Diary of a Superannuated Soul - w/e 01/04/2000
John Copeland
After we had put the clocks forward at 12.30 a.m. and were about to go
to bed, we heard the outside intruder alarm buzzing and the security
lights went on. Moments later there was a ringing of the front
doorbell, and when the door was opened a young lad, possibly in his
early twenties, was swaying from side to side, obviously stoned out of
his mind, blood pouring from a cut on his head and his bare arms. Not
wanting to invite him into the house for fear he might be violent, I
sat outside with him on a stone wall and tried to find out what had
happened whilst Mrs. Copeland called the police.
All I could make out was that he lived at Hemswell - a village some
miles away - and that his mates had "fucked off", leaving him to his
own devices. Questions about how he had sustained his injuries
brought no response, but within five minutes a police car had arrived
- an excellent response showing just how good the Police are in these
parts, despite the severe cuts that this crazy Government has imposed
on them during the past two years. There was a young male constable
with a particularly glamorous looking blonde colleague with whom I
would not have minded doing some investigations on a night shift.
The constables drove the youngster away, saying that they would take
him to hospital. As he was put into the back of the car he thanked me
in a well spoken voice, and the vehicle drove off. I gathered from
the male constable that he had broken the window of a neighbouring
house, which will no doubt lead to charges, but at no time did he
threaten me and I found him most incredibly courteous and mild
mannered. No doubt our bird-brained magistrates, most of them
middle-class glory-seekers, will severely punish him. It is the real
thugs who are patted on the head in our topsy-turvy system of
punishment in this kingdom.
During the past week Mrs. Copeland has been trying to purchase various
items of new furniture, all part of the home beautification programme
that is causing me a great deal of post-traumatic stress that is
clearly going to require in-depth counselling if matters further
deteriorate. However, my spouse is also suffering from severe stress,
coming home with a nasty headache last Friday, for she has found
furniture-buying a nightmare experience in Lincoln. The shops carry
little stock, and all items have to be ordered, some of them taking up
to four months, as the manufacturers, carrying no stock either, only
make an item for which there is a definite order.
Obviously Lincoln, with its declining population and now being almost
entirely dependent upon the waning fortunes of tourism and the local
universities whose students are only here half the year, is not
exactly the shopping centre of the kingdom. Nevertheless, it is the
insouciant attitude of the shopkeepers, apparently not too bothered
whether they sell anything or not in a take-it-or leave it attitude,
that is so depressing. There seems to be no management; no training
of staff; and stock control is an unknown term. And when the shops
close down, as they nearly always do, they will be blaming the strong
pound or high business taxes - anything except their own incompetence
and inertia.
I received an e-mail from one of my regular correspondents warning me
about the horrors of Windows 2000: "Advice: If you are thinking about
installing / upgrading to windows 2000 - don't! It's a nightmare and
as soon as I've figured out how to remove the damned thing it will be
trashed". Such comments make me realise how wise the advice to keep
my existing computer turned out to be. By today's standards, with
only 16 mb RAM and with a 150 Mhz processor and Windows 95 and
Explorer 3, it is really antique, but it works, and as Voltaire
advised in "Candide": "Be content with things that work moderately
well". [I liked the comment attributed to Voltaire on his deathbed.
Advised to renounce the Devil, he replied: "This is no time to be
making enemies!"].
I enjoyed the following joke sent to me by e-mail. It would not
surprise me if these politically incorrect jokes are soon banned by
this goofy Government:-.
A blonde had just taken delivery of a new sports car and was out for a
drive when she cut off a truck driver. He motioned for her to pull
over. When she did, he got out of his truck and pulled a piece of
chalk from his pocket. He drew a circle on the side of the road and
gruffly commanded the blonde stand in that circle and DON'T MOVE!
He then went to her car and cut up her leather seats. When he turned
around she had a slight grin on her face, so he said, "Oh you think
that's funny? Watch this!"
He gets a baseball bat out of his truck and breaks every window in her
car. When he turns and looks at her, she has a smile on her face. He
is getting really mad. He gets his knife back out and slices all her
tires. Now she's laughing. The truck driver is really starting to
lose it.
