tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-67253442011-07-17T16:09:23.913+01:00Reward in heavenAspects of retirement and old age interspersed with bouts of political incorrectness. In case you didn't know old age and senility are different.Grumpyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371218915847062235noreply@blogger.comBlogger341100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6725344.post-74113174526625859622009-01-25T22:39:00.001Z2009-01-25T22:50:21.346ZA gentleman after all?There has been discussion recently on the Times letters page, most of it feeble in the extreme as is sadly typical these days of the Times letters, of what is a modern definition of a gentleman. When this comes up, as it does from time to time, I cannot think beyond the wonderful Beyond the Fringe sketch about the railway lost property shop advertising 2000 pairs of ‘lost’ corduroy trousers. Grumpyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371218915847062235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6725344.post-32092975668071947452009-01-25T15:05:00.002Z2009-01-25T15:08:22.819ZInauguration of hopeOne of the less edifying sights of the political near future will be that of George Brown sucking up to President Barack Obama. The incongruousness of it is staggering. The man who will lead the free world, whose oratory has inspired millions, who embodies the American creed of yes we can and who so far has proved it, is set to be tainted by association with the bullying, Grumpyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371218915847062235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6725344.post-41653956676775460842008-08-09T13:09:00.003+01:002008-08-09T13:12:26.511+01:00A time to race Time to hide from the TV or finish that thousand page book you started a year ago, for the Olympics are upon us. Yes, I shall watch a few events - the 1500 metres final is the cream of them, long enough for tactics to be potentially decisive but short enough to maintain the tension. But the dancing and prancing ones, the swimming, in which who is who is distinguishable only beforeGrumpyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371218915847062235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6725344.post-55670908852997674112008-08-05T22:27:00.006+01:002008-08-05T22:33:45.067+01:00Basic certificate in UK citizenship Elementary Level Paper 1: Numeracy, objectivity and healthy scepticism Q1. (80% of marks) An article in the Times reported that a government survey of drinking had found that alcohol had become 69% more affordable between 1980 and 2008. Discuss. A. Without further information not given in the question one cannot say whether this loose phraseology is the Grumpyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371218915847062235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6725344.post-86507734195779932692008-06-14T00:00:00.002+01:002008-06-14T00:04:19.594+01:00A good week for democracy And hast thou slain the Jabberwock? Come to my arms, my beamish boy! O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! He chortled in his joy. Chortling was not enough. I yelled with joy and bounced up and down in my chair, probably wrecking the springs. It took me several minutes to calm down. I am still glowing with delight, as if I had just broken 80 (again, I might add). The Grumpyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371218915847062235noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6725344.post-60566228818980564222008-05-05T21:53:00.001+01:002008-05-05T21:55:18.951+01:00Boris to the rescue The most cheerful week in politics since David Cameron, at his first prime minister’s questions, wrongfooted Tony Blair by offering Tory help to get his education bill passed. It started with the miserable Gordon having to admit he had gone badly wrong in removing the 10p tax band, something he did out of over confidence and vanity and that was exposed within minutes as a Grumpyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371218915847062235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6725344.post-40229214859282314422008-04-25T22:29:00.004+01:002008-04-26T20:08:29.797+01:00Must write to the Times about it Don’t bother. It won’t get published unless a) you are an MP, bishop or one of the remaining peers with access to the House of Lords, b) you are exercising what amounts to a right of reply on behalf of an organisation that has been offended, whether justifiably or not, by an article or another letter or c) you have a singularly unoriginal contribution to make to Grumpyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371218915847062235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6725344.post-74509065198119277472008-01-14T19:59:00.000Z2008-01-14T22:01:47.116ZThe ten commandments of New Labour And the Lord spake unto the children of Britain and said: We are the God that is New Labour, which brought you out of the house of the Tories, out of the land of sleaze. You shall have no other God before New Labour.You shall have no idols but the National Health Service and shall not worship at the altars of any other form of healing, forGrumpyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371218915847062235noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6725344.post-20595006427183761072008-01-12T16:53:00.002Z2008-04-25T22:33:58.348+01:00It may be art but . . . I am not a great reader. It stems from a very low boredom threshold. If my