Last Laugh Looney Party 2017 Election manifesto

Posted on May 2, 2017 by john graham

There is an election coming up so de-cluttering at home has been set aside for a while in order to put the world to rights.     There are so  many problems all connected with older people and let’s face it, they created this situation themselves during their lifetime.

In the forthcoming election the newly formed Last Laugh Looney Party decided to stand for a radical, but fun solution that would attempt to solve the problem of older people for a generation.      This will leave the younger generations free of their elderly burden.   Then they can play games on their iPads all day.      These are the LLLP’s main manifesto pledges :-

                                            THE GREY ECONOMY

We are always being told we are a financial burden on society.   So OK we will form our own Last Laugh Bank and put all our money and assets in it.    We don’t need to own our own houses, we will rent from now on and liquidate our assets to spend on having a good time 😀    This should go along way to solving Britain’s housing shortage.     We will withdraw all our money from the  ‘big five banks’  because they gave us no interest anyway.    The LLB will have real people behind counters and absolutely no robotic tills in the wall outside.     Staff will be recruited from retired bank staff who smile and take time to explain things slowly.

                                           NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE

  The NHS has been failing older people for years and it shows no signs of improvement in the near future.   We older people don’t have time to wait !    So we are going to build new hospitals in India exclusively for older people.    Hip operations, knee replacement, cataracts, heart transplants, face lifts, etc, will all be half price with no waiting times and a lovely warm climate to recover in.      Most of the Indian medical staff will have prior NHS experience before they were deported from Britain as ‘ immigrants ‘  by the Post Brexit Government.

                                                 SOCIAL SERVICES

In recent years these departments of Local Government have neither been ‘ social’ or ‘services’ as far as older people are concerned.    Day Centres, Old People’s Homes,  Home Care and meals on wheels have all but disappeared.   The LLLP will close them down completely and replace them with the Last Laugh Leisure Team, a not for profit company run by older people for older people.    They will promote concerts by pensioners such as the Rolling Stones, the Who, Elton John, Shirley Bassey and Elvis, if he comes out of hiding 😀       They will sing songs with real words that you can understand and no rapping, definitely no rapping.    The LLLT will also run extensive water sports activities such as jet skiing, deep-sea fishing and just messing about in boats.   All from our Channel Island retreat.     Oh yes, I forgot to mention the Channel Islands.

                               THE CHANNEL ISLAND RESORT.

As a key part of the Brexit negotiations the LLLP agreed to relocate all older people off shore in exchange for soverignty over the Channel Islands, the Isle of White, the Silly Isles, the Isle of Man and the Outer Hebrides for dour Scottish old people.    All these Islands will then become tax and taxi havens

That’s right NO TAX — we have shelled out enough already.   And NO CARS —- just taxis for longer  journeys and mobility scooters for short trips.    We will need to be fairly self-sufficient so we will be eating a lot of tomatoes and Jersey Royals, but there will be plenty of fish because we will have a 10 mile exclusion zone around all our Islands that will keep out Spanish trawlers.

   More LLLP policies will be announced in my next blog before you are asked to vote!

Posted in ELDERLY UK POLICY, SMILES | Tagged | 2 Comments

Government Report on Ageing 2013

Posted on April 30, 2017 by john graham

This gallery contains 1 photo.

In their de-cluttering efforts the Tidy Bears rediscovered a House of Lords Select Committee report I was given in March 2013, entitled ” Ready for Ageing ? ”    I can’t imagine why I didn’t write about it at the time, maybe I didn’t … Continue reading →

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Tidy Bears Open Box 2

Posted on April 27, 2017 by john graham

Today Whitey Bear found a box on a shelf in the study which Uncle Den had made.  The box had a lock, so Whitey thought “it must contain something valuable”.  Sadly when he opened it was completely empty.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This was a puzzle for all the bears because it led them to question what they were going to do if they ever manage to empty some of the many boxes.  So Big Ted called a Bear conference and these are some of the ideas that the Tidy Bear Team came up with for using empty boxes:-

  • Patch suggested “Put them in one of the sheds until de-cluttering comes around again.  John has already done some of this but the sheds are getting full up”.
  • Holly Bear said “Give them away to a young person who is just beginning to collect clutter ” 😀
  • Pyjama Bear thought it would be a good idea to “Fill them with ties, summer clothes, loose change, odd socks, all bank papers and everything else John has de-cluttered in the past year.    Then bury them in the garden for future generations to find and treasure.”
  • Peter Rabbit, who is the very clever one of the team said “Stand on an empty box at speakers corner outside Hyde Park and lecture people about CLUTTER”  🙂
  • Cuddly Bear thought it would be a good idea to “Use them to wrap Christmas presents in or make a ‘lucky dip’ box with spare bottles of wine and whisky to give to charity.” 😀
  • Big Ted made a wise observation to “Leave them around the house and enjoy knowing there is empty space somewhere 😀………..  or 

There will be a copy of Walt Hopkins and George Simons’ book — “Seven Ways to Lighten Your Life Before You Kick the Bucket” — for the best ideas on de-cluttering.