He goes back to his truck and gets a can of petrol, pours it on her
car and sets it on fire. He turns around and she is laughing so hard
she is about to fall down.
"What's so damned funny?" the truck driver asked the blonde.
She replied: "Every time you weren't looking, I stepped outside the
circle!"
To the local Club at lunchtime, enjoying three of pints of Greene
King's Abbot Ale, in excellent condition. Despite feeling somewhat
somnolent after lunch, I continued with the painting schedule,
managing to finish it by about 7 p.m. I am not altogether sure,
though, whether Mrs. Copeland approves of the quality, for she has
complained that the "paint has gone everywhere".
At home in the evening. I have decided to cancel "The Sunday Times"
as I just cannot stand it any more - a really dreadful silly paper,
whose editorial staff seem to believe that quantity is a substitute
for quality. From next Sunday I shall try "The Independent on Sunday"
to see how I get on with that newspaper.
I also decided last night to stop taking the latest batch of pills
that I have been given for my ear trouble as they were giving me
dreadful diarrhoea, and today I felt a good deal better. As they say
in all the medical books, they do not know what causes Meniere's
disease, and they do not know how to cure it, so it seems a total
waste of time taking medication. One of my e-mail correspondents
wisely advised me to throw away all my pills and give Nature a chance,
and I begin to think he is right. Indeed, the more I think about
doctors the more I take the view that they are an almost total waste
of time with their pills, most of which do not cure the illness, more
often having serious side effects. As grandfather said: keep away
from doctors at all times.
Before going to bed about 1.15 a.m. I had a session on our new digital
piano, playing the old music hall songs and singing along to "Doing
the Lambeth Walk"; "My Old Man's a Dustman" and "The Last Rose of
Summer" - wonderful old songs. The cat fled into the garden and Mrs.
Copeland went into the kitchen to do some ironing, but never mind. I
was in high spirits, which is a bit worrying.
MONDAY 27 MARCH
I just cannot believe the number of glossy brochures that our Parish
Council receives from local government departments, national
government agencies, and all manner of quangos. Among the latest
batch, obviously sent out at enormous cost, is one from a quango
calling itself "The East Midlands Development Agency", and in its
glossy pages we are told that its mission is to ensure that "by 2010,
the East Midlands will be one of Europe's top 20 regions. It will be
a place where people want to live, work and invest, because of our
vibrant economy; our healthy, safe, diverse and inclusive
communities; and our quality environment".
And how is this aim to be achieved? Why, through "promoting and
spreading best practice; building on and adding value to existing
activity within the region; influencing and co-ordinating its own and
other funding regimes; and influencing and co-ordinating service
provision by other agencies (e.g.: training, transport, childcare)".
Still, I suppose you can argue that these agencies, usually extremely
generously staffed, provide employment, and the printing and postal
services benefit from all the nonsense. I just wish that I had
managed to get on one of these quangos, for it must be a good life
with high salaries, generous travelling expenses and slap-up meals,
and it does not matter in the least if you split infinities to
worthily promote the aims of the organisation.
With my unfettered prolixity I reckon that I could have worked wonders
on one of these quangos, producing all manner of charts and
illustrations, and setting out lofty aims within the glossy brochures.
Alas, I missed my vocation, just as I failed to realise the wonderful
opportunities in psychology. I could have studied psychology at the
London School of Economics instead of economics, and had I done so I
would probably now be a leading writer in the psychobabble section of
"The Times". It is sad how these wrong turnings can be taken in life.
I finished reading "Finest Hour" during the afternoon. The book,
based on a series on the idiot's lantern, varied between serious
accounts of Britain's wartime struggles in 1940 and silly
sentimentality, presumably put in for women viewers/readers. For
example, one passage with its hateful colloquial style reads:-
"Edith expected that Jefferies would be there. They had been going out
together but she hadn't heard from him recently, he hadn't written
once, and anyway, she didn't much care for him now".
I continued to feel a great deal better today, presumably as a result
of having stopped the medication. I really must resolve to keep away
from doctors. Even so, I still find it so incredible that we still
live in the dark ages of medicine, with few of the pills doing the
slightest good other than pouring pounds into the pockets of the
pharmaceutical industry. They now have expensive machines, some
costing millions of pounds, to diagnose what is wrong with you, but
invariably they can do nothing about the trouble. Later in this
century I expect we will, at last, see a breakthrough in medical
science, but it will come too late for me. As they say in Suffolk: "I
was born t'soon".
