PROFLIGATE CHILDREN DESERVE NO SYMPATHY.

I'm fed up with hearing the constant whingeing from the so-called 'younger generations' who complain that they're being done down by older people. They claim that older people have all the wealth and they, the younger ones, are having their futures stolen by these mean old folk who refuse to share their money and who, at the same time, are expecting the youngsters to pay for their upkeep in old age.

 

This is such rubbish that it's astonishing it's still put forward as an argument, but it is. The truth is surely very different and it's time someone stated it.

 

Not that many years ago, almost no one in our society had enough even to feed and clothe themselves and their families adequately. My own great grandparents were poor, to say the least, and lived in 2 rented rooms together with their 3 or 4 surviving children (out of 9 born), this being only about 100 years ago. To his enduring credit, my grandfather managed to escape from this state and, despite having little schooling, eventually saved enough to put down a deposit on a house. His children were brought up well, had better education and made further progress; they did not squander their money but all worked hard and saved. They all had their own homes and passed on their ethos and standards to their children, my generation.

 

I, in my turn, worked hard, saved and bought a property. I did not waste my money on fripperies such as fancy clothes, cars or holidays, when there were more important things to concentrate on. When I had spare money, I saved it for a 'rainy day' or for when there was a sensible reason to spend it on  having 'fun'. All along, I paid my taxes and national insurance while never actually claiming a halfpenny of state support, unless you count my education at school and university; I have to admit that I did go to university before the days of student loans but, even then, I didn't take loads of cash from the state. I actually worked continuously throughout my course and received almost no grant.

 

Given this history, I feel, most strongly, that my grandparents, parents and I all paid more than enough into the system, while taking very little out. For me now to be assailed by the cries of today's profligate children, claiming that they should be allowed to share more 'fairly' in the wealth accumulated by previous generations is insulting as well as utterly ludicrous. Today's children are enormously better off than was my generation and my grandparents' generation would simply not understand how they can have any complaints. Today's children think nothing of wasting vast amounts of money on technological gadgets that serve no purpose other than self-aggrandisement; they have better health, education and housing services than have ever existed before and are supported by huge volumes of state welfare benefits. Many younger people never think of saving and, instead, spend every penny they have or can borrow on anything and everything, much of it simply what could be termed 'lifestyle' items. They have a whale of a time but still they whinge about how hard up they are, about how they can't afford to buy a house or a new car, having done absolutely nothing to help themselves.

 

When these ignorant, rude, foul-mouthed, profligate, promiscuous and egotistical people realise that there's 'owt-for-nowt', in this life, I'll be prepared to listen to them. When they've paid in as much as I have, I'll believe they're entitled to receive something back. Until then, hands off what I've managed to build in my life, from my efforts and those of my parents and grandparents.

RUSSELL BRAND - TELEVISION PUNDIT.

Not very long ago, a creature by the name of Russell Brand perpetrated a disgusting prank on the radio along with a similarly talentless goon by the name of Jonathan Ross. Both were roundly condemned and largely disappeared from our screens and radios for a while. Suddenly, both are back.

 

Ross left the BBC and now appears on some other channel, possibly 4, though I take so little interest in the horrid man that I can't be sure. Brand, on the other hand, now seems to have been fully rehabilitated and is even being trotted out as a pundit on television programmes such as 'Question Time' and the 'Andrew Marr Show'; why is a mystery.

 

Brand looks like a rag-bag. Why viewers should be subjected to his variety of supposed expertise on such programmes is a question that can only be answered by the left-wing mafia that runs the Beeb. He speaks in largely incoherent sound-bites and has nothing meaningful to say; what is the point of him ? If the intention is to appeal to a younger audience, can the producers not find more literate and educated individuals, or has our education system fallen so far that there are none ?

 

David Dimbleby often has to put up with oddballs on 'Question Time' but surely putting up with Brand is well beyond the call of duty. As for the 'Andrew Marr Show', this has become a rather tired and dull offering in the absence of its original presenter - will he ever return ? It certainly needs a bit of revitalisation but the likes of Brand are not the way forward.

ED BALLS TRIES AGAIN AND STILL CAN'T SCORE.

Oh Dear, Oh Dear, Oh Dear !

 

Poor old Ed Balls really is a first class idiot. Yet again, he's been on our television screens this morning trying to convince us all that a future Labour government will abide by the spending plans of the current lot for the year 2015/16, at least for 'current spending'. They would not reverse spending cuts already put in place but would attack the so called rich for all they're worth; it's now abundantly clear that payment of the state pension will no longer be considered a right for all and that Labour would restrict this to the people whom it believes to be the poor.

 

Balls was one of the principal architects of the appalling mess created by the last Labour governments of Blair and Brown. He now bumbles his way through interviews, trying to convince us that he has true economic gravitas and can resolve all of the problems that he created. He says whatever he thinks will win him and his party votes - spend more, tax the rich, introduce what would effectively be means testing for payments such as the state pension, winter fuel allowance and so on. Such policies are designed to appeal to his party's traditional voter base, but he also tries to appeal to others by pretending that our economy would be safe in his hands as he would not revert to typical Labour and borrow vast amounts more. This last is, of course, a sham as he has every intention of borrowing shed-loads of money for what he sees as necessary 'capital schemes' - building houses, roads, railways and everything else he can think of. Much of this would be current spending by any other name and would never be recouped, in fact, it would worsen our already dire state. This  approach would actually be the one adopted by communist Russia for many years, and one which eventually brought that benighted state to its knees.