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Tidy Bears Open Box 1

Posted on April 25, 2017 by john graham

Today the Tidy Bears have started to de-clutter the first of the many boxes around the house.    They can safely start with the blue box in the main bedroom because it is full of John’s stuff.   It is the box MO used to use to clear all the things John used to leave lying around the bedroom for days making the place look untidy.   John didn’t even notice they were gone !

 

So led by Big Ted, five of the bears lifted the lid to see what treasures the box contained :-

  • Patch was first in — “I found lots of books that John bought, glanced at, thought about, put down and then never got around to reading.   I think John ought to stop buying more books until he makes time to read them.    For the moment we will put them in the study, alongside the other books he hasn’t read😀”
  • Pyjama Bear  reached in the blue box and said —- ” I found some CD’s, still in their cellophane wrappers.   So that is another thing John has purchased and then not used.    Maybe John should stop buying CD’s if he is not going to listen to them.”
  • Little Ted discovered some real treasure —- “I saw a notebook at the bottom of the box.  It was Grandpa Graham’s notes of a training course he attended in 1940, when he was in the Royal Engineers.  He not only knew how to build them, he could also blow them up!”
  • Finally, Peter Rabbit took out a folder of old newspaper cuttings —- “These are all dated 2013 and John must have intended to write a blog about them.  He must have overlooked them, but it doesn’t matter because not a lot has changed, so he can still write about them now.  There is also a 2013 report on Ageing which  nobody else has done anything about.”

So now we can empty the box and leave it to fill up again in the next four years 😈.

There will be a copy of Walt Hopkins and George Simons’ book — “Seven Ways to Lighten Your Life Before You Kick the Bucket” — for the best ideas on de-cluttering.

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Jeremy Corbyn’s Social Care — less

Posted on April 23, 2017 by john graham

This is a post about politicians, pensioners and social care.  It follows on from my blogs on the previous two Sunday’s which are entitled – “Older People are Clutter” and “Social Care Straws in the Wind”.

The local election season is upon us and in an effort to capture the voter’s attention, the Labour Party, under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, is bidding to attract the pensioner’s vote. Their first promise is to maintain the triple-lock protection on state pension increases until 2024.  They have also pledged to keep the Winter Fuel Allowance and free bus passes.   This would be a very welcome move for the poorest pensioners since our state pension is still one of the lowest in Europe.  However, it also gives a universal benefit to all pensioners, which is hardly likely to endear them to the younger population, who will probably have to work until they are 75 before they get a pension at all. It will cost in the order of £4 billion !   But, paying for this is something that Mr Corbyn will not have to worry about, unless he gets elected, which seems highly unlikely at the moment.

The second bold policy move is to increase the minimum wage to £10 an hour by 2020. This tops the Conservative’s promise to raise the minimum wage to £9 an hour to 2020.      About 5.6 million workers will benefit from the rise, but other estimates suggest that 60,000jobs could be lost.    Although this will be welcomed by the lowest paid workers, there seems to be little indication of exactly where the money is coming from to pay for it.  The knock on effect of a pay rise of this magnitude would probably be to accelerate the closure of more residential care homes for older people and further shrink state-funded domiciliary care.    This would probably propel many more people into A&E.

These two “dreamt up in a moment” policies are a cynical ploy to attract votes.   They illustrate completely the careless regard in which old people are held.

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in Care Funding, ELDERLY UK POLICY | 5 Comments

Clutter Boxes or Tidy Boxes

Posted on April 20, 2017 by john graham

One way of de-cluttering is emptying boxes (for that include cardboard boxes, wooden boxes, chests, ottomans, baskets, etc).  It is not really de-cluttering, in fact it is just “out of sight, out of mind” cluttering.   You put things in boxes and then you forget them for months or even years.   To the point where you don’t remember what is inside the boxes 😀

So, after my successful census of cushions, I am going to apply that same technique to boxes :-

  • In the kitchen we have 4 boxes.
  • In the lounge we have 3 more.
  • The hall has just 2, but  one is big enough to hold a jumbo jet.  Maybe I am exaggerating a bit.
  • The downstairs toilet — 5 boxes in such a small space.
  • The study is the main box repository, rather like a British Rail left luggage store.     There are 18 boxes of all shapes and sizes and nobody ever claims them back!
  • The end room has another 4, plus a walk in cupboard — which no one has been able to walk in for years 😀