I was interested to read a letter in the Dr Keyboard column of the
"Interface" section of "The Times", complaining about Freeserve, the
free Internet Service Provider: "Further to your advice about
uninstalling Freeserve, I too would love to rid my computer of
Freeserve but am unable to do so, even after following your advice.
Please would you give detailed instructions. Surely there should be a
law covering software, insisting that there is an Uninstall programme
included. This one has a life of its own". Such letters make me
realise how right it was to stay with ClaraNet, being worth every
penny of the £34 a quarter to avoid such horrors.
During a session on the computer after a late breakfast, I wrote to
the Chief Superintendent (a woman) at Lincoln Police Station,
expressing thanks for the extremely prompt response on Sunday morning.
I take the view that the police deserve all the support they can get
in these violent times. Given my way, I would dismiss every social
worker in the land and spend the money on more police, who would do
far more good than the left-wing fraternity with its bleeding-heart
concepts.
Afterwards, at about noon, I went to daughter Kate's house to start
stripping her front door in readiness for repainting in the dark
Oxford blue. The door is now black and looks quite awful, and for a
long time I have been saying that I would repaint it in a more
suitable colour for her. Unfortunately, today was not the best of
days to start, for it was bitterly cold in the north wind, which was
so strong at times that it blew out the blowlamp. However, I
continued the work, even resuming after a two hour lunch break, until
about 4 p.m., by which time I had had quite enough.
The real problem I face with doing these jobs is that I find it so
difficult to get started in the morning, usually having a session on
the computer to begin with, and this seems to become longer every time
I know a decorating job is awaiting my attention. I really need that
"cold start" they squirt on engines to get them going. Another
difficulty is that there are such long breaks, all part of the
tradition of retirement in which, because of the low productivity, we
get behind with things, jobs pile up, and we say that we have never
been so busy.
Over the past few years I have found that my Third Age routine has
furrowed itself into a distinct pattern. I usually get up and make
Mrs. Copeland a cup of tea at 7 o'clock when she has to set off to
work at 8.15 a.m., but I always go back to bed where I read "The
Times". Eventually I get up at about 9.0 a.m., and have breakfast,
usually Weetabix and a couple of rounds of thickly buttered toast,
sometimes three. This is invariably followed by a session on the
computer, answering the 10 or 15 e-mails I receive each day, mostly in
connection with the diary, and this can take anything from one to two
hours.
Most days I have a session doing maintenance work for an hour or so
before lunchtime, which is at about 1 p.m when Mrs. Copeland is not
working - sometimes an hour later if she is. We have our main meal at
this time, always with meat and several fresh vegetables, and this is
consumed with a bottle of beer - "Old Peculier" being my favourite at
the moment. A banana completes the meal, and I then help Mrs.
Copeland wash up. I am relegated to drying as she complains, quite
without justification, that I do not wash things properly.
I used to have a rest after lunch for about an hour, but in recent
weeks I have stopped this, finding that it makes sleep more difficult
at the proper bedtime. When on one of Mrs. Copeland's maintenance
schedules, I usually work from about 2.30 p.m. to about 5 p.m., though
on Thursdays I always see Widow Nell. Once a week Mrs. Copeland and
I go to the cinema, and the rest of the evenings are usually spent at
home during the winter months, reading by the fire and having a
session on the computer about 11 p.m. to write up the day's diary.
More reading afterwards, then a bath, and bedtime usually around
midnight.
Once a month we go down to see Mrs. Copeland's elderly mother in
Essex, and lunchtime on Sundays sees us at the local licensed Club,
where there are always two guest beers on each week. It is an
opportunity to meet villagers, and it is always an enjoyable session.
I used to go to mattins at Lincoln Cathedral on a Sunday, but I seem
to have turned away from the church in recent months, especially when
I heard that Lincoln Cathedral was appointing a fund raiser on a
salary of £25,000.
