Boo boo in select company

Boo boo in select company
Something to say?

Thursday 7 July 2016

Age has its Advanages

After that little moan yesterday (right, big moan, if you insist) here I am searching for the illusory benefits of being old:

   I look at the gymnastics of the two major political parties and know this has all happened before. If not here in the U K , perhaps in India, Italy, Nigeria...

   All that horse-trading and and in-fighting  - the press must be really delighted. Now they don't have to go looking for news; news is coming to them in large and delicious rolls. Their tiny little right-wing minds cannot decide which bemused Tories to support - the ones honestly Tory in the Tory party, or the Tories in the Labour Party. Laura Keunssberg is having a blast - her lips curling, happy smile hovering, and the sentences drawn out to maximum selective brilliance. Doesn't the B B C give even lip-service to impartiality?

   I am asking myself: how is the Momentum caucus in Labour different from the 1922 Committee in the Conservative Party? Prime Ministers live in mortal fear of them; whole national referendums are organised to please them. Momentum can't even get the Eagle to behave herself, or indeed the self-indulgent Blairites to stop sulking.

   As with us old people, I escape into the past, remembering quite another U K. One in which it was not all about the bottom line, when people counted irrespective of colour or religion. 

   We celebrate the anniversaries of World Wars but forget how we plunged in to help small nations against bullies. 

   When did so much of the news become about shares and the preoccupations of big business? How many of us own shares, especially among the working classes? How many have enough savings to buy a new car, let alone put in £15240 into an ISA? 

   House prices going down? Great, I think. More people can afford the prices and the mortgages. House prices are a little ridiculous recently.

   Bankers a little lost? They can get more lost as far as I am concerned. They sit on our money and give us laughable interest rates while they gamble with our resources. And Carney just gave them a bit more to play with.

   This is a good time to think where we are headed, our much-lauded  British sense of values, which all immigrants have to sign up to. Except we really can't be much bothered with immigrants, can we? That is also recent.

Like a Czech friend of mine said, 'When we come to Britain, we are immigrants, when you come to our country, you are expatriates.' Bulls-eye, Theresa!



   

Wednesday 6 July 2016

Older by the day.

Last year, when I saw my G P about sundry age-related ailments, she was quite encouraging. Vital statistics all reasonable, she said. Just cut down on those cheese toasties (with red Leicester specially) and walk for at least 20 minutes, five times in the week. On the whole a satisfactory encounter. (Be patient. Us oldies like talking about our insides, specially bowels, and we take time getting to the point. Restraint needed on the part of listening family.)

   As I got to the door, my G P asked, 'Not incontinent, are you?' That came out of the left field. So I answered without thinking. 'I have that to look forward to.' She has since left the practice. Mmmm... 

   This year it is all teeth - or lack of. Another spare part threatens. I counted - I am down to sixteen now and one more is soon destined for the chop. I can either wear dentures or stop smiling. I vote for the latter.

   But, I keep telling all who come up against me on a bad day, that I am still compus mentis. Or almost. Why do they look uncertainly at me?

Granted I list a bit when I walk and fall into the flower bed often when I walk on uneven flowerbeds. But why does my carpenter think I can't drive? Driving is a lot easier than walking on a wonky knee, and he will find that out when he reaches eighty.

   I do an audit: hearing reasonable, teeth fifty percent, but not the chewing ones, knee serviceable but just, eyes can read as fast as ever but after eight in the evening, they are untrustworthy.

   Which do I hate more? People not jumping up to do things for me (like that tenth cup of tea at ten at night) or doing too much assuming I am not functional.

Ah! the loss of control. I hate those airport wheel-chairs and the handlers that treat us oldies like laundry. Sad lumps to be pushed around and parked here and there.