attention is not captured after a few pages, a chapter at most, the book is unlikely to be finished. This trait (the second t is pronounced in English) first came to light at school where I was required to take on Great Expectations, which some claim is the best of Dickens’s novels. Since I was Grumpyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371218915847062235noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6725344.post-67093640834683170662008-01-11T18:36:00.000Z2008-01-11T18:39:10.824ZThe lights are going out, except in France I remember a newspaper cartoon from the fifties or sixties. It showed a group of emaciated people huddled around a fire at the mouth of a cave, while in the background could be seen the crumbling remains of a city, its idle factories with smokeless chimneys and broken windows. The group is dressed in animal skins, primitive tools lie around and the Grumpyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371218915847062235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6725344.post-42666667772609717632007-12-10T23:30:00.000Z2007-12-10T23:34:22.054ZSmoke and mirrors As a regular visitor to Ireland I have been delighted with the no smoking laws that were introduced a few years ago. One can eat and drink in clean air and go home with clean clothes, with the further advantage (yes advantage) that my wife will now come with me to the pub, for she is happy to drive me home, having been put off in the past, and in England, by being even more Grumpyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371218915847062235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6725344.post-18671355051961993362007-10-24T22:05:00.000+01:002007-10-24T22:15:28.978+01:00Bisques to the fore! Golf is often cited as a game that enables players of widely different abilities to compete realistically and with broadly equal chances of winning. With every player having a personal handicap rating, based on his form and record against the theoretically perfect scratch score, someone playing off 18 could have a meaningful game with the amateur champion, who might be off Grumpyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371218915847062235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6725344.post-23477503078914031252007-10-20T23:30:00.000+01:002007-10-21T16:26:12.436+01:00What do we do to deserve these refs? To the pub in the next village to watch the world cup final. Ours would probably have soccer on and about three people watching. I predicted about a year ago that South Africa would win, thinking then that England would be nowhere and not foreseeing how we would help them by eliminating Australia. That evening, with both Wallabies and All Blacks going out to Grumpyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371218915847062235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6725344.post-48464353490432798012007-09-26T19:12:00.000+01:002007-10-21T16:34:26.767+01:00Shower of Scotland The Scotland vs. New Zealand match last Sunday, part of the rugby world cup, was an occasion to miss by all accounts.The host nation for the competition is France, a major rugby playing country with ample good stadiums. So why was the match played at Murrayfield? Two pool match were also played in Cardiff, as will be one of the quarter finals. This deal was clearly arrived at Grumpyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371218915847062235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6725344.post-59122012584839787812007-09-26T17:11:00.000+01:002007-10-21T20:41:57.608+01:00The equation of life I have long seen the only problem with retirement as being able to afford it. All that time to do what you want must not be constrained by lack of money to get on with it. Sadly, in Britain the state treats all retired people as incipient spongers itching to soak up what little tax revenue the NHS has left for other purposes. You are not allowed to cash in your pension pot Grumpyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371218915847062235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6725344.post-35913160325292126032007-07-26T21:28:00.000+01:002007-10-24T21:59:47.382+01:00Life is full of disappointments I mentioned once before that the Irish have started to show signs of betraying their traditionally admirable attitude to life and its stuffier aspects. One such is the building of a golf course on the spit of land leading up to the Old Head of Kinsale. You used to be able to walk (or drive for that matter, but I preferred to walk) along the path to the lighthouseGrumpyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371218915847062235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6725344.post-25060533610470506262007-07-04T00:05:00.000+01:002007-10-21T20:50:12.911+01:00We are the people of England and we have not spoken yetI didn’t watch it and I’m glad I didn’t. The TV coverage of Tony Blair’s final Commons appearance and his handover to Gordon Brown was by all accounts nauseating. Boris Johnson’s amusing piece in the Telegraph summed it up, concentrating mainly on the scenes in the House, (full of de mortuis nil rubbishem or whatever it is) but it was the BBCGrumpyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371218915847062235noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6725344.post-19292099290776442962007-06-05T13:17:00.000+01:002007-10-21T20:53:25.081+01:00Only the grin was left So now we know: it’s to be June 27. For certainly more than half of