It is not an exciting life, though it is relatively peaceful and
restful, more particularly when those bloody "Red Arrows" are not
thundering around. I very much enjoy the e-mail correspondence with
people who write to me about the diary. With several of these
correspondents I exchange letters on a weekly basis, and I find it a
stimulating exchange.
I had resolved a few weeks ago not to see any more American films, but
one of Mrs. Copeland's work colleagues, who does not like those films
either, said that "The Green Mile" was an excellent film that she
thoroughly enjoyed, so we went to see it in the evening, finding it
an excellent film with a really good story line. But there is always
something or somebody to spoil things, for during the performance a
young, scruffy looking couple, the fat woman dressed in dirty jeans
and her skinhead yob in a tee-shirt, ate popcorn and slurped drinks,
chatted endlessly, and even had their mobile ring.
They reminded me of Shakespeare's "Macbeth":-
"What are these,
So withered and so wild in their attire,
That look not like th' inhabitants o' the
earth,
And yet are on't?"
They were the very epitome of Mr. Blair's new middle classes: badly
educated, probably with not so much as a GCE in Road Craft between
them, loud-mouthed, scruffily dressed, and having absolutely no
manners whatsoever. For a film director, they would have been a
perfect representation of the New Briton, complete with mobile
telephone and no doubt saving up for a 4-track. In a rather more
gentle condemnation, Mrs. Copeland said that "they just did not know
how to behave in public". The sad thing is that the children they
have will grow up to be just as uncouth and vulgar. Even worse is the
fact that this dreadful couple was sitting with us in the expensive
seats, but then this is part of Mr. Blair's social engineering.
One of my friends calls Blair "Napoleon" after the odious character in
"Animal Farm". What an excellent name to be sure - one that I shall
henceforth use in this journal.
TUESDAY 28 MARCH
Another blonde joke in the e-mail post today. I really must stop
relaying these sexist jokes, for I could be taken away by the Equal
Opportunities Thought Police, ending up having to do community
service, possibly painting a pensioner's house:-
A blonde decides to try horseback riding even though she has had no
lessons or prior experience. She mounts the horse unassisted and
the horse immediately springs into motion. It gallops along at a
steady and rhythmic pace, but the blonde begins to slip from the
saddle, and in terror, she grabs the horse's mane, but cannot seem
to get a firm grip. She tries to throw her arms around the horse's
neck, but she slides down the side of the horse anyway. Finally,
giving up her frail grip, she leaps away from the horse to try and
throw herself to safety. Unfortunately, her foot has become
entangled in the stirrup, and she is now
at the mercy of the horse's pounding hooves as her head is struck
against the ground over and over. As her head is battered against
the ground, she is mere moments away from unconsciousness when to
her great fortune...
The Woolworths Manager sees her and switches the horse off..
I quite liked Libby Purves' article in "The Times" this morning in
which she comments on the social values displayed in the award-winning
film "American Beauty", which I saw recently but did not enjoy very
much, possibly because of its depiction of American women who seem to
be totally out of control these days, no doubt due to their spineless
husbands who have been daft enough to accept political correctness.
Mrs. Purves makes the point that many men now gladly give up work in
their early 50s, citing the "workplace culture of long hours and
ruthless competition, notoriously unfriendly both to family life and
to individual health. If you have spent thirty years of overwork and
wrecked weekends, it is only human to be bored with it at 50".
Mrs. Purves goes on to suggest that few of the men who retire in their
fifties bother to apply for posts - something that was true of my
early, enforced retirement at the age of 54: "Why risk rejection or
exhaustion when there is a garden to dig and books to read and
grandchildren to play with and an income sufficient for a man who no
longer needs suits or taxis? The hell with it....Thirty years ago a
healthy 52-year-old who claimed to be "retired" would have got funny
looks. Today he gets envious glances".
But possibly the most significant part of Mrs. Purves' comments is
when she says: "Well, good luck to those J. Alfour Prufrocks, walking
away from the working world along the beach, with the bottoms of their
white trousers rolled up. I am not entirely confident that they will
hear the mermaids singing. I hope they do not suddenly wake up with a
start and find, in their seventies, that twenty unproductive years are
an insupportable weight to drag behind you. But it is not hard to see
how they get there, falling off the edge of a world that seems, ever
more, to spin off-balance".
