THOSE THAT NEED IT MOST

The nation’s in yet another downward doom spiral as a result of recent wholesale gas and oil price hikes resulting from Trump turmoil in the Middle East.

And naturally, the vociferous few are making the most noise to persuade the Treasury to milk the taxpayer cash cow into funding yet another energy bailout.

Instead of imposing profit caps to curb price gouging particularly in supply areas affecting households powered by oil-fired central heating, the penniless (and clueless) Rachel from Accounts is looking to target funding to ‘those who need it most’.

So, what formula or criteria will the Government use to work out who falls into the ‘Those Who Need It Most’ bucket?

Somehow, I can’t see it setting up a registration scheme to identify households with oil-fired central heating. Creating a ginormous spreadsheet to record such data would be way too much work or be deemed far too complex for civil service monkeys to get their head round. Without means of corroborating applicant data, this would be a fraudster’s dream, with oil-fired central heating suddenly leap-frogging other conventional means of keeping homes warm.

I ask again. Who exactly are ‘those who need it most’ and what is the IT that they’re most in need of? A job, smoked kippers, bag of coal, silken underpants, a capybara?

Without further qualification of this statement, it will only serve to rile up the honest and upright tax/bill paying citizens that have always done the right thing into another populist froth because they will automatically jump to the conclusion that the IT equals more money for benefit claimants.

And with Treasury coffers already stripped to the bone then it stands to reason that if money has to be found for those needing it most, it's only going to come from one place - the taxpayer.

Some benefit claimants can surely not qualify as ‘those who need MONEY most’ because I’d bet my hat that many are ‘earning’ more from the Welfare State than some of us are in employment. Handing out cash on a blanket basis to anyone already getting a handout is not in my view providing targeted support with the limited means available to the Treasury.

Besides which, we’re heading towards summer. Most peeps (aside from the elderly or those with medical conditions) normally switch their heating off around the end of March so the impact of any price increases is not immediate other than at the petrol pump. In a few months’ time, this war might be old news and wholesale prices may have dipped back to lower levels so rather than jumping the gun, would it not be more prudent for the Government to adopt the NHS’s wait and see approach before scraping the bottom of the taxpayer barrel again?

Throwing out money the Treasury doesn’t have to the whinging throng is setting a dangerous precedent. It gives rise to expectations that the Government will always provide cash in any given crisis. It’s not really the way to build backbone or resilience in a population that wobbles like a hysterical jelly every time what is deemed a national disaster occurs.

People need to adapt to survive and sometimes this lesson has to be learnt the hard way; through struggle, self-sacrifice, squaring up to adversity and not cowering in a corner. Previous generations got through the repercussions of war or much worse and it wasn’t necessarily by receiving Government handouts.

Far better to equip those ‘who need it most’ with the necessary financial skills or mechanisms to help build strength of character so that when a bad situation crops up, they can remain calm and look for a solution rather than put their hands out.

LAST HURRAH

By Jove – is that a capybara?

Have you seen these fugitives?

Samba, the mischievous rodent recently escaped from Marwell Zoo remains at large, the capybara equivalent of the elusive Lord Lucan whose whereabouts still remain unclear to this day.

On the other hand, I know exactly where my illustrious self is - contemplating the light at the end of the workplace tunnel which is now rapidly approaching almost as fast as a drone missile locked onto a gas refinery. Only 1 day left or more precisely, 3 working hours before I waltz off into the early retirement sunset.          Not that I’m counting…

And no, I haven’t changed my mind about giving up work. There’ll be no political U turns here. It kills me to have to say ‘this lady’s not for turning’ but for once Thatcher summed it up in a nutshell. Quick, mouthwash me!

I’m more than happy to be leaving my job for youth or robots or any other bugger that fancies spending their time sitting at a draughty desk pounding a keyboard all morning. I have other fish to fry including finishing off my not-quite-completed wood panelling project.

Leaving your job should be a time for celebration so cakes are in order. My colleagues have been treated to a selection of Mr Kipling’s finest, enough sugary treats to last the entire week. Well, why not? It’s the least I can do to make up for my defecting to the west before the statutory age.

I shall miss the buggers in my own not-that-bothered-with-the-rest-of-the-world kind of way. We’ve had some good laughs over the past 5 years but now it’s time to plough a new furrow, write life’s final chapter and enjoy some quality ‘me’ time before this knackered bag of bones gives up the ghost.

‘And now the end is near and so I face the final curtain’. Fitting lyrics sung by the Chairman of the Board (or should that be Bored?) as he went off to do it his way much in the same way, I’m offski to do it my way.

Goodbye old chums!  It's been swell.

PERSONA NON GRATA

Only one week to go!

There comes a time during every departing employee’s notice period when you realise that you’ve achieved the status of persona non grata. And without even trying!

You’re no longer invited to team meetings, included in group emails or even asked for your views on anything pertaining to current office practices. It’s as if you’ve suddenly ceased to exist or died behind your computer monitor. Truth is, you’ve become about as welcome as a tax demand or a dose of crabs.

