The 50+ Club

Is it just me or…

I know we are rapidly spiraling into recession, some would say we have already arrived, but why do I get the feeling we will not all be affected equally? The Bank of England cuts interest rates to 3% but the high street banks don’t pass it on and now they are looking for ways to recover the money they will lose by not selling payment protection insurance. For those of you who have been ‘off-planet’ for the last decade, payment protection insurance, or PPI, is foisted upon us as a way of ensuring our loan will be paid off if we can’t meet the payments. What usually happens is it doesn’t payout for the problem we actually have, whatever it may be, we pay through the nose for it, it’s added to the loan so we pay interest on it and, wham, bam, thank-you maam, the bank has shafted you again.

Then there’s all the redundancies at the likes of BT, 10,000 in six months, that’s unbelievable. What were all these people doing in the previous six months? Sitting on their arses? No, they’ve only just been identified as being surplus to requirements. What? All 10,000? Seems like an opportunity has been grasped here. Sorry, we’re in recession, we have to make some cuts to save the business. Save ‘fat cats’ life style more like.

So, 10,000 more people looking at a shite Christmas and more shite service from BT looks on the cards. Well, can a company lose that many people and see no reduction in service. If it can then let’s hope most of the people leaving are in the management team because they’re obviously doing bugger all!

In the meantime I’m writing a new TV gameshow. The title? “You’ve been shafted”. Bet you can’t guess what it’s about!

The United Kingdom has one of the lowest turnouts for elections in the World despite having one of the most transparent political processes. Could it be that this very transparency is responsible?

Apparently, 47% of people in this country are not interested in the US elections compared to 25% in France and 15% in Germany. Only 51% in the UK say they would vote in a General Election whereas 70-80% in other European countries is not uncommon. Only 27% of the electorate here have any trust at all in politicians generally yet, even in those countries with openly corrupt regimes, polling turnout is considerably higher than here.

It is my contention that a transparent political process following the usual posturing and brazen lies to secure control of parliament shows the electorate has been shafted yet again. You don’t need to have a brain the size of a planet to figure out that most people, if repeatedly kicked when they get up, will soon learn not to get up. So it is with politics. What’s the point of making the effort to consider policies and manifestos then go to the polling booth and vote for someone who is never going to do what they promised.

It might be better if we didn’t get to see what’s going on in politics as it just rubs salt in the wound. After all, getting shafted is one thing, but knowing you’ve been shafted that’s completely different!

After an unexpectedly pleasant weekend, the sun shone for two days in a row, it’s back to normal service for Monday morning! The sun has gone away. Still, I’m in a quiet office in a pleasant rural location and the dog’s asleep under the desk. Makes me almost forget that my pension plan has been shot to hell over the past year and my house is probably worth bugger all.

The doom-mongers are out in force, it’s the end of the World as we know it with rising inflation and the end of Capitalism on the horizon. Of course, it won’t matter much because if rising inflation doesn’t get us then rising sea levels will.

It’s comforting, then, that some things never change like politicians being unable to tell fact from fiction or give a straight answer as demonstrated by Alistair Darling on Breakfast this morning. Asked by Bill Turnbull whether taxes would be raised to pay for increased public spending the Chancellor wriggled like a well-hooked fish. It was a simple question and deserved a simple answer, yes or no. Did we get that? No, what we got was jibber-jabber. It’s high time politics became a lot more transparent and our representatives a lot more accountable instead of acting, and looking, like a bunch of self-serving spivs.

Praise the Lord!

We’re saved from binge drinking!

There’s going to be a label on bottles of alcohol warning people about binge drinking.

That’s so inspirational, NOT.

It’s too late, the lunatics are already in charge of the asylum.

Stunning news had me sitting up sharply in my bed this morning as it was revealed that Daniel Craig had to use stacked heels on the latest Bond film!

Scanning the rest of the item rapidly I expected to find revelations that it was medical intervention to correct an injury sustained during filming and that hip replacement surgery was planned for the Autumn.

However, it appears that it was just the fact that the current Bond girl was slightly taller in her high heels.

Must be a real shortage of entertainment news about at the moment…

The Government is reeling from the overwhelming backlash of the electorate during the recent local elections and the election of Boris Johnson as the new Mayor of London. Well, it’s taken long enough but the people have finally figured it out - they’re being shafted, again.

This is not a political rant, it’s a common-sense one.

Governments are elected by us to manage the Country, sometimes there are difficult decisions to be made and that’s where leadership comes in. This Government simply rides rough-shod over any of our concerns or, more likely, does not even listen.

The trouncing at the weekend should be a wake-up call not only for New Labour but for anyone involved in Government from the smallest minority party through to every single public servant.

We live in a democracy, not a dictatorship, and don’t ever forget that.

Dutch politician Geert Wilders appears to have incensed Muslims across the World and some would say it serves them right. Muslims are seen by many non-Muslims as intolerant and dangerous. However, bear in mind the same could have been said about Protestants a decade or two ago.

The problem with intolerant people of any religion or persuasion is that they want everyone to share their view and that will never happen. Everyone has a right to their point of view and the right to try to persuade others of its validity. No-one has the right to force their views on anyone else.

Right now, a militant minority of Muslims are the main offenders and they are a threat to everyone else, including the vast majority of Muslims who are decent, law-abiding citizens.

I’m not qualified to be a World leader as I (i) don’t have a large ego; (ii) am not very material and (iii) am reasonably good at what I do. On top of that I tend not to suggest I know more about other people’s specialist areas than they do.

It’s not limited to Europe either - do you see a World leader anywhere who is any more than a joke and some are far worse. Still, some of their days are numbered.

Africa is the next natural location for industrial growth, China has already been taking a look as has the United States. That pretty much spells the end for the likes of Mugabe as neither country is going to invest in Africa only to see millions syphoned off.

As there is an abundance of raw materials, land and cheap labour available I reckon Mugabe’s days are numbered without our intervention. The rush to consumerism by the people will see to that.

So, the limit may very well drop to 50mg per 100ml of blood - that’s equivalent to about 1 (small) glass of wine. I don’t have a problem with this but banning the offender just doesn’t work.

Why not recycle the car they are driving, whoever it belongs to, in a crusher every time they get caught? That will soon start to hurt!

Without going into all the emotive aspects of this ill-considered proposal it is a fact that few members of the public know very much about fluoride and scientists disagree about possible health benefits or side effects. Even official government information is conflicting with statements such as “fluoride is a naturally occurring element” (it isn’t, it’s a mineral compound). In some cases fluoride is naturally occurring but the fluoride that will be injected into drinking water most certainly is not.

Apparently, the reason for mass-fluoridation is that the junk many people consume such as fizzy, sugary drinks cause serious tooth decay.

So, fluoridate the junk and don’t use the population as a testing ground for mass-medication. You can see the current concentrations of fluoride in your area on this map.