"Twenty unproductive years" - those are the significant words, and
ones, even though I am five years from 70, that I am already beginning
to think about, and it is this issue that is at the very heart of the
Third Age and the problems that it brings for so many men. It is all
very well to talk about the retirement joys of pruning the roses,
spending time with the grandchildren and reading books during the
afternoon, but these are activities that lack any real stimulus,
involvement, and inspiration. It is the isolation and the inertia of
the season of superannuation that are so deadly: the realisation that
life no longer has any purpose, focus or direction any more, and that
the better days are done, the years crumbling to an end.
It is, of course, senseless to ask whether people are happier in the
days of work or in retirement, for two entirely different ages are
being compared: one with youth, enthusiasm and hope; the other,
often beset with the infirmities of old age, realising that there is,
despite all the proclaimed joys, no future in retirement as it is a
dead end, so to speak.. So many of the men I know in retirement have
just given up, sleeping during the afternoons after a brief session of
decorating or gardening; endlessly watching the idiot's lantern, even
in the afternoons which must be the very nadir of existence, all
because they are too idle to do read or do anything else. Others try
to escape from themselves ad their narrow environment by going on
innumerable foreign holidays, often coming home ill and exhausted.
Another bitterly cold and showery day with a horribly cold north-east
wind. The rain, though, will be doing our recently laid turf a great
deal of good - and me, for I shall not have to undertake the chore of
watering the grass. Despite the weather, I continued with the
stripping of Kate's front door during the morning, managing to get it
all sanded down and smooth in preparation for painting when there is a
sign of some dry weather. I continued after lunch, working until about
5 p.m. One more morning and I should complete the stripping.
I avoided wearing a vest during the winter months, but it has been so
cold during the past few days that I have had to don one of these
garments that I have never much cared for, wearing a pullover at the
same time. Maybe it is because of the consequences of global warming
that there is little difference between the winters and the Springs
these days; indeed, in terms of the wind chill factor the Springs
seem to have become much colder.
By a blazing log fire in the evening, warm at last after my outside
labours during the day. I was interested that several economic
commentators are predicting that the Chancellor's budget will cause
even more inflation, particularly as public expenditure is likely to
be at an all time high, necessitating further rises in interest rates.
However, my guess is that the Government will let inflation rip,
knowing that people always erroneously believe that they are becoming
better off during inflationary times, when their pay packets are
rising substantially, and when they can borrow on rapidly increasing
house prices. I therefore predict that there will be no further
interest rate rises this side of the election, the excuse being made
that any further increases would only strengthen the pound..
I have started reading a novel called "Mr. Phillips" by John
Lanchester, [Faber & Faber, 2000] which I am greatly enjoying,
particularly for his astute comments on life:-
"If you put a penny in a jar for every time you did it [had sexual
intercourse] during the first year of being married, then took a penny
out every time you did it thereafter, the jar would never become
empty".
"One of the first signs of growing older was when you stopped fancying
older women".
"Sunday has its particular stalled feeling, which Mr. Phillips is
surprised to find has survived the instigation of Sunday trading and
the arrival of Sunday football, and still clings to the day, an
immovable, heavy, gravitational tug of depressive Sundayness". [How I
agree with this comment! For me, Sundays are the dead-end of the
week, and the sooner Monday comes the better].
"Now, at fifty, Mr. Phillips finds that his body - which has served
him very well in some respects, only causing him to miss three days of
work in his entire adult life - is, if not revolting, then at least
acting like a rebellious province, tired of being ignored by central
authority".
"Sleep is a bank account that you put capital in when you are young
and draw on as you get older; and then you run out of capital and
die".
The book makes me realise how much I enjoy the modern novel. In the
past, I have enjoyed Thomas Hardy and Charles Dickens and the other
classical writers enormously, but I could not read their ponderous
novels with their excessive prolixity now.
WEDNESDAY 29 MARCH
Before going through the quotidian ritual of throwing away Section 2
of "The Times" this morning, I saw a photograph of a woman and child
on the cover, with the inscription: "Woman + baby - man = happiness".
Do we laugh or do we cry at the ridiculous concepts of these women?