Colleagues you previously enjoyed a good banter with no longer give you the time of day or stop to ask about your weekend because as far as they’re concerned, your team membership expired the moment you decided to jack it all in. People talk as if you’re not there, making plans to integrate your replacement without so much as a by your leave. Views of a persona non grata count for nothing.

It takes a lot of balls to endure this cold shoulder treatment but tough old birds like me have weathered worst storms. This is all par for the course on handing in your notice. Just gotta let it all wash over you like water off a duck’s back.

‘Nothing really matters to me’ sang Freddie and in these instances, he’s more than right.

SINKHOLE IN THE BUTTER TUB

Everyone has pet peeves, right. One of mine is unlicensed mining of dairy products.

Just take a look at this. A giant sinkhole has opened up in the butter tub.

Ugh!  Now there's potholes in the marg

I don’t imagine for one minute that this happened all by itself. The spread-drilling fairies did not creep into the kitchen overnight looking for a margarine well to exploit even though this might have proved quite lucrative given the sudden surge in oil prices due to war in the Middle East.

SOMEONE (and I know who because it wasn’t me and only two of us live here) decided to excavate a saturated fat super-pit, a creamy crater in the middle of the marg. It’s enough to curdle the milk of human kindness, that’s what it is! A buttery blight on the horizon.

F***s sake! Would it really be too much to ask for people to just smooth a knife over the surface without disturbing the fabric of reality? We don’t need dents in the dairy or ripples in the PURE pond.

Spread the blade nice and evenly. Almost regally. Like a royal wave in the back of a gilded carriage or armoured range rover. Should be a barely perceptible movement. There. Like that. Smoooooooth.

What to do about this aberration? To create an almighty fuss over what might be perceived as ‘nothing’ or to continue to butter my crumpets as if everything’s fine and dandy? Well, what would you do in my position?

NHS - TIRED OF WAITING

Regular readers of this blog will know there are 2 topics guaranteed to instantly rile me into revolutionary mode – these are Energy and the NHS. When these subjects are on the blogging agenda, look out!

Neatly shoehorned on the front page of today’s Telegraph between Trump and Tehran was this little gem:

Today's  Telegraph

It’s not a crime to tidy up information on a company database. Getting rid of unnecessary data, duplicate or defunct records is considered good housekeeping to ensure your golden records remain exactly that - current and uncluttered.

The tabloids are right to cast aspersions on NHS record keeping because when it comes to anything health service related, it’s not always what the doctor ordered.

Since the hand grenade has already been lobbed then I’m going to take this opportunity to add the view from the pleb on the street free and gratis to the mix.

I’d like to focus attention on some of the reasons quoted in the reportage as contributing to removals from waiting lists. Here goes:

Going Private – It’s no surprise that private healthcare insurance or treatments are on the increase given the length of time most of us are expected to wait before we can access the NHS. It’s completely unreasonable to expect patients to grin and bear it for months even years when pain becomes so excruciating that it begins to impact mental wellbeing and quality of life. Believe me, I know what it’s like to live with daily chronic pain as I’ve been doing so for around 20 years.

Pathways to care are as long as the Great Wall of China, many offering a whole host of ineffective remedies or self-care advice when what is needed are physical medical interventions or surgery to deal with the root cause. Wait and See is the NHS mantra. What for? Going private not only gives you a fast-track pass to wellbeing but does so in a way that is not a ‘one size fits all’ approach. What’s more, you don’t even need private health insurance because most private hospitals/clinics offer interest free self-funding options for treatment.

The other reason peeps are going private is not always through choice but because over the years, the NHS has been sneakily offloading treatments into the private sector (ear syringing/dentistry etc). Bean counters decreed that GPs should no longer treat or prescribe for small, routine ailments forcing us all into the hands of private pharmacies who are more than happy to empty your purse for you. Although sometimes this can work in your favour especially if the over-the-counter remedy is cheaper than the average cost of a prescription which is now almost £10 per item.

Expect this trend to continue particularly when care is fully offloaded into the community. Any ailment categorised as being a result of natural ‘wear and tear’ or due to old age such as arthritis or conditions for which the NHS currently see as having no cure are likely to be added to this heap. The list of what you’ll be required to pay for will just grow and grow and grow leaving hospitals to deal with emergency life-threatening care only. All routine stuff will eventually be privatised.

Death – A direct consequence of the ‘Wait & See’ approach to healthcare and probably the NHS’s preferred outcome since it results in a permanent solution to any further expenses being incurred. The House of Lords may be deliberately scuppering the Assisted Dying Bill but who needs a trip to Switzerland when you’ve got the NHS. Almost everyday there’s one story or another about some poor bugger who died as a result of poor untimely diagnosis by doctors ie Sepsis. Sad but true.

Technology – Can’t kill you but it sure as hell contributes to a digital death since most of us lose the will to live trying to grapple with the whys and wherefores of new online portals to access healthcare.

