Liquorice Allsort Theory

Rosie doesn't like liquorice, partly because she read somewhere as a kid that it was made from rats' blood. Perhaps it was, in ye olden days, but, ingredients aside, the taste, the colour, the texture - it just doesn't appeal to her sweet tooth. But liquorice allsorts, where the nasty black confection is made more palatable by being covered with different coloured sweet layers, are more interesting as a metaphor for life. Don't you often find that society, and the organizations within it, present a lovely sweet tempting brightly-coloured outer layer to the world. A "look at us we are lovely" persona. Then underneath there is perhaps a boring brown or white layer, which Rosie thinks of as the "reality" layer, which reflects the actual realistic day-to-day operation of that body. Then concealed underneath that is the darker stuff of the world, which society needs to address.

As an example, a few years' ago some of our seafront shelters (in which some homeless people bunked down) were closed off by the local authority. Notices on the fencing said they were closed for redecoration/refurbishment. This is the pinky/yellow layer - "look at us, we are lovely, doing up these facilities to improve the seafront". The less-colourful "reality layer" underneath meant that the homeless people could no longer use these shelters, therefore removing them from the sight of holidaymakers. Job done. And the underlying darker unpalatable liquorice layer reflected the fact that we have homeless people in our community at all...

That's just one example. I'm sure you can think of many more...