‘Giving these idiots access to electrical goods will tell us just exactly what kind of accidents we need to guard against – using your laptop in the bath for example.’  The BSI is getting through testers at an alarming rate and is looking for more volunteers; drinkers who urinate onto live electrical tube lines and BNP voters are especially welcome.

The company’s glossy brochure says that a clearly identifiable stupid person at a dinner-party adds to the prestige of both host and guests. ‘We guarantee that after having corrected the brainless loser; put him down, laughed and poked fun at his foolishness and his silly remarks, guests will leave feeling totally superior.’

The company claims that its fools are carefully selected for their quality foolishness and they must dramatically fail both an IQ test and a practical aptitude test. One satisfied customer said ‘I like the people who come to my dinner-parties, but quite honestly they’re a pretty dim bunch. But with the rented idiot they soon started to feel quite brainy. And it’s good fun winking and kicking each other under the table whenever the fool makes a foolish remark.’

He said his guests went home feeling like Einstein and he would certainly be hiring a fool again. ‘He proved he was well worth the five hundred quid when one of my guests was boring on about the recession and asked how one could tell someone was in pain. Then the hired fool chipped in with; ‘I say, isn’t that a proposition from the later Wittgenstein?” How we all laughed!’