The Senile Majority
Gideon the magician is poised to pull a blue-rinsed rabbit out of his hat come Budget Day in the shape of yet more favourable concessions for those members of the electorate who would never countenance avoiding the polling booth. It was bred into them that it was their duty to cast their vote; there’s none of that shoulder-shrugging apathy about them when the PM goes through the constitutional motions and asks Her Majesty to dissolve parliament; they know what needs to be done. Old party loyalties may not decide whose name their cross accompanies in the way it used to, but they’ll be there on May 7, you can count on it.
Being nice to ‘the elderly’ at a moment when they could be useful is an undoubtedly cynical move on the part of Mr Osborne, but we wouldn’t expect anything less at such a moment. He knows the over-50s are the section of society to court when a vote of confidence from the Great British Public is required. Bugger the youngsters, whether students piling up debts or graduates forced to re-open an account with the Bank of Mum and Dad; they’ve got their i-Boxes and X-Pads, so they can’t really complain, can they? No, it’s their parents and grandparents who matter now, so prepare for a wealth of sanctimonious guff about how much the government values our senior citizens for the next couple of months. Once the smoke has cleared and we’re left with a Lab-Lib-SNP-DUP-UKIP-Monster Raving Loony coalition on May 8, those sweet old dears can then sod off back to their day care centres with a packet of Werther’s Originals.
The fact that people are generally living longer only seems to be viewed as a boon by the powers-that-be when the ballot box needs them; the rest of the time, an ageing population is regarded as a burden, only ever spoken of in the gloomiest of tones as a strain on the NHS or taxpayers, or in the context of Alzheimer’s. It is something rarely celebrated unless the members of that ageing population are valued as voters, consumers or the suppliers of accumulated wealth to dish out to their descendants. And as long as they don’t look old, they might just be treated as adults rather than retarded children; a man thinning on top or a woman struggling to hide her grey hairs must feel as though they’ve just spotted the first telltale signs of the Black Death on their bodies, something that will give their age away and condemn them to that vortex of invisibility that renders the rest of society largely blind to them, only noticing they exist when they’re an irritant walking down the middle of a narrow pavement and impossible to overtake.
It is true that today’s 50+ brigade have worn better than their parents or grandparents. When I think about some of the Ena Sharples-types I encountered as a child, they were probably barely sixty, yet to me they may as well have been over a hundred. Then again, the generations that lived through two World Wars and a Great Depression had a hell of a lot to contend with; it was no wonder their trials and tribulations were etched upon their weary countenances. They didn’t have Botox to iron out the creases either. In comparison, their offspring have endured the Three Day-Week, the Winter of Discontent and…what? The death of Diana? Hardly comparable. No wonder they still look pretty good. There’s also the fear of ending up resembling their old ma or pa, a common thread running through a western world obsessed with the illusion of youth. The moment a shop assistant refers to a woman as ‘madam’, she mentally ages a good decade. Take a photo of her and hear the despair in her voice when she says ‘I look like my mum’, something never uttered with the remotest trace of pleasure.
In ‘Gulliver’s Travels’, one of the journeys of Swift’s hero takes him to a country called Luggnagg in which he is introduced to a group of literal immortals known as Strulbruggs; they live forever, but unlike our fanciful concept of ageless immortality whereby we are frozen at the moment we reach the peak of our physical and mental powers, they simply keep ageing until they are little more than geriatric vegetables. Gulliver himself describes them thus –
‘They were the most mortifying sight I ever beheld; and the women more horrible than the men. Besides the usual deformities in extreme old age, they acquired an additional ghastliness in proportion to their number of years, which is not to be described…’
The instinctive mistrust of the natural order being disrupted by life being lived beyond the point at which it should rightly expire is exposed in Gulliver’s meeting with the Strulbruggs, and his surprisingly contemporary horror at the sight of them is reflected today in the thriving cosmetic surgery industry as well as the parade of crinkle-cut seventy-year-old rock stars still squeezing their bottoms into skinny jeans as they perform songs they wrote from the vantage point of a young man half-a-century ago. Yes, the ageing process can be disguised on the surface and, to a more limited extent, beneath it via the replacement of various broken bones or redundant organs by plastic substitutes; but there is no escaping the fact that our physical forms have a shelf-life, even if nature itself is extending that shelf-life.
