Exposing and exploring the commercial and cultural vitality of this generation of over-65s (and the one following hard behind).
RETIREMENT : time for new vocabulary
2 Comments
Will no one save us from this relentless optimism ? “Keep fit. Earn. Pay tax. Be a Hero”. Whoever writes this sort of stuff should come down to earth sometime. Get real. Stop sleeping with the fairies. Things can only get worse. . “Keep fit”. dream on. How many old geezers ( including women ) do you see in Virgin Active handing over the last few pennies of their pension to keep Saint Richard Branson on his holiday island. Do they look like Daniel Craig at the end of it ? or Megan Markle ? Do they hell. They come out sweating and wheezing and of course poorer because they have fallen for the oldest commercial trick in the game. Play to people’s vanity and their faint and fading hopes of getting one last leg over before everything fades to black and they’ll be stupid enough to pay up. “Earn”. Doing what – walking a row of dogs owned by rich yuppies around Clapham Common and doing your back in when you have to keep bending over to fill up the little blue bags ? Gizza job. Sounds great but I don’t see the queues wanting to employ the over 60s as lingerie models, or fashionable cooks or bus drivers, particularly when they see how thick your glasses are. I suppose we could be vicars but that doesn’t pay much and we don’t all fancy choirboys. “Pay tax”. We do, mate, VAT on everything. Council tax. What sort of freak wants to pay more tax when they’ve paid enough all their life. It’s time to get a bit back but presumably in the world of thrusting oldsters which the writer seems to believe in there’d be no place for free bus passes or TV licences. And then “Be a hero”. What do you want us to do – join the army, the new home guard of eighty somethings patrolling Basra or piling up sandbags to stop the flood water rising. If I pick up one small bag of apples in Tesco my back goes into a spasm. Living with the wife for nearly 40 years is enough heroism for a lifetime.
Whoever writes this stuff has had too many magic mushrooms. The dream life – suntanned blokes in their speedoes running their own high tech start up from a loft in Hoxton, then driving home in their Porsche with their 26 year old secretary before flying off with the SAS to liberate Aleppo – it’s not going to happen, mate. Back on earth getting older is about the next visit to the doctor, the long wait for opening time, the stair lift that sticks half way up, the long haired youth on the tube who won’t stand up for you, another visit to the doctor, the vicars coming round to see if you need a quiet word with them, the Liberal Democrat canvassers saying they’ve always campaigned for euthanasia Get used to it.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the Rinkli Funstaz life is avowedly not for everyone, as you can hear here.
I feel sorry for our friend Mr.Troubled of Tooting. But he makes his points with such vim and vinegar that the entire RF team would be delighted to debate with him in his local (is it The Stoat & Ferkin?) over some premier cru (if they have any) at any time.
Please contact Jocasta Featherstonehaugh and she will be happy to organise.
Will no one save us from this relentless optimism ? “Keep fit. Earn. Pay tax. Be a Hero”. Whoever writes this sort of stuff should come down to earth sometime. Get real. Stop sleeping with the fairies. Things can only get worse. . “Keep fit”. dream on. How many old geezers ( including women ) do you see in Virgin Active handing over the last few pennies of their pension to keep Saint Richard Branson on his holiday island. Do they look like Daniel Craig at the end of it ? or Megan Markle ? Do they hell. They come out sweating and wheezing and of course poorer because they have fallen for the oldest commercial trick in the game. Play to people’s vanity and their faint and fading hopes of getting one last leg over before everything fades to black and they’ll be stupid enough to pay up. “Earn”. Doing what – walking a row of dogs owned by rich yuppies around Clapham Common and doing your back in when you have to keep bending over to fill up the little blue bags ? Gizza job. Sounds great but I don’t see the queues wanting to employ the over 60s as lingerie models, or fashionable cooks or bus drivers, particularly when they see how thick your glasses are. I suppose we could be vicars but that doesn’t pay much and we don’t all fancy choirboys. “Pay tax”. We do, mate, VAT on everything. Council tax. What sort of freak wants to pay more tax when they’ve paid enough all their life. It’s time to get a bit back but presumably in the world of thrusting oldsters which the writer seems to believe in there’d be no place for free bus passes or TV licences. And then “Be a hero”. What do you want us to do – join the army, the new home guard of eighty somethings patrolling Basra or piling up sandbags to stop the flood water rising. If I pick up one small bag of apples in Tesco my back goes into a spasm. Living with the wife for nearly 40 years is enough heroism for a lifetime.
Whoever writes this stuff has had too many magic mushrooms. The dream life – suntanned blokes in their speedoes running their own high tech start up from a loft in Hoxton, then driving home in their Porsche with their 26 year old secretary before flying off with the SAS to liberate Aleppo – it’s not going to happen, mate. Back on earth getting older is about the next visit to the doctor, the long wait for opening time, the stair lift that sticks half way up, the long haired youth on the tube who won’t stand up for you, another visit to the doctor, the vicars coming round to see if you need a quiet word with them, the Liberal Democrat canvassers saying they’ve always campaigned for euthanasia Get used to it.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the Rinkli Funstaz life is avowedly not for everyone, as you can hear here.
I feel sorry for our friend Mr.Troubled of Tooting. But he makes his points with such vim and vinegar that the entire RF team would be delighted to debate with him in his local (is it The Stoat & Ferkin?) over some premier cru (if they have any) at any time.
Please contact Jocasta Featherstonehaugh and she will be happy to organise.