You get to build your perfect space for reading and writing. What’s it like?
To someone who must write , the perfect space is everywhere. You will put up with anything if the ideas are flowing. In fact the great CS Lewis told his step son that interruptions were important, an interesting point of view from a dedicated academic from one of the greatest ivory towers of educational attainment.
I think now it’s the tools we use and the support that is available that is edging “space” out. Word Press, Wi-Fi, Google and Artificial Intelligence broaden the research and accuracy of the subject matter, as does a good pair of headphones and a suitable P.C. and software, not to forget Security Software and an awareness of the foolishness that often occurs on the internet.
With this writing can occur. Whether it is good writing or not only the reader can decide. Perhaps this is what my title refers to , one man’s pleasure is another man’s irritant. It applies to space too.
Every writer though deserves a holiday and the perfect place for a writer is of course a retreat. Mine would be beside the sea with pleasant weather and a sea breeze , plenty of walks and a pub serving good food nearby. I would want some company from self-sufficient people who know me and know when to give me space.
The space would need every mod con and an excellent coffee machine and said writing tools above. Would it be a cottage or a 1930’s Art Deco building? I think I would prefer a Poiroesque Art Deco Building with an architecturally significant staircase leading onto a large simply furnished room at the front of the house with a balcony and sea views. For a few hours a day I would edit my scribbles and then return to real life to gain inspiration.
Nowadays a Car that functions and is not too costly to run is what most people aspire to and why not?
They have become a necessary accessory to modern day life with suburbs and retail parks and leisure time to spend them in. Not to mention the dreaded school run if darlings Johnny and Jacinta didn’t get into their first choice of school and the New House Purchase fell through before the start of the new term. The journey to school is now a twenty minute car ride and not a twenty minute walk. Let’s face it the promise of Public Transport, is just that , a promise.
Thus some worship the Car, but most see it as something, dare I say it, is a necessary evil.
Some see the Car as the Devil Incarnate, and impose sitting in queues on it’s hapless inhabitants.
So My Favourite Automobile is quite a touchy subject for some.
However ,my Cars have always had names, sometimes just based on their brand name. So we have had Mini, Panda, Lil’ Audi , Van and currently Fred. They were always favourites as they always worked and always got me out of trouble. I always talked to them and in truth they had manuals written by humans who had rules and regulations in mind that meant explaining how to do something was an encyclopaedic experience. I much preferred just fiddling and I’m pleased to say that all my Cars were most helpful and never complained.
Thankfully the gear stick pattern has always been the same although light switches were always a bit of a challenge.
They were all my Favourites as they were part and parcel of my life. I won’t mention my experience with Company Cars as it was a shame , they never felt like mine and in truth I couldn’t connect with them and just like a hire car I suppose they were just there to be used.
In my later years , I probably won’t be able to afford a car, but I will look back with fondness to all my cars.
I love this AI generated picture and I suppose it sums up to me what the human condition is and how we influence each other.
We really are all connected, even the pins that seem to go out on their own have came from somewhere.
It’s something that changes and adapts but is also a constant. Those pins will be in different positions tomorrow or the next day, but the connections remain.
The more positive the connections the better for everyone.
I asked AI to find a ” Character” for me to write about , the above gentleman ( I am assuming he is a gentle man) was the second “Character” that AI generated, the first had a gun in his hand pointing at me, which I decided with all the gun hate in this World was not appropriate, though, I accept in AI’s innocence it was probably considering the word character as in an ” artistic drama.” My initial thought was would I be able to judge someone’s character who was pointing a gun at me and I being fearful, probably not.
However, “Character Two” ( picture above) is definitely of interest, again with a dramatic edge, which indeed is worth exploring, Very Hannibalisque I would say.
I should just briefly mention ” Character 3″ whom was generated as a cool attractive AI woman with no resemblance to reality. A shallow , sallow skinned, empty headed , pouter with perfect hair and the most piercing green eyes with too much make up and picture enhanced boobs. Yes , AI can’t help itself sometimes. So as I wouldn’t have a lot to think about on that one I binned it.