 

Our country is in a financial mess. Part of this was due to some of our major banks behaving badly but most of it is down to the Labour governments of Blair and Brown, either through their direct actions or because they failed to ensure that the banks were properly supervised. Ed Balls and his mate, Ed Miliband, were both willing and enthusiastic participants in those governments and yet now they tell us that they know better than the current lot how to deal with the mess and ask us to trust them to put things right. Who do they think they are - Laurel and Hardy ? Come to think of it, isn't there some similarity there, a relatively thin one who's always scratching his head in bemused fashion and a fatter one who's bombastic but always shown to be a fool ?!

 

Voting for a government led by Balls and Miliband would be akin to turkeys voting for Christmas; it would be voluntary euthanasia on a vast scale as anyone with anything would find it taken from them and those with nothing would be no better off, while the country would be bankrupted. You have been warned.

"THE RETURNED"; SENSATIONAL FRENCH TELEVISION.

I frequently complain about the quality of modern television programmes, most of which range from barely watchable to abysmal. All of our terrestrial channels seem to serve up the same diet of 'soaps', cookery programmes and American tripe and, frankly, it's nearly all boring rubbish. How can it be that the French, of all people, have made a difference ?

 

"The Returned", on Channel 4, is an eight part story, from France, about people who died in an accident and yet mysteriously reappear 4 years later; the first episode was terrific and if the rest follow suit it will become a televisual classic. Even allowing for the fact that I speak no French and only understand a little, the subtitled first programme was extraordinarily brilliant. After a few minutes, I was drawn in and trapped; at the end of the episode I couldn't wait for the next, such was the web that had been created.

 

Thus far, admittedly based on only one episode, this promises to be a sensational series. There is none of the usual loud and intrusive 'background music' that dominates most American, and too much British, drama; while the story is, thus far, still a little confusing in parts, it's also clear that every aspect has been considered and is slowly being explained. For some strange reason, the fact that it's in French and subtitled actually seems to make it more attractive; perhaps I imagine this and it's really just that it is a superb programme. Either way, I'll be watching the remaining seven episodes with some enthusiasm.

 

Brilliant television !

BALLS DRIBBLES AND MISSES THE GOAL.

If anyone needed a reason not to vote 'Labour' at future elections, they had only to watch the stumbling, garbled and guarded performance of Ed Balls under questioning from Andrew Neil on this morning's edition of the 'Sunday Politics' on the BBC.

 

While trying to prove his credentials as a money-saving future Chancellor of the Exchequer, Balls tried desperately to say that he would slash all sorts of welfare spending without actually saying what he would do about pensions, housing benefit and the like; it was clear that he'd been given a range of broad-brush remarks to make but had no idea what the details might be in the event that he actually had the chance to put his 'plans' into action.

 

Everyone knows that Balls has 'previous' when it comes to economic messes; it was he, after all. who helped Gordon Brown destroy the UK's economy during the catastrophic years of Labour government between 1997 and 2010. Balls is one of those fanatical socialists who will do and say anything that he imagines will give him access to power, while living a life of luxury himself; he will happily mortgage the country's future knowing that whatever horrors he visits on future generations will have no effect on either him or his children. How can anyone possibly take this man seriously or, heaven help us, trust our economy to him ?

 

The very simple answer is that we can't and mustn't. The trouble is that, far from the 'savage cost cutting' of which the current lot has been accused, very little has really been done to reduce government spending over the last 3 years. Given his political leanings, it's highly unlikely that Balls would even do as little as has been done by the Conservative/Liberal coalition; it's far more likely that, if gullible voters gave him the power, we'd be back to the same old tax and spending policies that caused us to be in this mess in the first place.

 

If voters choose Labour at the next General Election, it will be a disaster for the country. BE WARNED !

NEW "DOCTOR WHO" TO BE ................................ ?

Once upon a time, the BBC created a prickly old man and called him 'Dr Who'. He was exactly what he should have been, an Einstein-like character who was the epitomy of the traditional 'mad scientist'.

Played by William Hartnell, this was THE Dr Who.

 

Over the years, the Doctor changed as his bodies became worn out, William Hartnell's literally so. Patrick Troughton, John Pertwee, Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy (who ?), all had spells as 'the Doctor' in the original television series which ran from 1963 until 1989.  Peter Cushing and Paul McGann appeared as 'the Doctor' in film versions, McGann's being the last in the original guise.

 

For some reason known only to themselves, the BBC decided to resurrect the programme in 2005 but in an updated style, Suddenly, 'the Doctor' was an action hero, a hunky, good-looking guy who had a pretty young thing in tow. Gone was the original image of a slightly daft old character, instead we had James Bond in a time machine.

 

Suffice it to say that there has only ever been one 'Doctor' in my eyes and he was the first, infinitely better at playing the role than any of his successors. Some of the rest of the original group had their good points, but none matched Hartnell's feeling for the part. Sadly, the modern incarnation of the series is so far removed from the original conception that it holds no attraction for me and the very idea of watching it makes me wince.

 

Today it's been reported that the current 'Doctor', some unknown called Matt Smith, is to leave the programme; the media, at least, the BBC, has been instantly full of speculation as to who will fill Who's shoes next. In this politically correct world of ours, will it be a woman, someone 'of colour' or, perhaps, even a one legged dwarf with a squint ?

 

What is it about those who feed us today's televisual rubbish that makes them want to change everything ? They seem to have an innate desire to 'update' anything and everything in order to make it more attractive, or is the modern word 'relevant', to today's viewers. In doing so, they lose everything which initially made programmes successful and instead produce clones of other equally banal modern offerings. Tragically, this actually seems to be what today's illiterate and thrill-seeking audiences want, which says a great deal about modern viewers.

 

For my money, Ben Miller could make a wonderfully absent minded 'Doctor' and bring much of the original charm back to the role, and there must be many others who could do likewise. Unfortunately, the likelihood is that the new 'Doctor' will be someone chosen to demonstrate the BBC's politically correct stance on all things, so a one-legged lesbian of mixed parentage must be favourite.

 

God help us.