It wouldn’t be so bad if someone actually phoned you to ask if you still needed a place on the NHS waiting list but most of the time, your spot has to be re-confirmed using a URL link sent to a smartphone. The elderly, techno luddites or even those peeps like me who don’t want a smartphone fail to understand why they suddenly aren’t in the treatment queue anymore all because they didn’t know what to do with a text message or couldn’t respond electronically.

I appreciate the NHS need to find out if anyone’s fallen into the first two categories but generic texting is not the answer for everyone.

There’s something this reportage hasn’t touched upon but I’m going to throw this out there anyway now I’m on my soapbox and that is a move towards more ‘evidence based’ treating of conditions.

Many a time I’ve read reports in the media about some new drug, therapy or treatment for specific conditions which NICE (National Institute for Health & Care Excellence) has decreed is either too expensive or doesn’t have enough specific concrete evidence to back up using it.

I have to chuckle every time I see NICE mentioned because it’s the only corporate entity that fails to live up to its name!

How much ‘evidence’ is enough to warrant prescribing new medications or treatments? How is this ‘evidence’ gathered? And how long a period should it be gathered for before NICE can make a decision on whether or not to offer it to patients? How many more questions can I squeeze into one paragraph?

Everything ultimately boils down to money, something the NHS struggle to manage almost as ineffectively as their patient database. Health outcomes should not be determined by an ROI (return on investment) algorithm. For someone with a chronic or terminal condition, an improvement even by a small percent can have a huge impact on their quality of life, something which I feel NICE fail to take into account because they’re too busy staring at the bottom line.

Fiddling patient waiting lists is the least of our worries. What is more important is challenging the status quo to get speedy diagnosis and access to effective treatments.

PUMP UP THE PROFITS

War! What is it good for? Lining people’s pockets.

Since war broke out in the Middle East, the neighbourhood grapevine is full of nothing but chit-chat pertaining to the price of fuel or more specifically how much it’s gone up in the past few weeks.

‘Oooooh, it’s just blatant profiteering’ screech the already squeezed top, middle and bottom in response to headlines concerning the price of a barrel of Brent crude. It’ll soon be cheaper to buy said barrel of oil than a litre of diesel the way things are going.

Just a quick visual reminder of where money goes when you fill up your tank. This nice little pie chart taken from the Petrolprices.com website clearly shows the various components that make up the cost of a litre of fuel.

Breakdown of the cost of fuel

Before war broke out, I paid a visit to my local supermarket filling station and paid about £1.44 for a litre of diesel. Curious to find out how this breaks down, I’ve used the percentages in the above pie chart to produce my own table showing exactly who is getting what every time I buy a litre of diesel.

Who gets what when I fill my car

Unsurprisingly it’s not petrol retailers who are trousering the lion’s share of pump prices but the Government.

More than half of the cost of a litre of fuel (54.5%) goes into Treasury coffers so the higher the price per litre, the more money flows back to the Chancellor from fuel duty and VAT.

Savvy petrol retail companies can hedge against rising wholesale costs with exchange traded futures, a stock market instrument that allows you to buy an asset for a set price on an agreed date. Unless you are simply speculating on oil price movements, you can take physical delivery of the asset (petrol or diesel) at an agreed future date. Such trades enable buyers of commodities to lock in cheaper prices for items they might need later on.

I suspect many petrol retailers probably bought their fuel many months ago when wholesale prices were considerably cheaper so agreed there is a degree of profiteering by anyone who hedged against price fluctuations and is now using older fuel stocks.

However, if you were not smart enough to hedge in advance then finding that extra cash to fund supplies at increased wholesale costs is definitely going to eat into your profit margin meaning any differences are likely to be passed straight down the line.

As the Government are not going to forego their slice of the pie any time soon and petrol retailers won’t want to compromise their profits then ergo it follows that motorists must pick up the tab.

Fuel duty raises a huge chunk of cash, somewhere in the region of about £24 billion quid every year. Persuading everyone to drive electric cars is pushing down revenue generated by fuel duty. Unless the Government can find a creative way of recovering that lost duty from electric car drivers then it will no doubt use the war to make hay whilst the sun shines.

I hope the Reevester uses that unexpected bonus from fuel duty/VAT receipts to provide much needed support particularly to those living in rural communities reliant on oil fired central heating.  However, as spring moves into summer then it follows less folks will be using heating so I suspect the Government will adopt their usual lets wait and see approach before rushing to spend any money.

When you stop to crunch the numbers, is it any wonder then that petrol retailers are just a little bit grumpy at being accused of profiteering when in reality it’s more of a case of the political pot calling the petrol forecourts kettle black.

THREE WEEKS TO GO

A few drones appear to have flown over the office at the weekend completely re-arranging our workplace layout. Some might say for the better as magically the room visually appears much larger just by having moved a few desks and filing cabinets. It’s amazing what a simple re-shuffle can do to increase available space.