The average life expectancy in Europe has risen steadily over the past century. A hundred years ago, it was a shockingly lowly 46. Five years after the end of the Second World War it had leapt up to 64. By the turn of the Millennium it had reached 76. Here in Blighty – depending on which part of the country one resides in and factors such as social environment, of course – the current average life expectancy is 81. The impact of advances in medical science and the gradual eradication of the ailments born of poor diet and hygiene that plagued our ancestors has made a hell of a difference to the quality of life, for sure; but while most are happy to live as long as possible, the problems that afflicted the immortals of Luggnagg are ones that a Health Service and a welfare system founded when few reached the age of 70 appear ill-equipped to deal with.
So, for now at least, the oldies are the political flavour of the month – as long as they vote for the right party come Election Day. For the Tories, this means banking on the traditional conservatism (both with a big and a small C) that can be a hallmark of getting on a bit. But the generation that will reach the one-time (male) retirement age this year will have been born in 1950. That means they will have lived through the radical end of the 60s and the radical beginning of the 70s; they were schooled in student revolt, marched on behalf of persecuted minorities and against foreign wars, fought for the rights of women, immigrants and homosexuals, politicised in an era when politics required colours being nailed to the mast with fervour, veterans of social battle-lines and still possessing the lingering remnants of fire in their bellies that could be sparked back into life by a realisation they’re being used as electoral pawns before being tossed aside for another five years.
It’s only a matter of time before some Bolshie sixty-something galvanises his generation anew and senior citizens organise themselves into a powerful pressure group that belatedly recognises its strength in numbers. It has happened on a small-scale in recent years, but nothing like the potential waiting to be stirred into action. Perhaps the moment is imminent to march on Westminster. After ‘Countdown’ has finished, of course…
Petunia Winegum
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March 10, 2015 at 9:43 am -
Quite sagacious
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March 10, 2015 at 9:52 am -
We can see the future for the men at least:
http://www.motherjones.com/files/blog_incarceration_age_group.jpg -
March 10, 2015 at 10:09 am -
Interesting stuff re the Satanic abuse connection; this is my take on the latest raids:
http://www.thelatestnews.com/police-witch-hunt-high-mighty-continues/
The authorities appear to have killed all coverage of that Satanic abuse nonsense in Hampstead, but the damage has already been done, especially to poor Sabine. It’s difficult to believe such highly intelligent people can believe this garbage. Alas.
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March 10, 2015 at 10:29 am -
I have to take medication daily to keep myself alive. I am not asking you to sympathise. But there are times – those black, bleak and frankly, boring times – when I wonder WHY I am keeping myself alive. I have no children, I have no partner (choices, both) and although I have circles of friends and acquaintances of different importance, I wonder what actual difference it would make if I stopped the meds and buggered off this mortal coil. I try to be as active in volunteering and to be there for those friends whenever needed, but… what is a life worth?
We moan about the cost to the NHS in terms of social care costs, bed blocking, the cost of medications, the cost of new technologies to treat conditions, but rarely ask: does this person actually want all this? Really? Why don’t we start asking people… Are you having a good life? How can we make it better? How can we help prepare for the end (because it comes, obviously)? What would be a good ending for you?
If any politician seriously wants the vote of the elderly, maybe they might start answering those questions. But instead we blather on about relative baubles like winter fuel allowances, free tv licences and bus passes. And that’s all Gideon can stretch his mind to.
We seem intent on prolonging life at all costs but rarely question why, what quality is left? And no matter what rabbits Gideon pulls from his backside, none of them will address that question. Finance does not equal happiness.
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March 10, 2015 at 10:45 am -
Indeed – quality not quantity of life is preferable. Already at 64 I’ve seen too many poor souls – family & friends – kept (barely) alive for a few more months, at significant cost to the NHS, with their life ebbing away in a degraded way. I do not intend to go that way, or be an unnecessary burden on the overstretched health system.
But if the NHS concentrated only on treating illnesses it would cope easily – it’s all the (mainly cosmetic) extras overwhelming it: +/- breast alterations, gastric bands for couch-potatoes with no self control, etc. None of these fripperies should be paid for by the taxpayer.-
March 10, 2015 at 12:21 pm -
“and buggered off this mortal coil. ”
Wanna rephrase that, mate? Although, with your sexual preference, I suppose there are worse ways to end it all
As to what a life is worth, that’s easy. 29 pieces of silver.