Next is the upstairs :-

  • The main bedroom has 3 boxes plus an ottoman.
  • In the dressing room — Mo has only 15 boxes in there.
  • My walk in wardrobe has 10 more, carefully packed and stacked in see through plastic boxes containing my summer clothes.  Oh and there are two other boxes hidden under more clothes.
  • The main bathroom has only 1 box, — must be a mistake — I will move one from somewhere else.
  • The guest bedroom has 14 boxes plus any that guests bring with them.
  • The office even after my heroic efforts at de-cluttering has 6 boxes, and I am not counting the 8 box files I still have left.
  • The landing has another big ottoman and a set of 3 wicker baskets.
  • The small bedroom has another 6 boxes.
  • The second bathroom has 2 more wicker baskets and 2 white boxes.
  • FINALLY, the box room has so many boxes stacked on top of each other it is impossible to be sure how many there are 😟  Let’s say 10.

Now you can see the extent of our box problem. And I haven’t counted all the boxes that have been extradited from the house to the garden sheds !

I reckon that is 80 boxes in all, containing a wealth of hidden treasure !

See next week’s thrilling exploits when I begin to open them, with the help of the Tidy Bears.   In many cases, for the first time since time began.  It could be a bit like the opening of Tutankhamun’s tomb and look how well that turned out!

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SCRAP Step 31 —- Clutter Lessens

Posted on April 18, 2017 by john graham

I seem to have been at this de-cluttering lark for an age.    What have I learned so far ?

FOCUS —- stay on a narrow track when you are de-cluttering.    It is all too easy to get deflected into other things that need to be de-cluttered.   Clutter is around every corner when you first start and for a long time after.   Pick very small categories.  Ties not clothes. Screwdrivers not all your tools.   Don’t watch videos of young people de-cluttering their bedrooms, they have no idea what clutter really is until they have spent a lifetime accumulating it.

SPACE —- this is an obvious statement, but the sooner you can create some space in each and every category of clutter the easier it gets.    Because you will inevitably find more of the same things stashed away in some long forgotten location.    You will also buy more things like books over time.   But, no more ties and definitely no more socks.

PATIENCE —- it can feel like hard work.      When it gets very hard work — stop, chill out with a cup of tea in the garden or enjoy a beer or if you are finished for the day use up some whiskey clutter.   Or, better still, go on a complete break and have a holiday away in somebody else’s clutter free house.

FUN —– Tidy Bears.  Introduced an element of fun into an essentially boring process.

RUTHLESS —- if you don’t want to have to re-visit a category you have to be ruthless at the outset and QUICK  so you don’t change your mind.

These are my reflections on de-cluttering to date.   I won’t learn to love it but I expect to end up with less to think about and a simpler life ……….. eventually.

Next I’ll make a start on boxes 🙂

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Social Care Straws in the Wind

Posted on April 16, 2017 by john graham

Social care for older people is in a mess.     An almost permanent hotchpotch of indecision and political prevarication.    The truth is nobody much cares about older voters until elections come around.

The NHS does as little social care as it can, gone are the days of care in the community, it is all about hospital now.    That leaves a raft of shrinking public funds reluctantly dished out to an ever-growing soup kitchen queue of the most needy, like a workhouse bowl of gruel.  Social policy on care is almost moving back to the Victorian era.

The left-overs are spared for the residential  care sector, which has for long been starved of resources by Social Services (alias the Government).  But it is also bled dry by the loan shark funders who floated many private sector care homes in the bubble expansion at the end of the last century.   What a third world plight our frail older people live in?

The majority are left to fend for themselves, sometimes out of choice, often out of neglect.   Mostly out of sight and out of mind.    The collective cry is “We didn’t know they would live this long”.   That comes from successive Governments, with all their long-term forecasts and endless un-acted upon reports.     Also from the pensions industry and their actuarial ‘experts’, who were fat and happy and didn’t  want to see beyond today.  Actuaries who don’t want to see beyond today are surely a contradiction in terms.

There can be no excuses, no breast beating cries of anguish.      The calamity of social care has been coming for quite some time.   After years of cash starved, poor quality care, the older generation is increasingly isolated and forgotten in their own homes.  Only closed eyes and uncaring minds chose not to see it.     Now, we have reached the tipping point and uncomfortable solutions will be the only institutional answer.    “They” — the belated policy makers will claim there is no alternative.