However, it seems the music on the furniture merry-go-round stopped leaving me almost without a chair to sit on. My desk has been shoe-horned into the ‘Billy no-mates’ corner, a space so cramped that I’m considering changing my name to Sara Dean (sardine). It’s a desk with a view of our customer car park since it’s now right by the window. Whilst that might sound idyllic to some peeps, having sat in a chilly draught all morning I can assure you it’s not. No doubt when the low springtime sun re-appears, it’ll be like working under an interrogation spotlight.

The plastic desk bubble I’d desperately clung onto since Covid gone. How will I keep everyone’s germs out now? Thanks to a daily cocktail of vitamin supplements I’d successfully gotten through those winter months carefully dodging all the coughs, sniffles and squeaky bum episodes brought in by the hoi polloi but without my plastic protector, I may as well be wearing a ‘party here’ badge inviting all microbes round for a intimate tete-a-tete chez moi.

Thank goodness I’ve only three weeks of viral exposure and chilblains left to endure. If I hadn’t already handed in my notice, this definitely would have been the final straw.

Mrs Fannypack's survival tips for cold office workers

YEAR OF THE WAR HORSE

Looks like 2026 is shaping up to be the Year of the War Horse now that Trump has decided to bomb the crap out of the Middle East for reasons known only to orange jelly babies.

Great film and book

Entertaining sub titles on the Beeb’s morning news reportage – HMS Dragon still docked at Pompey apparently waiting for a beautician. Hilarious! Clearly the AI subtitle monkey can’t distinguish between the words ‘munitions’ and ‘beauticians.’ 

I think I prefer their erroneous version because the thought of going to war without perfectly manicured nails, exfoliated skin or unwaxed upper lip is just unthinkable.

Profiteering at the pumps, inflation wave and energy price cap increases all heading our way just when I thought the UK might have been turning an economic corner. It’s another one of those unfortunate setbacks for the Government and personal finances - life won’t be getting any cheaper any time soon!

However, global conflict is no excuse for changing one’s plans. Prices may rocket but I’m still heading for the exit come what may. We'll just have to manage somehow.

THE ORDER OF THINGS

Arctic blast on the way. Cheapest way to keep warm? Get a cat rug.

Months ago, I bought a small brown throw on one of my charity shop trips to keep me warm whilst knitting in front of the telly. Bertie had other ideas and has now commandeered it as his own personal cat bed.

Nice rug 

Not to be thwarted in my efforts to keep arctic chills at bay, I’ve now realised that by draping the rug over my lap to create a human cat bed, I can mooch all his kitty heat at the same time as he absorbs mine. It’s a symbiotic relationship worthy of a Blue Planet documentary.

There is a natural order of things that exists in the animal kingdom and so too in the world of household renovations. The trick is to work out what that order is to successfully bring about the desired end result.

I’ve decided that my wood panelling natural order of things is as follows:

1. Build all panelled sections to the point that they are ready to prime/paint.
2. Apply two coats of primer, sanding everything lightly between coats
3. Mask up the primed panels with a dust sheet
4. Paint the walls above each panelled area with two coats of matt emulsion
5. Carefully remove dust sheets
6. Paint all panelled sections with your choice of colour using silk or eggshell finish paint.

By painting the walls first, I hope to avoid covering my wood panels with unsightly splashes of coloured paint.

What I haven’t decided is whether or not to paint the panels white to create a contrast to the darker green walls or to use what is known as colour drenching.

Colour drenching is a technique used by interior decorators whereby they paint all available surfaces in the same colour or in similar colour tones. Skirting, architraves, coving, pipework even radiators would all be painted exactly the same. Apparently having everything the same shade creates an aura of sophistication, cohesion and can sometimes make rooms look bigger.

Since adding a bit of posh was the whole point of fitting panels to the corridor in the first place then I will make my final choice once the walls have been painted as then I can assess the effect on the overall order of things using the primed panels to help make the decision.

In the meantime, just need temperatures to climb into double figures and remain continuously high so that I can press on with some painting.

FOUR WEEKS TO GO

Not long now before we spring forward into British Summer Time. In anticipation of my own ‘springing forward’ into early retirement, I’ve already packed the contents of my office desk. Yep, one-way ticket to the Principality of Cuppa & Feet-Up bought and paid for.

Mug, pot plant, a few framed family photos, a wrung-out tube of hand-cream, packet of out-of-date Lemsip, a collection of pocket-tissues (unused) and a diverse selection of pharmaceuticals to alleviate all those pains in the neck, hands and arse caused by sedentary office job all squeezed into a small cardboard box. Drawers cleared. Papers shredded. A zillion biros handed back to the Stationery Monitor.

Is that it? Five years of service and that motley collection of tut is all I’ve got to bring home. In fact, I would have qualified for a length of service award to mark the passing of the last 5 years but I’ll eat my hat if our disorganised management actually remember to arrange a certificate before I leg it.

Four weeks to go and if this morning’s anything to go by then the rest of the month is due to rapidly descend into headless chicken chaos. It transpires that my replacement is starting next Monday which my boss had conveniently forgotten to mention. In her usual last-minute.com manner she’s now decided to re-organise all the office furniture because that’s what you do when you’ve got new starters starting. Advance strategic planning notably absent from her management tool kit despite working in a busy financial environment.