Now for my Hannibal, I think he would have conquered other Countries with ease, he isn’t from Carthage, more likely from the Far East. The earrings look like cheap curtain pennants, obviously hand made hand and not from precious metals. So probably spending all his money on invasions or searching for Countries with peoples already making quality jewellery and accessories that he can subjugate and basically steal.
The headdress is telling with it’s fiery feathers sticking out on either side. A nice way to frighten someone, even if it’s all for show which it is. The semi-precious stones on the band around his head with the metal work, says he’s short of cash , I mean decorative , but of no value. Though, if he was charging at you on top of a horse pointing a sword at you , you aren’t going to notice his cheap jewellery. It’s all for effect.
He’s not a pointer as he seems to have lost his right index finger in an “incident”. He looks like the type that would sit around in his military campaign tent, drinking with his officers and making up stories about how he lost his finger or to those who don’t know him , doing party tricks to show off his lack of digit. The reality is probably more mundane, that he lost it , playing dare with sharp knives when he was a boy.( It was different times then) and he was lucky he didn’t get blood poisoning .
That luck is part of his character though, and he knows it. He has the confidence to keep moving forward and his brown eyes are also very kind, if a little serious. He loves reading and meeting interesting people from the Countries he invades. He doesn’t do massacres only a little subjugation and it’s only because he wants better jewelry.
He has learned life’s love lessons the hard way, and although he is a conqueror, knows the importance of home life, he has had numerous relationships with women , and maintains a harem ( it’s expected), however, there are two or three “special ones” who are viewed as “confidantes” or ” advisors”. These women and their offspring are important to his psyche and motivate him to improve the world that he lives in. Marriage has not yet been invented, so monogamy isn’t his thing, but as he is getting older and increasing tired from his campaigns, it’s the women he knows the best that soothe his brow on his return. The others are just for show.
Am I a good judge of character or have I fallen into a stereotypical view of people and events . I will let you be a judge of that.
I’m most happy when I don’t have any debt. Lesson to the World. Stop putting an intolerable burden of debt onto everyone.
We can’t keep owing and owing and being fleeced by all sorts of grifters.
Things we need and buy have to be good value and be available.
We are not mindless consumers who need free market economics. Living within your means is a means in itself.
In the olden days Rock Stars were hopeless business people who couldn’t manage money, nowadays business people are Rock Stars who know every trick in the book and see being at the top of some flakey Rich List as their reason to be, that and finding a ready income stream from wherever they can, usually based on debt.
So let’s move on and give people hope that they can get out of bed and not be troubled by intolerable debt.
Horizon was Bad , but How about the Private Pension Scam?
It all started with Robert Maxwell, the proprietor of Mirror Newspapers and raider of the very healthy Mirror Newspaper Pension Fund. Also the father of Ghislaine Maxwell who herself made headlines in the new millennium, first as a darling Socialite and then as a woman involved in sexual trafficking of underage girls for Celebrity parties including Royal Guests. Her devious daddy died suspiciously by falling off his luxury yacht and his employees having invested in a very healthy Company pension scheme were left with nothing. Ghislaine is currently in prison in America serving a significant sentence and presumably planning a book ( with film rights) on her exploits once she gets out.
The raiding of the Mirror Pension Scheme rather than being regarded as criminal action , was seen by Politicians over the last 60 years (previously an acceptable age for retirement) as an opportunity to bail out their misguided policies or indeed finance the privileged life that MP’s and Government Representatives including those private individuals appointed as Advisors to Government on significant salaries and non-contributory pensions have led.
Who financed their lifestyles? The Great British Public of course. The ultimate insult is that the Right and Left of Politics want us to regard them as financial icons, as go getting achievers who have the right to live a luxurious lifestyle at our expense because they …… well deserve it. Or infact because they are the greatest grifters and abusers of Power in the History of Public Service.
Perhaps the recent threat of Pandemic and the unseemly rush to supply the NHS with desperately needed ” Ventilators ” and ” Personal Protective Equipment” showed what they were capable of. Health is big business and it attracted the likes of Lady Michelle Mone and Matt Hancock to tout for and divvy out Government Contracts to Suppliers who had no capability to produce a valid product. Or indeed had any experience or indeed were on an approved list of NHS Suppliers .