I sometimes feel that Section 2 should have a health warning written
in big, bold capital letters: "The views expressed in this section
can seriously damage decent family values". Perhaps the writer should
be gently told that the equation Woman + baby + man = happiness is a
far better one to aim for.
I resumed work on stripping Kate's front door about 10.30 a.m., taking
the paint out of the many ruts and crevices, making extremely slow
progress in the bitterly cold north-east wind. It really was
incredibly miserably cold, and obviously we are in for yet another
unpleasant Spring. Perhaps not surprisingly because of this lengthy
cold spell, everything in the garden is at least a fortnight late.
Our lime tree is usually coming into leaf at the end of March, but
this year the buds are still tightly closed, not yet showing any sign
of greenery, obviously reluctant to expose themselves to this bitter
wind.
After an extended lunchtime with the usual bottle of "Old Peculier", I
decided to give the paint stripping a rest until tomorrow morning, and
in true jobbing builder style I went off to another job - namely the
refelting of our shed roof which has been leaking badly during the
extensive rain we have been having over the past week. This was not
the warmest of jobs either. I had quite a task in removing ivy from
the roof, which is the cause of the leak. I should have cut the plant
back last Autumn, but this was yet another job that I did not get
round to - or did not have time to do, as we plead in the Third Age.
Mrs. Copeland was at work until about 8.30 p.m., so I was on my own
for much of the evening, sitting by the fire reading some more of "Mr,
Phillips" - a thoroughly enjoyable book. Outside a bitterly cold wind
was blowing beneath the leaden skies. What a horrible Spring this is
proving to be, reminding us, if ever we need a reminder, that we live
in a thoroughly unpleasant climate that seems to be getting colder
with every passing year. However, I would not want the unbearable
summer heat of France and Spain when the natives have to stay indoors.
When one of my relatives died last year, the solicitor dealing with
his Will wrote to me in July to say that I had been left a sum of
money. As the solicitor was the sole executor, I thought that there
ought to be some check on the charges that he was making for his
services, but although I have so far written six letters, I have still
not been able to obtain this information, being fobbed off with one
excuse after another. What worries me so much is that the estate
could have been charged with enormous legal fees. As my old
grandfather used to say: "Never trust a solicitor", especially as they
belong to the rip-off triangle of estate agents, accountants and
solicitors.
Presumably if the solicitor continues to refuse to let me have
details of the estate, including his expenses, I shall have to take
this matter to the Law Society, for as one of the beneficiaries under
the Will I take the view that I am entitled to see how the money has
been distributed and the charges made. One thing is certain: I
shall never get a solicitor to deal with my Will.
The bad news today, announced in our local evening paper "The
Lincolnshire Echo" was that "The Red Arrows", who are now based at RAF
Cranwell to the south of the county but who use the airspace of the
nearby closed RAF Scampton base, are to return to Scampton as their
permanent headquarters, the base being opened specially for them plus
a few odds and sods. I really felt upset about this, for I had hoped
that they might be sent somewhere else, selfish though that wish was.
For the village it is also a disappointment, for we will now have to
endure this noise and pollution throughout the winter months. And for
the taxpayers, having to pay for the extravagance of opening a base
that was closed down, it is depressing news. In a way, though, I
suppose we will not notice a lot of difference, for from September to
March they have flown overhead every day, and at least they depart to
annoy other people when they give displays at home and abroad during
the summer days.
The people who really will lose out are those who bought houses on
the base formerly occupied by the RAF officers, presumably having
believed that it would remain closed. These householders now face
negative equity, for nobody in their right mind would want to buy one
of these houses now that those little red aeroplanes are roaring
around the base all day, causing immense pollution and with the added
worry of another crash. However, perhaps Napoleon will bail them out,
offering extensive compensation for the muddles of a Ministry of
Defence that could not run a winkle stall.
THURSDAY 30 MARCH
Some enjoyable jokes in the e-mail this morning:-
A young man goes into a drug store to buy condoms. The pharmacist
says the condoms come in packs of 3, 9 or 12 and asks which the young
man wants. "Well," he said, "I've been seeing this girl for a while
and she's really hot. I want the condoms because I
think tonight's "the" night. We're having dinner with her parents,
and then we're going out. And I've got a feeling I'm gonna get lucky
after that. Once she's had me, she'll want me all the time, so you'd
better give me the 12 pack."