As a self-confessed control freak being surrounded by disorganised numpties is my worst possible nightmare. Is it any wonder I’m heading for the exit? Had I been in charge of our team, I would have re-arranged the furniture weeks ago in readiness for staff changes. 

But there you go. Everyone’s different so head down, drink coffee and keep crossing the days off the desk calendar until month end.

FUNDED BY YOU

Independence Day? Not again!!!

The Beeb’s Royal Charter is up for renewal next year and already the emotional blackmail has begun. ‘Funded by You’ - a much over-used slogan continually reminding us that when it comes to telly, you’ve no other choice but to get a licence in order to watch it. An undemocratic unpopular TV tax if ever there was one.

Funded by you?  Wish it wasn't

I don’t know about you but I’m more than happy to pay for something I want. Honestly though, the bilge that passes for TV these days has me scrabbling through my DVD collection more and more as time goes on.

Being a saddo with far too much time on my hands in the afternoons, I’ve perused this week’s tabloid TV guide to see how many films the BBC have on offer. The data is bleak.

BBC 1 has only 2 films scheduled after 5pm (Weds & Friday) both of which are on after midnight. Brilliant if you’re Count Dracula but pants for us mere mortals.

In contrast, BBC 2 is showing films almost nightly but all except one movie are scheduled to start after 11 pm. Again, brilliant for Count Dracula or all those retired/unemployed/night owls but pants for the working majority.

The rest of the Beeb’s schedule is peppered with the kind of shite you’d only see on a pig farm. It stinks!

Why am I being robbed of £180 per year for this muck? My Netflix subscription only costs me £72 per annum. I want recent films, thrilling dramas or interesting documentaries and I’d like to see them before I go to bed thank you very much, particularly during the working week which means prior to 10 pm.

I also want choice! Scrap the TV licence altogether then completely re-engineer the Beeb. In my ideal TV world, I would:

Set up a dedicated BBC sports channel so that anything which involves a bat/ball/cue/dart/racket or other form of physical exertion are removed from everyday viewing and broadcast to those peeps who are genuinely interested.

Same goes for all that reality tripe that gets served up daily. These types of programmes only fit for viewers with the IQ of a bag of compost would be consigned to a dedicated BBC Entertainment channel and taken off terrestrial TV altogether.

I would also set up a subscription service for BBC iPlayer so that those who do want to watch Beeb programmes pay for it.  It would be competitively priced to rival Prime or Netflix and be considerably cheaper than it is now.

Leave a basic free terrestrial service covering news, documentaries and kids TV and fund this by commercial advertising revenues like all the other channels do. This new Basic Beeb to include social education programmes covering topics such as finance, investing, fraud protection, DIY, gardening,travel and wellbeing.

Scrap this TV tax I say!! Its no longer serving the purpose in today’s modern streaming society where consumers want to pick what to watch and when to watch it. No-one really has time to sit down all evening to view stuff even more so when there’s nothing especially good to see. Most of us just want to ‘binge’ when it comes to watching telly, filling our heads with a never-ending glut of soaps or serials.

As there’s nothing worthwhile on the box, the other half and I have created the Independence Day Game which basically involves putting a pound in a pot every time this movie or its sequel is broadcast. To give you an idea of how often this film gets repeated, there’s already a fiver in the jam jar.

How often is this film shown on telly?

If Independence Day doesn't float your boat then try the Men In Black franchise but be warned, you may end up bankrupt as these movies get aired more than Lord Mandy's baggy white underpants.

Since Independence Day appears to be the go-to slot filler on pretty much every channel then looks like our replacement TV licence is going to be funded by repetition rather than by you.

YEAR OF THE HORSE

Joyous celebrations! 2026 is the Year of the Horse, a kind of Chinese Auld Nags Syne. 

Quick, speed dial the 'chinky'. Whoops! Forgot we can’t say that anymore. Scrub that last sentence, replace with – telephone the purveyor of Oriental world cuisine. I’ll have Singapore noodles, spare ribs with a side of sweet and sour chicken balls. Don’t spare the horses though, I’m starving!!

What sort of horsey year will 2026 turn out to be, I wonder? Let’s see what’s in my fortune cookie…

I can predict the future

Will it be a Red Rum sort of year? Yay or neigh? By some peculiar quirk of fate, this load of jockeys in charge of the country might actually smash the gangs, boost growth and lower our energy bills in an unprecedented grand national triple win much like our four-legged hero did back in the 70s. Don’t bet on any winnings from this ‘acca’ any time soon says the cookie.

Red Rum - three times Grand National winner

My second cookie predicts a Shergar scenario where our once mighty ‘island of strangers’ (he said it not me) mysteriously disappears, sunk by a tidal wave of protests, pollution and poverty. No-one ever did find out what happened to this infamous nag. By the same token, no-one is ever likely to pin-point exactly where it all went wrong for Britain.

Whatever happened to Shergar?