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March 10, 2015 at 12:28 pm -
Can’t remember the name of the poem:
“For thirty pence Our Saviour was sold
Amongst the false Jews; or so I’m told
And twenty nine is the worth of thee
For I think thou art one penny worser than He.The King he laughed and swore
By St Bittle
I never thought I was worth so little”-
March 10, 2015 at 12:29 pm -
Probably one of the “King John & The Bishop” variants.
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March 10, 2015 at 1:07 pm -
“But if the NHS concentrated only on treating illnesses it would cope easily – it’s all the (mainly cosmetic) extras overwhelming it: +/- breast alterations, gastric bands for couch-potatoes with no self control, etc. None of these fripperies should be paid for by the taxpayer.”
Got any actual figures to back up that assertion? No?
The NHS does not carry out purely cosmetic surgery – the vast majority of cosmetic breast surgery is carried out privately. In the main NHS breast surgery consists of creating new breasts for breast cancer patients, correcting severe “lopsidedness” caused by one breast failing to develop and reducing breast sizes when the organs in question are so heavy as to cause back pain and other health problems.
As for gastric band surgery, that is given only when the patient is severely overweight, is suffering from weight-related health conditions (diabetes etc) and conventional dieting is failing to remove the weight fast enough. And life with a gastric band ain’t no picnic – you have to east very small meals or risk vomiting, keep your daily liquid consumption down, not drink anything with your meals. And you still have to watch your diet because the surgery changes the way you digest sugars and carbs.
The last figures for bariatric surgery on the NHS that I could find are from 2012/13; there were 8000 such surgeries performed; at between £5000 – £8000 per op, that’s pretty small beer in the overall NHS spend.
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March 10, 2015 at 12:23 pm -
Oh, I dunno Sock, we’ed miss you here……*
I do get fed up with all this ” you’re so important to us” except when we look like requiring something back from the services we’ve paid into for decades, when we’re suddenly ‘bed blockers’ and a burden on the dear NHS, unlike those wonderful immigrants with their genetic issues from consanguity, FGM problems, diseases which we had thought banished decades and in some cases centuries ago. But then I suppose the PTB expect those younger people to be around and voting for them years after I’m gone so stuff the greys!
* This doesn’t mean we’re engaged or anything…..;-)
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March 10, 2015 at 12:32 pm -
Well, engaged in literary combat, possibly…..
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March 10, 2015 at 7:04 pm -
Thank you for the sentiment, Robert, but as for being engaged… I’m not THAT easy (these days)… dinner and a date at least!
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March 10, 2015 at 1:33 pm -
Can I be really boring and point out that nobody in the NHS has used the term “bed blocking” since the late-1990s? It is only the media that is perpetuating the phrase.
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March 10, 2015 at 1:41 pm -
Fair enough, but the phrase IS being used, mostly I suspect, because it’s the sort of useful soundbite that removes the necessity to think!
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March 10, 2015 at 2:02 pm -
The media loves it because it sounds inherently heartless and dispassionate. The accepted term now is actually “delayed discharge,” which is a bit “oo-er,” but does more clearly identify the issue.
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March 10, 2015 at 4:44 pm -
‘Bed-blocking’ is the consequence; ‘delayed discharge’ is an all-embracing excuse that explains nothing.
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March 10, 2015 at 1:58 pm -
The MoS had the new kid on the block at the weekend: “Boarding”. Where Casualty trolleys line up outside the ward and outside M.A.S.H. Central. That used to be called something else I think… left in the corridor perhaps.
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March 11, 2015 at 5:30 am -
In Australia we call it “ramping.” The ambulance pulls up, wheels out the patient, triage takes place and then the unluckier patients wait on the ambulance trolley for anywhere between two to ten hours. My experience was of waiting for about three hours on the trolley in a hallway, and then another nine hours in an Emergency bed before being admitted to an actual bed.
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March 11, 2015 at 8:15 am -
Ever thought about standing for parliament?
You speak more sense than the 650’ish (anyone seen Gordon?) incumbents. You’ve got my vote; I could get a few more with some postal jiggery-pokery.
