Off Topic Grumpy Old Farts Corner

Sliced bread....now that had to be mentioned sometime.

Our toaster is getting on a bit but still works well and still smart enough to not have to replace.

The problem is that sliced bread producers seem to be changing the size of their loaves....and some sizes stick out the top of the toaster and doesn't of course get toasted.

 

turn the bread up when the bottom is toasted or put it under the grill

 

Grumble mode has been reactivated.

Firstly, the papers have today picked up the unfairness of this week’s budget. The Chancellor has cut NI contributions again leaving pensioners, who don’t pay it, left exposed to the insidious erosion of Income Tax thresholds by inflation. Worse, he talked about abolishing NI altogether in the future, which must surely limit any headroom to cut the current penal levels of Income Tax.

If the Government is not committed to the pensions ‘Triple Lock” they should say so openly and not pay it rather than paying it lip service but then eroding it by focusing tax cuts in areas that don’t benefit pensioners.

They should also remember that despite its inflation proof status, as recent studies have shown, the state pension is increasing only sufficient to keep recipients alive but in utter poverty. Most of the current batch of pensioners have additional private pensions and therefore have enough income to pay tax.

 

And another thing in the news today is the Stakeknife inquiry. Stakeknife was the nom de guerre of an individual who acted for the IRA as interrogator of supposed informers and often then ordered their execution or punishments such as kneecapping.

He was also an informer who passed information to the Special Branch so he was involved in multiple murders while being under the control and protection of the British state.

The inquiry has cost £40m.

I understand that peace in Northern Island is precious but either we close the door on all investigations and prosecutions on both sides, which broadly is what happened in South Africa under Nelson Mandela, or all sides in the conflict are liable to prosecution.

Notably. Stakeknife reported to a senior member of the IRA who became a leading figure in Irish politics after the Good Friday Agreement. If the British government’s part in this can be subject to an inquiry, why can’t his?

 

Not a good budget for pensioners.....although Mrs Plym still enjoys shopping at Waitrose....and that ain't changing yet.

The problem with our nearest Waitrose in Bromley ...is there is a maximum stay of one and a half hours in the car park....which they don't own.....this is rather tight for Mrs Plym to do a thorough weeks shop.....and no chance of using the the nice in-store coffee shop.....The car park is free and can be used by anyone who might pop up the high street for a quick shop. It is also next to Bromley South Station...which gets a lot of quick shoppers in from commuters on the way home.......if you over stay fines can be up to £80 !!!

We have been going to Sevenoaks weekly now for awhile (12miles)......and shopping at their bigger Waitrose....who have their own two level car park beneath the store....costs £2 to park and you get a £1 refund at the till when you leave.....there is a rather lax two hour parking set up....so we use their even nicer coffee shop and can just finish within the two hour limit.

My grumble is that the Bromley Waitrose has a nearly empty coffee shop...because most people cannot do a weeks shop and use the coffee shop within the hour and a half allowed parking time.....people have complained to Waitrose....but they have no control over the car parking which years back they did own....so short term profit but long term lose with shoppers going elsewhere.

 

I heard some figures quoted yesterday. The average person whose pensions are in payment now made contributions of around 25% of pay when they were working, including employer’s contributions. That’ll have been before Gordon Brown’s tax raid on pension funds started the fire that eventually burnt defined benefits schemes to the ground.

The equivalent figure today is….. wait for it…. 4%.

Can you see where that’s heading? Because the government doesn’t seem to.

 

Jeremy Hunt's Budget was more radical than it looked https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68516710

 

The Ombudsman has deemed that women should be compensated for the well publicised change in their retirement age to make it the same as men.

Does that mean that men can be compensated for having to work 5 years more than women for all those generations when in fact, men’s life expectancy was shorter than that of women? I suspect not.

 

Not a chance of compensation for women until the numbers are down to the hundreds rather than hundreds of thousands. No Government is going to commit to that outlay anytime soon.

 

And rightly so. This change was for perfectly valid reasons - to treat woman equally ironically, it does work both ways. And it was public knowledge for years in advance

 

Cartoon by... Matt... on the front of todays Telegraph.

Scene in the Garrick Club....(men only of course)....showing two men talking....."I had no idea the pension age had risen for women....nobody has mentioned it here in the Garrick Club.

 

Further to the talk about women being allowed to join the Garrick Club.

In London at present these clubs......University Women Club.....The Allbright Club.....The Sorority Club.....The Trouble Club and The Merit Club seem to be women only clubs.....that means that they are barring 49% of the population.

 

Do you really give a **** about any of those organisations? I've never heard of any of them and frankly don't give a monkeys who they let in and who they don't.

 

I haven’t had a grumble for a while and I think this is something I’ve fulminated about before, but I’m getting the point of going up to B&Q and buying a single brick to keep next to the TV remote.

There’s and item on the BBC local news today about a number of stations where those in wheelchairs or otherwise lacking mobility can’t get access to trains because there are steps instead of ramps or even lifts.

In itself, that’s not the reason I’ll be putting a brick through the TV one day soon.

IT’S A ••••ING RAILWAY STATION NOT A TRAIN STATION. WE ARE NOT IN AMERICA.

 

There are many...Stations in the suburbs of London without wheelchair access.
In recent times Bromley South & Orpington have had millions spent on bringing access to these two well used Stations.
Going up to Victoria or Waterloo I can think of more than a dozen such Stations.

 

You will be pleased to note your complaint has been heard notdistant and on the local beeb news tonight it was referred to as a "Railway Station". I can assure you that if you have ever had to push a wheelchair around in a lot of places they are not very access friendly. People are also not very wheelchair aware either. I pushed my mother around Plymouth over months and the amount of people I had to walk around in the streets was huge. Also car drivers parking was another issue. I once got told by a lorry driver to either wait or walk around into the middle of Exeter Street which is a very busy traffic road. He was parked in the middle of the pavement and had unloaded a pile of stuff onto the pavement blocking the rest of it. I was ever so polite in my response.

 

That's just the context. What made the BBC decide that "train station" was part of our vocabulary? Is there a committee that masterminds these atrocities? Is there one guilty individual? We should be told.

It's more than I can stand. I may go up to the roof of my condo via the elevator and throw myself down to the sidewalk below if this goes on.

 

Not before the prediction league season has finished please.....that would be very selfish of you.

It's not a sidewalk it's a pavement......and it certainly isn't a condo.....and the roof is reached by a lift.....and you could get a little bored waiting for an ambulance to arrive laying on your sidewalk.

And finally your "train station" is going to be brought back under "public" control if Starmer wins the election.

 

What a load of cods..