And a third cookie (munch, munch) reveals hot-to-trot fortunes may well turn out to be a Mr Ed. Muppet Miliband wakes in the shower one morning to find that all his crazy net zero schemes were just a bad dream. As he soaps his nether regions, he wonders if the pits have re-opened, Government coffers are flowing with revenue generated from North Sea fossil fuels or Britain’s motor industry is booming thanks to increased production of petrol cars. Hang on, was that all a dream?

Trust me - I'll bring down your energy bills

Bollocks! I’ve just dropped a sauce-smeared chicken ball onto the keyboard. This is what happens when you’re lunching and blogging on the hoof.

These fortune cookies are so scrummy though, I’m just going to have to continue chomping my way through the entire box until I’ve uncovered a fortuitous prediction featuring golden unicorns or a sure-fire winner in the 3.30 at Kempton Park.

Mmmm - bloody tasty!

Happy Year of the Horse to you all!

WOOD PANELS - KINKY BIT

If ever there was a need for something kinky to take our minds off this awful wet weather, our lack of medals in the winter Olympics or the continual scraping of the political barrel in a bid to oust Hanging-on-by-an-ear Keir then this is it.

Rally the DIY troops, unexpected sunshine forecast. There’s not a moment of timber cutting time to lose!

Wood panelling efforts are now directed to the corridor’s kinky bit which we’ve saved until last.

OMG - this looks difficult

Getting kinky

This kinky corner section is made up of 3 separate wall areas, none of them equal in size so any attempts to make things look symmetrical are well and truly out of the window. You can only do your best with what you’ve got to work with.

As before, beginning at the bottom then working up each section. Start by dry fitting the bottom horizontal rail, cutting out individual pieces to accommodate electric sockets or other sticking out items.

Begin at the bottom

To get everything to flow neatly round the kinks, the other half has created a mitred edge on one end of each long horizontal piece. I hope to disguise these unsightly joins with a ton of decorator’s caulk.

Sort of mitred joints to get round the corner

Add your vertical side pieces to each of the larger sections followed by mitred top pieces to create two big squares. In a photo both squares look almost the same size but there is about a 10 cm difference in the width of each one. I guess I could have fiddled with the width of the vertical pieces to try to get round this but as I want to keep everything looking the same then I’m just going to leave it as it is.

Create each side square section first

You might have noticed that I've not added vertical pieces to the smaller middle square. On the dry fit, I did put some in but it left a ridiculously tiny area in the middle which would have made the whole panel run look odd so executive decision taken to not use additional verticals on this bit.

Finish each square with pine mouldings

Finish the middle section with a horizontal rail then add pine frame mouldings to the inside edge of each square section. Looks better than I thought it would do and aside from the mitred MDF joins, not as complicated as I anticipated.

Top with pine bead

Top all three sections with thin pine bead and dado rail then caulk every gap to within an inch of its life.

Caulk every single gap

Add dado rail

Our kinky bit finished. It’s a miracle - not a tear shed or a voice raised this time. Must be this glorious sunshine or perhaps it’s the Valentines Day effect. Kiss, kiss. Hug, hug. Darling, pass me the glue gun. Yes, Honey Bun.

Kinky bit finished and ready for priming

WOOD PANELS - RAD WALL

Just how much more rain is going to fall? Having seen off not-so-dry January, it now looks like flood-alert February is going to continue to bring more of the same.

Quite frankly, I’m sick of getting soaked to the skin on the daily walk home from work and only wish that the British climate would hurry up and change for something a little more equatorial, less aquatic. At this rate, I’ll be swapping walking boots for an inflatable kayak as many roads round these parts have turned into urban reservoirs or been closed altogether.

Since gardening is temporarily off the agenda, attention has turned to the unfinished wood panelling project begun before Christmas. Yes, where was I on that one?

Ah, the long radiator wall. On the face of it, this looks fairly straight forward now the rad has been removed but now that I’ve had a closer look then perhaps not.

BEFORE - the rad wall

What I'm hoping for on this wall

For starters there’s the pipework, BT box and fibre optic broadband cable to factor in along the bottom rail. I’ve had to carefully plot the location of these on the lower pieces of MDF then cut out shaped sections to accommodate them. Do this first as you will not be able to dry fit anything until the lower sections can be neatly positioned.

Template and cut round any fixtures

Secondly, the wall is long. Over 3.5 metres long. Most timber or MDF sheets are sold in 2.4 metre lengths so to maintain the overall symmetry, the wall has been divided into two equal sections with all measurements being calculated from a central point for the longer horizontal pieces. Draw a line down the wall at this central point.

Once the shaped horizontal rails have been stuck in place at the bottom of the wall, position the first vertical panels at either end of the entire wall. I have used 5 verticals in total in the design of this section.

Using the middle line drawn down the wall, centre the third vertical panel across the line and stick in place.

Stick end and middle vertical pieces in place

Measure the available gap between the end panel and the central vertical panel. Divide in two to arrive at the mid-point then draw another line down the wall. Do the same on both sides. These pencil lines will mark the place at which the remaining two vertical panels are centred.