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March 10, 2015 at 10:39 am -
“…they were schooled in student revolt, marched on behalf of persecuted minorities and against foreign wars, fought for the rights of women, immigrants and homosexuals…”
What is this, identity politics? Group-think?
I am that age and I didn’t do any of those things.
Be careful with your sweeping generalisations please.
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March 10, 2015 at 10:44 am -
Obviously, I’m not saying that everybody born in the early 50s participated in that side of the 60s/70s; but a section of the ageing population did, and those are the people who would stand on a soap box and attempt to galvanise their generation again if the mood takes them.
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March 10, 2015 at 10:50 am -
Surely they will have learned the lessons of real-politik by now…
If they haven’t there is no hope for the young…-
March 10, 2015 at 11:10 am -
It might be moot that the new Tories came in and swept up the last of the Homosexual issues of the past and legalised marriage etc. What price have they paid for their idealism? The rise of the Kipper.
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March 10, 2015 at 11:02 am -
I am ancient but still fairly fit. I usually take a nap in the afternoon but still manage to enjoy the quiet bucolic life without too much in the way of pills and potions. I find that (generally) people who are mentally active have not only have a better attitude but seem happier and healthier.
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March 10, 2015 at 12:16 pm -
“I usually take a nap in the afternoon”
So do I and I’m (if I recall aright) about 1/2 your age? That said, I only usually have to get up once a night to piss….so far.
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March 10, 2015 at 1:04 pm -
Oh, what a joyous future you can look forward to…
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March 10, 2015 at 1:55 pm -
“Oh, what a joyous future you can look forward to…”
I’ve already had to move my last cup of coffee of the day back to 23:00 if I don’t want to be up twice in the night. Used to be a time when I could drink coffee until I went to bed. Trust me, old age is already debilitating enough.
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March 10, 2015 at 2:03 pm -
Definition of ‘old age’ – burning the midnight oil ’till 9pm.
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March 10, 2015 at 3:29 pm -
Another definition is that it now takes you all night to do what you used to spend all night doing.
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March 10, 2015 at 8:22 pm -
Making sure you take the mobile phone into the bathroom with you in case you slip in the bath and break a hip.
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March 10, 2015 at 8:05 pm
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March 10, 2015 at 2:14 pm -
Free BBC License once you hit 70 and £300 to heat your house. Stewing in your own juice in more ways than one.
This one’s brilliant: “If you’re a man living in England, you can get free bus travel once you’ve reached the State Pension age of a woman born on the same day as you.”
http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/england/benefits_e/benefits_older_people_ew/benefits_for_older_people.htm#h_benefits_when_you_are_older
What happens if you don’t know any women born on the same day as you remains an enigma.-
March 10, 2015 at 10:43 pm -
Free TV is at 75 I think and the winter fuel allowance is £200 (is that what your £300 refers to?).
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March 10, 2015 at 10:56 pm -
Right about the TV and probably just as right about the other overall. The CAB site says: “For the winter of 2014/2015 the Winter Fuel Payment is between £100 and £300, depending on your circumstances. “
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March 11, 2015 at 8:33 am -
It’s £300 once you get to 80 years old.
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March 11, 2015 at 8:57 am -
That would explain why my original source told me £300.
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March 10, 2015 at 11:36 am -
“….. ageing population are valued as voters, consumers or the suppliers of accumulated wealth ”
Rather – “…. ageing population are valued as ….possessors of accumulated wealth” which can stolen stealthily by the Treasury via the euphemism known as Quatitive Easing.
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March 10, 2015 at 12:14 pm -
“It’s only a matter of time before some Bolshie sixty-something galvanises his generation anew”
I become more interested in OAP Rights with every passing year. Not sure why that should be…
Mind you, as I smoke 40-60 a day I should have been dead a while back because we all KNOW that the slightest contact with 3rd hand smoke (ie touching a bank note that a smoker handled less than a decade ago) is DEADLY.INSTANTLY.
They reckon smoking kills 3 outta 5 smokers…I must be one of the other 2 who attain immortality I guess.
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March 10, 2015 at 12:31 pm -
Either that or you’ve been dead years and are a Zombie! Do you find yourself wandering about going ‘brains, brains’ by any chance?
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March 10, 2015 at 1:24 pm -
If the smoker who handled that bank note less than a decade ago was also a paedophile, is there a danger of being infected by his urges as well? The government probably knows this to be the case, but won’t tell us because they’ll be protecting all the dead smoking nonces in parliament, of course.