the last ten years I have wished Tony Blair were not prime minister. I cannot pinpoint the moment I turned, for though I voted for him in 1997, I certainly didn’t in 2001 so it must have been in the first half of his tenure. Was it the millennium dome? Was it his failure to stamp down on the fuel Grumpyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371218915847062235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6725344.post-31836335416004340382007-02-28T12:35:00.000Z2007-10-21T20:57:30.511+01:00Let us now praise famous men When you get to my age you start taking an interest in the obituary pages that would have been pointless when you were 25. Politicians one vaguely remembers, probably more for their failures or misdeeds than any lasting achievements, sportsmen from the days when there were still genuine amateurs and footballers were actually underpaid, and lately a fascinating and Grumpyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371218915847062235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6725344.post-1152398483460410282006-07-08T23:39:00.000+01:002006-07-08T23:45:16.073+01:00Questionable votes Could a football tournament change the British constitution? Or at least, since we do not have the Americans’ privilege of a written constitution, could it lead to a new interpretation? The question has its roots in the late seventies, when Jim Callaghan was trying to shore up his crumbling government with a sop to Scottish nationalism by proposing a form of devolution for Grumpyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371218915847062235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6725344.post-1143067496106874822006-03-22T22:41:00.000Z2007-10-24T22:02:37.665+01:00Lies of the times It’s time to update those well practised and well known mantras of officialdom and the untrustworthy: the cheque is in the post; a government spokesman said there was no cause for alarm; of course I’ll still respect you in the morning. The modern state and business practice have given us a rich new set to choose from. Your call is important to us. Then why not answer the Grumpyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371218915847062235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6725344.post-1141395038367003022006-03-03T14:08:00.000Z2007-10-01T19:14:50.725+01:00The green, green grass of home The Englishman has a strange relationship with his lawn and after years of studying it I have had to conclude I am not, in this respect at least, a typical Englishman. You only have to look at the summer advertisements for lawn growth products, weed killer, and the rival types of mower (it’s a lot less bovver with a hover) to realise that we are dealing not with aGrumpyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371218915847062235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6725344.post-1134949453566031992005-12-18T23:42:00.000Z2005-12-18T23:45:31.706ZSelf-loading cargoIf you’re ashamed to care, go by airIs there an industry that cares less about its customers than the airlines? Car clampers and back street loan sharks come to mind, perhaps because the three have features in common.You don’t go to a loan shark unless you have no option. As a client towards the posh end of the business once said to me ‘only the rich are in a position to borrow Grumpyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371218915847062235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6725344.post-1122508206584521702005-07-28T00:47:00.000+01:002005-07-28T00:53:33.940+01:00Are you feeling lucky Jean Charles?Being white, middle class and from a respectable family, whatever that may mean, I grew up with a middle class relationship with the British police: I didn’t trouble them and they didn’t trouble me. The bobby walked the streets, normally alone and always unarmed, cheerfully providing directions to a particular street or local landmark when asked and one never Grumpyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371218915847062235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6725344.post-1121813523704283052005-07-19T23:49:00.000+01:002005-07-19T23:52:03.710+01:00Ferry talesI have an enduring childhood memory of a trip to Scotland in the days before the Firth of Forth had a road bridge next to the railway one. Returning from dinner with friends, we ran out of petrol as we approached the ferry on the north side of the firth, the car stopping about fifty yards short of the summit of the hill beyond which was the slope down to the ferry – the last of the Grumpyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371218915847062235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6725344.post-1102188322878950922004-12-04T19:17:00.000Z2004-12-04T19:25:22.880ZThe publican and the peanuts – a modern parable
Working for that non-profit voluntary organisation I referred to a while back has been giving me some hassle recently. A bunch of us have been trying to sort out its finances, how much to sting the members for which services and so on. Everyone has their favourite aspect of the thing that they think should be supplied to the members at a cost to be Grumpyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371218915847062235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6725344.post-1100823206497586142004-11-19T01:11:00.000Z2004-11-19T00:15:52.156ZCasus belli
Last night the Commons allowed the 1949 Parliament Act to be invoked in order to force the Hunting Bill into law.