Voila – all vertical panels should be evenly spaced along the wall giving a nice symmetrical look to things.

Five evenly spaced vertical pieces

Finally, stick the two horizontal rails on top of the vertical panels taking care that these join together in the middle of the vertical piece.

Horizontal pieces joined across centre vertical

As before I have finished the panels with some pine moulding inserted into each square section, cut to form a neat frame with mitred corners.

Add pine mouldings to each square

Topping the entire section with a length of pine stripwood from B & Q:

Pine stripwood used to cap MDF

Then finished off with Cheshire Mouldings dado rail as it’s been almost impossible to find a rebated dado rail that would fit neatly on the top of the MDF horizontal pieces.

Dado moulding stuck on top of the stripwood

Lastly, lightly sand any bits sticking out of panel joins then use decorators caulk to fill any unsightly gaps.  Re-sand the caulked joints once dry.  Hurrah!  At last the rad wall is ready for priming.

TRUE FRIENDSHIP

Much is being made in the media of Lord Mandy’s and a whole host of other people’s friendship to defunct paedophile Jeffrey Epstein but instead of using this opportunity to be judgy or scandal-monger, why don’t we ask ourselves this - what is the meaning of true friendship?

Freddie Mercury had the right idea when he sang:

Friends will be friends
When you're through with life and all hope is lost
Hold out your hand 'cause friends will be friends
Right till the end

Miss you Freddie

Real friends will hold out a hand regardless of whether that recipient is Jeffrey Epstein or someone else. You don’t drop friends just because they’ve committed some transgression or other. I mean, who among us is perfect? And who are we to judge why it is that people choose to stand by their friends even when society has labelled that person a monster.

I’m not condoning the actions of either Epstein or Lord Mandy. They’ve done what they did for reasons best known to themselves but what I’m saying is that if you value yourself as a true friend to someone then surely that means sticking by them through thick or thin and not dropping them like a hot potato because an unpleasant side to their character has come to light that you didn’t know about or because the world at large is tarring everyone beknown to that individual with the same brush.

‘To err is human, to forgive divine’ as the proverb goes. You can’t profess to know all the inner workings of your friends. We can all make errors of judgement when it comes to assessing people’s characters because there’s no tick box form out there that is used to select friends. Generally, you gravitate to those who support, love or encourage you in your endeavours. And of course, sometimes you get it wrong.

But when you do, surely you can find it in your heart to forgive if you value their friendship both past, present and as Freddie said, right to the end.

True friends of Lord Mandy are not likely to berate him for his choice of non-fashionable undies paraded across the tabloids like After Eight mints handed round the dinner table following a gut busting supper. Instead, I hope they’ll try to understand what prompted him to buy such awful baggy white under-crackers and steer him to trendier choices going forward. Selling state secrets for cash though, that probably is unforgivable even if he is a friend.

Mandy Pants

Epstein died over 5 years ago yet still we’re obsessing over him. He did what he did. He ruined a lot of lives. The continual muck-raking is still ruining a lot of lives. Why must we keep digging through his crusty old laundry basket looking for even more musty old linen to air in public?  Hasn't enough damage been already done?

I hope that given time, all victims will find peace in their hearts and the inner strength to move on with their lives.  

SPANIEL EARS

Peeling off my sodden togs after another squelchy walk home from work, I happened to notice that my pair of once pert juicy grapefruits were hanging down despondently like a couple of deflated balloons.

‘Spaniel ears’ as one of the more raucous members of our team calls them every time the topic of conversation veers round to the joys of old age or dieting.

What happens to boobs as you age

As I gaze down at these two sad puppies, it also dawns on me that the pair are not symmetrically matched either. One side is definitely larger than the other which means that my very own planetary orbit has been on a tilt since puberty. Gravity is most certainly not your bestie once you hit 50 and has definitely slung its hook after 60.

If that wasn’t bad enough, my former furry friend is now looking more and more like a mangy bedraggled badger than an under-pruned lady bush. Grey hairs it seems are not just confined to your bonce. There’s no escaping the fact that getting old is truly a physically sorry state of affairs.

Rather than splashing the cash on MDF for wood panelling maybe I should instead use the funds to implement my own levelling up agenda. A few well aimed tweaks here or there could turn these south-facing spaniel ears into a magnificent pair of sit-up-and-beg pedigree chums. If only I could find a few thousand quid stuffed down the back of the sofa.

Everything's gone south

All the chest presses in the world aren’t going to cure these bad boys any time soon so I guess its going to be a case of just making the most of the best window dressing available plus a few mechanically engineered bras to keep these spaniel ears looking as perky as possible.

WORK IS NOT THE ENEMY

And this week’s gold medal in the Tabloid Winter Olympics goes to The Times for giving me a hernia-inducing belly laugh.

The Your-Having-A-Laugh Medal

Seriously though I was almost reaching for the Tena Lady after reading an article entitled ‘Here’s Why You Shouldn’t Touch Your Pension Lump Sum in Your Fifties.’