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March 10, 2015 at 1:49 pm -
“is there a danger of being infected by his urges as well? ”
If there is then you can expect the first VICTIM of 3rd Hand Savile abuse to bravely come forward any time now. Think how many bank notes passed through his EVIL hands…
Some poor unsuspecting child in the 70s folded her £1 note weekly pocket money and put it in the front pocket of her jeans…only mere centimetres from her ‘private’ area. Oh the trauma.
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March 10, 2015 at 12:22 pm -
Given that we wrinklies either bugger off to the seaside or the Dordogne after sixty it is the concentration of us that makes for a real opportunity.
Unfortunately, my level of concentration gets worse with every month, so I couldn’t possibly…er…um….I couldn’t….ah yes, comment. Now then, where was I and why am I here. Oh yes. Keep up the good work.-
March 10, 2015 at 8:41 pm -
I buggered off to the Dordogne aged 48 and still have to hit 60. Still getting forgetful mind, replacing the cylinder barrel of an old Triumph bike last week I forgot to secure the inlet tappets, luckily I always have a plan B but I haven’t made that mistake in 40 years.
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March 10, 2015 at 12:49 pm -
The forthcoming right for the over 55s to ask for cash from their pension pots is yet another ill thought out attempt to appeal to the elderly. After all what could possibly go wrong with letting people have ‘their money’ rather than insisting it is invested to provide a future income (the basis, of course, on which the government made additional contributions and tax rebates which helped in the building up of these sums)?
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March 10, 2015 at 12:54 pm -
But what gives the State (and possibly even worse, the big insurers) the right to dictate to people what they should do with their own money?
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March 10, 2015 at 2:01 pm -
Who?
The Taxman I think they call him.
Even the wimmin don’t want to share that title…-
March 10, 2015 at 3:17 pm -
What with the depredations of The Taxman (as instructed by a certain Mr G Brown, an iniquity not reversed by G Osborne), all manner of sneaky charges levied by so-called ‘providers’, a collapse in market value (partly recovered), and some pretty indifferent advice dished out by annuity providers, the average Joe has been roundly shafted of late by everyone connected with his pension. He could hardly do worse looking after his own money.
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March 10, 2015 at 6:02 pm -
I did go to the trouble to point out it ain’t ‘their money’ when the government (read: taxpayers like you and me) paid in a good part on condition it would be used to provide an income in old age not frittered away in someone’s late fifties before they spend several decades claiming benefits that otherwise wouldn’t have been needed.
What happens when people do what they want with ‘their money’ (saved under established conditions) and then the rest of us have to pick up the tab when it has all been pissed away in whatever manner? If people want their money to hand they should obviously not put it into a pension fund. Doh!
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March 10, 2015 at 6:34 pm -
‘The taxpayer’ didn’t pay anything in. The taxman just refrained from levying taxes on pension savings that were levied on other income, investments and investment income, hence ‘tax relief’. Thus, the bit of your income that you payed into your pension fund was relieved of Income Tax, and any income the fund earned from share dividends was also subject to relief from tax until that nice Mr Brown abolished that particular relief. Other than that, no taxpayers’ money has been paid into private pension savings funds. Ever, that I’m aware of. Some people have been fortunate enough to enjoy contributions to their pension fund by their employer, but that’s just ‘income by another name’; it all comes from the same pot – payments from an employer to an employee.
What people do with ‘their money’ is their business. Given that most people take their pension pretty seriously, the chances of many of them ‘pissing it away’ is not that high.
Given the way that pension providers have stolen so much of their savings in charges and poor annuity deals (ever seen a financial advisor driving an old banger?) they deserve to have responsibility for other peoples’ money taken off them.
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March 10, 2015 at 6:43 pm -
Oh – and another thing. The only people to have their pension funded in any way by the Taxpayer are public servants (because their employer makes a contribution, and because the contribution they make is out of taxpeyer-funded income). There were six million public servants on the books in 2010, so that’s a whacking great ongoing burden on the taxpayer as they gradually reach pension age (often rather earlier than people in the private sector) and begin drawing their index-linked pension (another thing not often available to private pension savers, except at increased cost).