The young man makes his purchase and leaves. Later that evening, he
sits down to dinner with his girlfriend and her parents. He asks if
he might give the blessing, and they agree. He begins the prayer, but
continues praying for several minutes. The girl leans over and says,
"You never told me that you were such a religious person." He leans
over to her and whispers, "You never told me that your father is a
pharmacist".
and
The man came home drunk at four in the morning, and his wife was all
over him, yelling at him, crying because she thought he was with
another woman.
"No, honey, I swear, I was at this bar, and it was so fancy that even
the urinals were made of gold."
She said she didn't believe him so she called the bar. "Hello," she
said, "I just want to ask one question. My husband claims to have
spent the night at your bar, are your urinals covered in gold?"
To which she heard the bartender say, "Hey, Clarence, I think we
just found the guy who pissed in your saxophone."
and
This bloke walks out of a hospital and straight into a bar across the
road. He orders a double whisky and downs it in one. Then he orders
another one and says, "I really shouldn't be drinking this with what
I've got".'
The barman asks: "What have you got?" and the man replies: "About
20p."
If ever you wanted an indication of the values in England these days,
you could do no better than look at the front pages of "The Times"
this morning. The headline proclaims: "Livingstone [one of the
contenders in the election of London's Mayor] offers gay marriages",
and another item reports that the £4 million catamaran designed and
built in Britain has fallen apart on its first voyage. What a
country. As the skit has it: "This land of such dear souls, this
dear, dear oh dear land".
A further indication of our values was given in the news item that the
Chairman of Barclays Bank quadrupled his salary last year to £1.76
million, and that the new Chief Executive earned £1.3 million for only
three months of work. This is the Bank which announced plans to axe
7,500 jobs, closing scores of branches, including my own, all around
the country. The greed of the Banks seems to know no bounds. For a
man to earn £1.76 million a year, when so many of the employees in the
service industries are on the minimum wage of £3.60 an hour, seems not
only totally unjustified but downright immoral. What can a man
possibly do with £1.76 million a year?
One of my friends in the village, suffering from severe spinal
troubles, had planned to take his car in for the replacement of a
clutch today, but his pains prevented him from going. His wife took
the car instead, but as there was a very real worry that the vehicle
might break down on the way to the garage, I followed behind in my
car. The small, untidy garage, staffed by two young lads, was at the
far end of Lincoln, and was on one of the seedy business parks that
are such a blot on the landscape.
Most of my friends favour these small garages, but I cannot abide
them, much preferring the main agents - in my case Lincoln Ford, where
there is a spacious and comfortable waiting room, with the loan of a
car if the repair takes more than an hour. I realise that I pay more
for this service, possibly quite a lot more, but I much prefer to be
in tidy and convivial surroundings with smartly dressed reception
staff instead of the grubby backstreet garages where there appears to
be no kind of order. Perhaps not surprisingly my friends' cars
always seem to be breaking down.
Later on I finished sanding down Kate's front door, and then put on
the undercoat. I felt quite pleased with my work, for although the
job cannot at any stretch of the imagination be called a professional
finish, it is quite smooth, indicating that the preparation - always
the worst part of any painting, was done reasonably thoroughly. It
certainly took me a long time, but that may be Third Ageism.
I went to see Widow Nell during the afternoon, having mended an
electrical light fitting at Kate's after lunch. Whilst I was with
Nell, a woman friend of long standing and her daughter who both now
live in Spain called in unexpectedly, so after a decent interval I
departed to enable Nell to be on her own with them. The daughter,
who must be in her late 50s, kept calling her parent "mummy", which I
think sounds quite ridiculous coming from an adult. Much to my
surprise they thought that England looked very prosperous and well
run. As I explained, Nell and I spend every Thursday afternoon
thinking up all that is wrong with the kingdom. Interestingly, Nell's
visitors said that Spain, having become a democracy, was "really
getting its act together, really pulling up its socks".
