Ouch

Even the most degrading jobs generally have some socially redeeming quality. Without journalism lecturers, for example, who would babysit stupid left-wing teens through their awkward learning-to-read years?

That challenging task might otherwise fall to sewerage workers, hospital waste cleaners, parasite infestation eradicators and anybody else with superior literacy skills to your standard humanities student. Frankly, they’ve got better – and more profitable – things to do with their time.

But what of workers in Australia’s mothballed desalination plants, who are paid to turn up each day simply to make sure the pointless facilities are still ticking over?