range Audi TT, fresh from another round of festive redundancies.
He moves into the freezing night, past throngs of people flocking to see their heroes signing autobiographies in Oxford Street; Katie, Kerry, Kim Kardashian and Katie Cruise, silicon shimmering in the Christmas lights.
Past paper sellers shouting headlines: 'Exclusive. Snow chaos on Britain's roads.'
Past cinemas where 3D movies champion environmental messages more powerfully than Copenhagan talks; and past the proletariat, who look at the snow and scoff: "What climate change?"
Far away, beyond the melting polar ice caps, a crestfallen man sits and stares at the remnants of a family business.
Brandy sodden and clutching a solitary mince pie, the man cries into his huge, white beard and wipes crumbs from a two-piece all red suit.
Through a door to his right, conglomerate backed American bankers and accountants discuss their response to wild-cat strikes by elves angry at the outsourcing of workshop jobs.
Across the corridor an Employment Tribunal sits, a magistrate looking in horror over the top of her horn-rimmed glasses and proclaiming: "Other workers used to laugh and call you names.
"They never let you join in any reindeer games."
Opposite her, on empty press benches, the Ghosts of Journalists Past scribble hurried notes in preparation for the morning's splash.
But where are there modern counterparts?
Why, back in the local offices of 'Marley & Scrooge' of course.
Our austere gentleman has long since disappeared into the shareholders festive bash, but inside his place of work Bob Hackchit trawls through PR pomposity and pastes it onto ill-constructed websites, wishing to persuade the 'reader' to pay £1.50 to learn about how the council has put up new toilets.
Behind him, flushed with exertion, the work experience boy - Tiny Tim - leans on his crutch of hope for the future and sighs...
"God help us, every one."