I took an instant dislike to Nell's visitors, especially the daughter
who appeared to be one of those aggressive, humourless modern women
who have unwisely forsaken the sink in the belief that the pastures
are greater in full-time employment. These instant judgements are
invariably right, almost as if some kind of signals are sent out
between people on their first encounter. I have to admit, though,
that I am not all that keen in my old age to meet new people, loathing
all those questions and answers that form part of the
getting-to-know-you process. When asked what I do for a living, I
reply that I am in scaffolding, which seems to shut them up.
Not feeling all that well again in the evening. I went to bed after
tea for about an hour, and then got up to prepare the web site for
this week, writing another section of the book on retirement. I am
becoming very tired and disillusioned with this book, and I fear that
there will not be many more chapters. Alas, I just do not have the
discipline or the inclination to write a book these days, obviously
lacking the ability, too. Never mind: the book's demise will be no
great loss to the literary world.
FRIDAY 31 MARCH
House prices in England are now rising at the annual rate of 16%.
Last month alone saw an increase of 2.3%, which will mean that, if the
boom continues and wage rates continue to increase at their current
annual rate of 6%, house prices will rise by 20%, possibly more, this
year. According to one of the Building Societies, prices have merely
returned to their long-term trend and should be sustainable, but this
is exactly what they said during the last boom and bust saga that
resulted in thousands of householders ending up with negative equity.
Alas, we never learn, history teaching us nothing, but perhaps this is
because greed is not restrained by reason or lessons of the past.
The Bank of England is faced with an impossible task when deciding
whether or not to raise interest rates next week. Nevertheless,
despite the rampant housing inflation, I continue to believe, as
stated earlier, that interest rates will not rise. With the local
elections coming up next month, the Government will not want Middle
Englanders turning away from Labour because of higher mortgage
payments, and the Bank will therefore probably be leaned upon to keep
rates on hold. That is what politics is all about, having absolutely
nothing whatsoever to do with the well-being of the country.
I was interested to read in today's newspaper that the Internet
Service Provider, Demon, has had to pay legal expenses amounting to
£500,000 as a result of one of its customers libelling a doctor in one
of the newsgroups. As a result of this case, it is reckoned that
Internet Service Providers may have to impose some kind of control on
the news groups, and presumably on home pages such as mine, too. This
will no doubt mark the beginning of censorship.
I finished Kate's front door this morning, putting on the gloss paint
in Oxford Blue. After lunch I had some wine in the garden with the
neighbours, enjoying the splendid sunshine which has come at last.
This was the first outside wine tasting this year, and I hope that it
will be followed by many others. Afterwards, I went back to Kate's
house and started stripping the wallpaper in her bedroom. She very
much dislikes the paper, and is planning to have it replaced, but she
will have to employ a professional decorator to do this. I fear I
shall have to put another coat of paint on the front door - something
that I was hoping to avoid.
In the evening, after uploading my web journal, Mrs. Copeland, Chloe
and I went to a party at the local Club to celebrate a 65th birthday
of one of the members.
SATURDAY 1 APRIL
Quite a successful week on the home decorating front, even managing to
finish painting Kate's front door. Although I have great difficulty
in getting started, and have a productivity record lower than that of
a Rover car factory, I quite enjoy doing the actual work and seeing
the finished product. What tends to spur me on is the fear that I
shall fall into the rut of indolence that is the hallmark of the Third
Age. I suppose the day will come when I shall ease up completely, and
once I start watching television I shall know that my mind has gone
and that the residential old folks' home beckons. It is a grim
thought, but in the meantime I like to believe that I am still
relatively active.
I have been enjoying the novel "Mr. Phillips" by John Lanchester. He
has a pleasing and original turn of phrase which makes me extremely
envious. In one paragraph, for instance, he tells us:-
"It is one of the modern buses where you get on at the front and give
your money to the driver; much slower and harder to love than the old
Routemasters with the conductor. The world looks different, more
fragile, when you have in mind that everyone everywhere tries to
employ as few people as possible. Mr. Phillips had always been
impressed by the way conductors used to know exactly who had got on
and off and who hadn't paid their fare, as if they had a constantly
updated map of the bus in their heads. On occasions he tried to sit
still and not admit to not having paid he always found a conductor
hovering at his shoulder demanding the fare. Perhaps they were
trained to detect guilty body language. If a bus conductor's wife
cheated on him he would know within seconds of getting home".
Web site at http://www.johncopeland.clara.net