The trouble with this bill is the misconceived argument on both sides, for it has precious little to do with either vermin control or cruelty to animals. These are simply veneers of logic and reason applied to try to disguise an argument that is largely emotional but also Grumpyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371218915847062235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6725344.post-1098920922227287862004-10-28T01:40:00.000+01:002004-10-28T00:48:42.226+01:00‘If a book is worth reading it’s worth buying’
I have been trying to find a copy of Michael Young’s book The Rise of the Meritocracy. He called it an essay on education and equality and is accepted as the first to use the word, though its currently accepted meaning is far from his. If I remember the synopsis correctly he developed a thesis on the likely consequence of a society operating as a Grumpyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371218915847062235noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6725344.post-1096843979063350462004-10-03T23:49:00.000+01:002004-10-20T17:40:14.583+01:00Here’s to the last time
There is a neat television ad around just now that asks ‘when was the last time you did something for the first time?’ Somehow (it must be my age) it made me think of doing things for the last time. This is different, apart from the obvious, because when it’s the first time, you know. Last times can be planned and intentional or unconscious and not recognised as such for Grumpyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371218915847062235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6725344.post-1095196201282666082004-09-14T22:08:00.000+01:002004-09-18T23:30:00.830+01:00Action semi-directe
Noon, Saturday October 2nd 2004, Whitehall Place, London. Be there. We are marching, us oldies, against the iniquities of the council tax and I have decided to go along and see what a protest march is like. I have a mild regret that it is unlikely to turn violent (nothing like a good riot to make you feel horny, they say). The idea of a few thousand pensioners being Grumpyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371218915847062235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6725344.post-1093824384443635312004-08-30T01:04:00.000+01:002004-09-27T22:15:33.770+01:00The British volunteer
Three posts so far and readers (the few – two to date outside the family) might wonder why ‘reward in heaven’. It’s all to do with expectations – blessed are they that expect nothing and all that.
One of the things that happens when you retire is that you find out what your other half has been up to while you were out at work. You might also discover aspects of her Grumpyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371218915847062235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6725344.post-1092259387043462002004-08-11T22:21:00.000+01:002004-09-18T23:38:22.470+01:00Goodbye, thankyou and RIP
An example of the law of unforeseen consequences. On Saturday I called our newsagent to change our order from The Times to The Daily Telegraph. I am starting to find The Times bland, in particular its wishy-washy offend-nobody editorials and the letters below the fold, as if the ones higher up weren’t bad enough. The best bits are ex-editor Simon Jenkins’s column and Grumpyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371218915847062235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6725344.post-1091485819046427272004-06-15T23:27:00.000+01:002004-09-18T23:27:43.396+01:00If you know a better hole . . .
Off to ZA to see son one and family. Depressed at way England has become uncouth. Will consider emigrating, but where to? New homeland would have to be couth (strictly personal and subjective definition, variable with time and mood), warm and meet basic tests of being civilised – see remarks on couth. Limited choice as all dictatorships, one party states and ones Grumpyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371218915847062235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6725344.post-1081089451772126922004-04-08T23:33:00.000+01:002004-10-23T21:58:20.176+01:00The longest journey starts with a single step . . .
Have decided to start a blog as an antidote to boredom in retirement. Retirement is the third great watershed in one’s life. The first is graduation (no more sponging off the state), the second is having children (no more disposable income) and then retirement (no more company car). Time to reflect on furrows ploughed and those still fallow. Grumpyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371218915847062235noreply@blogger.com0