Category: General

I’m not sure, because I am so old, if it is me who is going crazy or just the rest of the world. This is epitomised by the extraordinary divorce proceedings of Paul McCartney and his wife. They are fighting at great expense over sums of money that they couldn’t possibly spend. Even if I… Continue reading 08.03.08, Have I Lived Too Long?

Every week there is some proposed change in the educational system. The fact that proposing alone, means that headmasters throughout the country are having to assess the effect on a budget, their teaching staff, and the conduct of the school, even if only to protest to the union, or the government itself, which induces unnecessary… Continue reading 07.03.08, Are we getting value for money, Part 4.

The trouble is we have complicated our lives to an unbelievable extent, and our waste in every sense, is beyond recognition. Today I was looking back at my childhood, and I estimated that the wage paid to a labourer had increased by approximately 133 times. In the 30s I could ride trams all day for… Continue reading 05.03.08, Are we getting value for money, Part 3

What I place here is part of a personal e-mail from a Dutch friend. It is un-edited, just as I received it, and I post it instead of what I originally intended for the sake of us Brits who, like me, have been appalled at what is happening to and within our country, only because… Continue reading 04.03.08, It seems to be everywhere

Please revise your ideas of the discrimination of a high proportion of the people shopping with you. We’re not all mindless sheep, or obsessed with the cheap and cheerful. A lot of us were once good cooks, who are now reduced to being on our own, or just two of us, whereby cooking meals is… Continue reading 01.03.08, An open leter to the Supermarkets

I have already referred to the fact that we are paying 31 billion, in interest on our National Debt, not internal debt. For years I lived with the national debt after the last war, when we owed the Americans and others for helping us. I vaguely remember that in or around about the 70 and… Continue reading 29.02.08,Are we getting value for money? Part 2

On the 13th or February the Daily Telegraph had a list of how taxpayers money is spent. The total came to 589 billion, and they were as follows, Social Protection at 159bn, Health 105bn, Education 78bn, Other Expenditure unspecified 62bn, Public Order And Safety 33bn, Defence 32bn, National Debt Interest 31bn, Personal Social Services 26bn,… Continue reading 27.02.08, Are we getting value for money? Part 1

On the BBC Political Show today, there was an item about the controversy between the government, and the bus companies concerning the supply of bus passes to everyone who is 60 or over years of age. The government has set aside money to cover the cost, while the bus companies can see problems of inequality… Continue reading 24.02.08, Universal Bus Passes for the over 60s.

Sophie and I have subscribed to some charities over many years long-term and also one off. Now we are on a mailing list which is passed from charity to charity and we are receiving junk mail and presents for which we have no use, but overall costing a fortune to purchase, wrap and post, so… Continue reading 22.02.08, Charity and Homeland.

My experience stretches for nearly 90 years, and I see those past times as individual periods. From the end of the First World War until the middle of the 30s, was a time of overcoming the horrors, and retrenchment of the values we had had before. From the mid-30s until WW2, there was a new… Continue reading 21.02.08, The Portcullis and Drawbridge Psychology