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March 10, 2015 at 12:50 pm -
I’m not so sure that it is that cynical to give the oldies a bit more. I recall reading somewhere that the people most likely to be experiencing real poverty (and least able to do anything about it) are the elderly. They also tend to be the stiff-upper-lip mustn’t-grumble generation, too, so they don’t often go on noisy demonstrations blocking Westminster bridge to traffic and trashing office blocks in the vicinity. They also know what ‘austerity’ really is, having lived with food rationing, shortages of practically everything (including habitable housing), and the complete non-availability of lots of things we take utterly for granted today. It really boils my piss listening to politicians talking about ‘austerity’ today as if we’re suffering real shortages. We ain’t. They’re being even more cynical than the other lot.
The problem is the media. They control the lines of communication between the politicians and the electorate, and they love headline-grabbing soundbites. Thus, politics must be conducted in headline-grabbing soundbites, not in considered debate. There are still the odd outpost of thoughtful analysis and considered debate (the quality papers, some blogs), but the telly wants entertainment and political mud-slinging. So that’s what a large proportion of the electorate thinks all politics consists of. Hence, when any chancellor acts to try to alleviate entrenched poverty amongst the elderly, it’s dressed up as ‘bribes’ by his political opponents (even if they secretly think it’s a fair thing to do) to generate a quick sound-bite. Consider also welfare reform – most of Parliament, of all political stripe, recognised over the last decade or so that welfare had got out of hand and needed reform, but some of them still oppose every minor change just for a political soundbite. Proper analysis of facts and intentions, successes and failures, gets lost in the media noise.
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March 10, 2015 at 2:35 pm -
Agreed Engineer.
I wonder if the belligerent Balls & strident Sturgeons realise how ridiculous they sound, whining on about austerity, something that hasn’t existed for half a century.
Odd too that despite real austerity and a clapped out country Britain still managed to set up that health service and develop nuclear weapons too.
For me it’s puts the fretting about fast broadband & mobile phone coverage into perspective.
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March 10, 2015 at 12:59 pm -
This thread has inspired me to go and listen to some fist-punching-air Radical OAP music.
Look up “White Riot”-The Bad Shepherds.
“Are you taking over
Or are you taking orders?
Are you going backwards
Or are you going forwards?
Or are you just having a senior moment?”-
March 10, 2015 at 1:06 pm -
Is that any different from a blond moment – (heading toards seniority ANd being blond, it’s important I know)?
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March 10, 2015 at 4:04 pm -
“It was bred into them that it was their duty to cast their vote”.
It’s true that those of us who lived through the 1920s/30s depression years and the war don’t, as a rule, need to be persuaded to vote and I’ve never failed to do so before. But this year may be the exception (though possibly UKIP?). I certainly can’t think about either of the two main contending parties, and their leaders, without a shudder. Do these people really think that we don’t recognise their wretched bribery for what it is, and intensely resent the patronising way they behave towards us? We are a generation that knew at first hand deprivation, sacrifice, real austerity and service to this country. Speaking for myself and my friends, all in our late eighties, we can well do without these special little pats on the head. Save them for people of all ages who are genuinely in need. Oh my Churchill and my Attlee long ago!By the way, we don’t want to be a burden on the NHS and, contrary to what seems to be its philosophy, we don’t want to be kept alive at all costs. We grew up well acquainted with death and have no fear of it (as distinct from how it happens). What we do fear is becoming physically dependent on others and being unable to bring our lives to an end ourselves, in a reasonably gentle way, at a time of our own choosing. Not much chance of being allowed the means to do that, of course, in our supposedly civilised society, but there’s always the plastic bag or starvation.
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March 10, 2015 at 8:23 pm -
Although a generation behind you, I look forward to still having your spirit if/when I get there too. It was also bred into me that it was my duty to cast my vote and I have never missed turning up at the pollng station for every election – national, local or EU – since 1970, although I have positively spoiled my paper on occasions.
I would urge you still to vote and commend your notion of voting UKIP this time – the message which that vote sends is vital and, even though UKIP seats may be few after the count, the volume of votes will shout loudly and be heard both in Westminster and Brussels. That’s a worthy legacy for all us relative old-timers to leave for the next generations.
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March 10, 2015 at 4:05 pm -
What do we want? Sanatogen! When do we want it? Er, what do we want again? I’ve forgotten….