An early example being Dyson, from Hoovers to Ventilators , thankfully despite Dyson quoting heroically; common sense prevailed and the actual requirement for ventilators was medically assessed as a last resort and one in which the 10% survival rate once the patient reached that stage was deemed inefficient and that other care policies were more successful. Thankfully. Otherwise there would be a lot of redundant ventilators taking up valuable space in hospitals throughout the Country.
There are ongoing Court Cases and Government Enquiries into what has gone wrong that again are costing the Public Purse a fortune. These of course are self-generating and will go on ad infinitum, much like the Post Office Horizon Scandal will continue.
So where has all this money come from? Well when I was in my late twenties, we were encouraged to take out a Private Pension and transfer our payment of National Insurance Contributions to a Government Pension to a Private Company Pension. I do believe the term was to Contract Out. At the time we were told that it was the best option for us and that the pensions would be portable and if we changed job that we could carry our pension with us and that the new employer would make their contributions, very often equalling the contribution that the employee was making, so part of our earning package and something we were putting aside for our future retirement.
Except that was not how it worked. Firstly the Pensions were not portable, each Company I joined insisted that I joined their scheme, there was no option for them to pay into my quite healthy Norwich Union Pension( later Aviva) .Even if you were in a Company , that Company could change the Pension Provider to a new scheme and the frequency with which this happened made me think that someone was getting a cut on this deal, most likely the Company Executives. As a result I ended up with six Private Pensions.
Still that was small fry in comparison to the Government raids on the Profits from these schemes. Yes Maxwell definitely paved the way for that. Initially I was in the Austin Rover Pension scheme , paying a significant amount of my monthly income into the fund only to have the profits from the fund hived off by the Government to support the dying business I was employed in.
I remember when I left , I had £5,000 in the fund and was told the best thing to do was to leave it there, but I wanted it transferred to my Norwich Union pension that my new employer had set up for us. I think it cost something , but if I hadn’t have made that transaction ,I would have lost that money because twenty years later , with a Government Sellout the Rover Group was no more and the Pension fund also disappeared.
Moving on, when I reached 45, I was regarded , like most people as someone who simply was never going to have enough of a Private Pension to finance my retirement , this was despite having paid my contributions. So I was told to contract back in , which I did. I think this must be similar to most people. I could still keep making employee contributions to my Private Pension , and therefore still qualifying for the employers ( tax deductible ) contributions, without the Government contributing , indeed my NI contributions would go to my State Pension this seemed reasonable and frankly as I now realise fortuitous.
As of today, I qualify with current rules for the State Pension, which to be honest wouldn’t buy Lady Mone’s supply of make up and hair appointments for a month, but I and my partner having lived an enjoyable but financially astute life can quite happily live on. Perhaps I am tired, having worked all my life , but yachts, foreign holidays, endless parties and possessions seem pointless, I mean I don’t want to retire to Greece, much as I’m sure it’s very nice.
I really don’t understand that if the economy has boomed over the last 60 years, the financial markets have risen over those years , a lot of money has been made. So why after paying in into a Private Pension over the last 45 years have I been left with a fund that won’t even pay me £20/ month to live on. Is it some kind of bad joke. What happened to the Champagne Charlies who could make million’s by betting against the tide of Black Friday’s and Monday’s stock market debacles. Why weren’t they in charge of my Pension Fund, and why did the Government represented by Gordon Brown regard Private Pension Funds as a source of Government income ( Just like Maxwell) and removed their tax relief to fill the Government Coffers .Wasn’t that the contributors money? Wasn’t it theft, don’t the profits go to the investors?
Surely Pensions and the fact that people like me have been thrown to the wolves, and been forced to pay into something that was never properly regarded as an investment opportunity , more of a way of removing the burden of debt caused by a population who are now expected to work until they drop, but who if the funds had been managed properly could have had a decent retirement at a reasonable age.
In other words, was it a scam? Probably.
It’s worse for those who are going through what I went through forty years ago. The working population today are under so much pressure. Sad to say the figures for a normal person on an average wage today just don’t add up, and just to live is difficult enough without putting money into a Private Pension. I’m not sure what the advice is today on contracting out or whether the Government sees National Insurance as the best solution to financing pensions, but one thing I’m certain of is that Private Pensions for most people were a not fit for purpose.
thenotsomightyom 