Gold medal journalism

The last time I had such a monumentally hysterical fit of the giggles was during the cowboy fart scene in Blazing Saddles. You know the one. Still brings tears to my eyes even thinking about it today.

So, what was it about this article that tickled my fancy? It was mostly the paragraph headed up ‘Work Isn’t the Enemy’ and the advice that reframing how you perceive your job is perhaps better than taking early retirement. You’re kidding, right?

Well, as one who is on the cusps of taking early retirement then I’ll quantify why I’m not going to be reframing my perception of work any time soon with just one word – Boxer.

Have you read Animal Farm, Bec? Yes? No? If you haven’t then perhaps you’ll be interested to learn what happened to Boxer.

Boxer from Animal Farm by George Orwell

Boxer was Animal Farm’s cart-horse, strong of heart and hoof. His mantra ‘I will work harder’ is probably what lead to his eventual sticky downfall. Almost killed from years of overwork whilst building a windmill, Boxer continued to slave away on the belief that after all his hard work he’d eventually be retired and put out to pasture. Unfortunately for poor Boxer, he was betrayed by his greedy fat pig paymasters who having exploited him to the nth degree, sold him to the Knackers Yard once he was no longer able to perform.

And this Boxer principle is probably why so many of us choose to take early retirement once we can afford to because working yourself into the ground only to be betrayed by the fat pig paymasters (Government) who promise you the world in exchange for continued tax payments is not what we signed up for.

Like Boxer, my body is already physically broken with painful ailments affected by repetitive actions such as keyboarding, prolonged periods of sitting or having to deal with stressful workplace situations. It would be daft not to avail myself of the Get-Out-Of-Jail pension card as that’s my only hope of having a fighting chance of being able to enjoy my golden years before I end up being sold to the Knackers.

For me and many other ‘Boxers’ out there, it simply isn’t a case of finding a different job or re-framing our perceptions of employment but having the freedom to choose the path of our own destiny.

The article goes on to say that early retirement may not be all it’s cracked up to be. And how do you know this? Did you survey millions of people who took early retirement for feedback on whether they felt better for leaving the rat race? No, I guess not.

I didn't let pension rules dictate my life decision because I’m one of those obstinate people who rarely take notice of what others tell me I should be doing with my life. I prefer to make my own informed decisions based on a good deal of research, spreadsheets and number crunching.

Early retirement is what you make it – same as the rest of the time that’s lead up to this point. If you don’t think you can find stuff to do to take the place of employment then by all means, keep at it but I’ll tell you this – work WILL NOT set you free.

ECONOMICALLY INACTIVE

Countdown to doing nothing has officially begun. In around 2 months I will be joining the ranks of those deemed ‘economically inactive’ by the Treasury. Do I care? Not one jot! I’ve paid into the coffers for over 43 years, enough is enough.

Cash poor, time rich that’ll be me. The thought of having nothing to do after a lifetime of employment is actually quite a scary prospect. Work defines many of us. We have careers, companies, colleagues. Discussing what has or hasn’t happened in the office on any given day is our lifeblood so what happens when all of that disappears into the ether? I guess I’m about to find out.

Like a political party, I can already feel my brain splitting itself into two camps; the Yahoo-I’m-Finally-Free faction and the Not-A Moment-to-Lose faction.

The Yahoos are relishing the prospect of total unfettered freedom. The freedom to do what you want, when you want and with no-one to answer to. Captain of the good ship Idleness sailing the seas of laissez-faire. I can hibernate all winter long if I choose to. Unkempt, unwashed and unconcerned about anything other than the time of my next cuppa.

I’ll have so much time on my hands that for once I’ll be able to squander it. Guilt free! Time rich. Time can’t be taxed so I’ll be a High Time Worth Individual, a multi-minute millionaire with complete freedom to do as little as possible. No more getting up at 6.30 am to join the rat race.

On the other hand, the Not-A-Moment-to-Lose part of my brain is drawing up a To Do list of mammoth proportions because essentially, it’s following the mantra that if you stop, you die.

Like drawing up a bucket list, this is a list of all those things I always said I’d do on retirement which in my case was take up photography or oil painting. I’ve set aside a notebook to jot down all those ‘been meaning to do this’ projects so I can race into retirement with a master plan that leaves little room for boredom or the desire to return to the rank and file.

Already on the To-Do-In-Retirement List or POSER Plan are the following:

• Complete wall panelling downstairs
• Rip up old corridor carpet for replacement flooring
• Take up wild water swimming
• Consider joining the local WI group
• Dig large hole in garden for a pond
• Finish itinerary for a trip to east coast of Australia
• Do more volunteering
• Buy a sketch book and have an art attack
• Climb Snowdonia
• Gardening, gardening and more gardening
• Become a Super-Blogger
• Sign up for those free local council Heart Smart walks

And that’s just for starters because as all of us compulsive ‘A-listers’ know, once you start listing stuff it just goes on and on and on …

With all of the above to be getting on with, I really don’t see where I’d have time to fit a job into the equation so it’s just as well I won’t need to.