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March 10, 2015 at 4:20 pm -
There’s no use banging on about THE life expectancy, there’s no such thing. Life expectancies come in droves. The one that, I guess, matters most is life expectancy at 65 – being a rough measure of how long the old dears are going to cost a lot of moolah.
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March 10, 2015 at 6:25 pm -
“There’s no use banging on about THE life expectancy, there’s no such thing”
Indeed. I think Death (Gaiman comic book character) says it best;
http://www.oocities.org/area51/rampart/2012/lifetime.jpg
Just to give this whole discussion of about life’s SAGA reading, golden, pumpkin seed extract filled years a slightly theological slant.
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March 10, 2015 at 6:15 pm -
I certainly wouldn’t want to live if I was dependent on others, quality matters more to me than quantity any day. I just hope assisted suicide comes in but I doubt it. I would hope not to need it but it would be a comfort to know it was an option. I recently watched a friend suffer horribly with chemo when there was no realistic hope for her. Why put her through it, in the end she was glad to go, I sometimes wonder if they use the terminally ill as guinea pigs. I doubt there are many old firebrands around these days, youthful idealism tends to fade when mortgages and families take precedence plus so much of our freedoms have been usurped by the State I wonder what the point is? A lot of us feel it just won’t make any difference.
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March 10, 2015 at 6:28 pm -
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March 10, 2015 at 6:35 pm -
Never had one but you paint an amusing picture as always!
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March 10, 2015 at 6:59 pm -
Using the terminally ill as guinea pigs…. don’t get me started (and don’t think I’m not grateful) – but as I’ve always said to my consultants: “Have you tried these medications? Have you experienced the side effects?” Being someone who was one of the early infected with HIV, I got a lot of the treatments first. Don’t get me wrong, they saved my life, but prescribers (and drugs companies) didn’t know what they were doing. I was given one drug to take, six capsules, three times a day. At most they prescribe one capsule once or twice a day now because the side-efffects – well, you needed a hose from your backside to the nearest toilet is the best way to put it. And it is still the same now – new drugs, but if you are intolerant of them, they take you off them but don’t know how to do it properly in case you become resistant to other drugs in the same class. Progress is a messy business.
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March 10, 2015 at 7:39 pm -
“I was given one drug to take, six capsules, three times a day”
Sweet Jesus, slight case of over bombing or what? Assuming it was one of the early anti-virals/broadest-spectrum-kill-EVERYTHING antibiotics. Almost a homophobic joke in it’s own right (ie “teach you what your arse is for”).
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March 10, 2015 at 8:17 pm -
One of the first protease inhibitors, an anti-retroviral. The one they moved me onto after that gave people kidney stones… One of the first drugs I took has permanently damaged the nerve endings in my toes – sometimes it feels like the toe knuckles have been given a rough massage with a cheese grater. A lot of those early drugs are no longer prescribed. Such is life.
And Mr Dwarf, please don’t tell me it’s only gay men who need THAT lesson, if all I read about the current fashions in straight porn is true…
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March 10, 2015 at 8:32 pm -
” if all I read about the current fashions in straight porn is true…”
What makes you think I would know anything about *straight* porn? Did you miss the bit about me living in Norfolk?
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March 10, 2015 at 8:36 pm -
You obviously have Tinternet.
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March 10, 2015 at 10:21 pm -
“You obviously have Tinternet.”
Yeees..but..there are villages not far from where I live that only recently petitioned His Britannic Majesty King George that they be included in the ‘network’ (a technical term) of wonderous Optical Telegraphs that they might receive news from Crimea more speedily.
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March 10, 2015 at 9:05 pm -
I shudder to think what ‘Norfolk Porn’ must be like. Mind you, sounds like there could be a gap in the market for some enterprising pervert?
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March 11, 2015 at 12:22 am -
“I shudder to think what ‘Norfolk Porn’ must be like”
It brings a new terror to an Orwellian phrase…you know…the one about ‘4 legs good, 2 legs…’.
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March 10, 2015 at 6:57 pm -
I just don’t get all the public moaning about us being a burden on the nhs. Once we’d solved many of the horrible illnesses that afflict children, & stopped risking their lives by routinely ripping out tonsils, why wouldn’t we start caring for the older instead of letting them die? Shouldn’t we also expect most younger people to be healthy & not often sick?
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