Here are some of the first toes in the slimy pool :-

  • “Hospitals turn away ambulances” The Times 7/4/2017 — double the number in previous years — serious call outs have increased by 37% in the last 5 years — Target response times have not been met since 2015.
  • “265,000 patients searching for new GP”  Pulse magazine —- 150% up on two years earlier —-  57 GP practices closed in 2016, 34 others merged.
  • “Cut pensioner perks to fund social care” Daily Mail 7/4/2017 — triple locked pensions and winter fuel allowance should be cut says Sir Andrew Dillnot.
  • “Assisted dying debate” The Times letters April 2017 — after extensive debate in the House of Lords last year the arguments continue.  But it is still a “live” issue, or should that be a “dead” issue.

There are many other references all reinforcing the idea that older people are a problem.   Like the MPs in last week’s blog about the gossip in the corridors of power, this is all opening up the prospect of further cuts to Older People’s services and reductions financial support.

It won’t be long before we are all in the

 

Posted in Care Funding | 2 Comments

SCRAP Step 30 – Travel Books.

Posted on April 13, 2017 by john graham

Walking through your travel books is like walking through the leisurely chapters of your life.    Whenever we go on holiday I always collect tourist books and maps either before we travel or more likely when we get there.     This all started long before the days of iPads, Google Earth and Wikipedia, but even today I am still more content with a guide book or a good map.     I haven’t learned to totally trust TripAdviser or satnav.

On this occasion I only had one bookcase to de-clutter, but it took me the best part of an afternoon rambling through the many parts of the USA we have visited over countless years.   Sifting through hotel guides.   Driving down the highways and byways of France and Italy.   Flying in and out of the history of Prague, Vienna, Amsterdam,Copenhagen, Monaco, Barcelona and jet setting to Tokyo.    A brief and happy look back over my shoulder 😀

There were many others but they are lost in the mists of time or yet to  be retrieved on a misplaced shelf.    I am still looking for the one on Lapland.

One last joyful discovery was a clutch of books on Abergavenny.    Not a tourist destination for me, rather a starting of point.    Virtually my whole world until I was eighteen.   Until then London was the remotest part of the world I had travelled to.

There must be a better idea for using old travel books :-).     Any inspiring ideas ?

There will be a copy of Walt Hopkins and George Simons’ book — “Seven Ways to Lighten Your Life Before You Kick the Bucket” — for the best ideas on de-cluttering.

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Tidy Bears and Flower Vases

Posted on April 11, 2017 by john graham

The Bears are continuing there relentless search for clutter to de-clutter. Peter Rabbit and is the smart one in the team and he thought they should change their name to the Tidy Bears.     “That would leave John totally responsible  for all the clutter.  It is not fair to blame Bears for his mess everywhere 😈”     All the other Bears said ” Yes that is quite right !” 😈😈😈😈😈

Today they have noticed that there are a lot of empty flower vases hidden around the house.

Big Ted thought that some of the rooms in the house looked rather bare now that John had been de-cluttering everywhere.   So he said to all the Bears,  “Let’s have a Bear hunt and see if we can find where John has hidden them”

Holly Bear was foraging for food and decided to use her red scarf to haul herself up to the top kitchen cupboard.  ” I didn’t find anything to eat, because the cupboard was full of flower vases.”

Whitey Bear wanted to think for a while and then a lucky thing happened.   ” I sat down in the inglenook fireplace in the kitchen and when I leaned back in the rocking chair —- I could see more vases hidden behind a box of vegetables. Perhaps John thought that was a tidy place.”  Whitey Bear thought.

Pyjama Bear said “I was just having a little afternoon nap in the cupboard under the stairs.  When I woke up and looked at the back of the cupboard,   John had tidied 6 vases out of sight in a drawer.  That is a daft idea because you can’t put flowers in a cupboard.”

Patch went to the far end of the house and reported back to Big Ted. ” “I found 6 empty flower vases in the cupboard  under the sink. I wonder why on earth John put them there?”

Peter Rabbit burrowed under the desk in the study. “I discovered four big glass vases and a lovely decorated vase that MO had made. It is a shame not to use it. I don’t know what John could have been thinking of, hiding it away.”

Little Ted said “I searched high and low and couldn’t find a single thing, just like John.    I am not very good at finding things and  John is better at losing things.”

Now they have rounded up all the vases Big Ted  announced ” I have a Grand Bear Plan.   We should send John out every week to buy MO flowers to fill up all the flower vases and then they wouldn’t be clutter any more.   That’s more fun  and the bees will be able to make more honey for our tea.” 

Any better ideas for lots of flower vases ?

There will be a copy of Walt Hopkins and George Simons’ book — “Seven Ways to Lighten Your Life Before You Kick the Bucket” — for the best ideas on de-cluttering.

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