h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This is to celebrate having got to that age that that oik named Pinniped finds too dreadful to contemplate. (Recentlyish, and 'friends' suitably marked the occasion so that it was unmissed by anyone in the village despite my fleeing to Aberdeen for the week, so there's no need for any further marking of the event. All out of date now, anyway. Move along and nothing to see and all that. And anyway, who's counting and what do numbers mean.)

If you can do anything at this beyond-thinking-about age, it's harrrumph, right?

Well I think so, so two harrumphs:

Harrrrumph one. It has been announced, as a result of many enquiries, that NHS Pension Scheme members must 'demonstrate a clear intention to retire' before they can have their pension.

Seems reasonable.

Clarifying further; a Scheme member must resign and Must Not return to NHS employment within 24 hours.

!

And! If a scheme member has more than one NHS job, they must resign from sufficient of them, for 24 hours, to reduce their weekly work to at most 16 hours.

!!




Harrrrumph two.

Age discrimination in the UK ends today. Good-oh.

This means, according to advice received, that words like lively and dynamic are no longer to be used in recruitment ads as these are ageist.

!!!

Because they could only possibly be applicable to the 'young'.

Harrumph!

Fled to Aberdeen for it, did you?

Age is a frame of mind. Everything in life is a mixed bag. There are some things about getting older that are positively liberating. Not that a seal would take pleasure from any of it.

I'm looking forward to retirement. My pension is vested and secure. I'm even old enough to collect social security before it goes belly up. (I hope your national retirement schemes are in better long-term shape than ours.)

Fled, yes. Moving target on the day itself. Didn't work, but.

Did a decade ago though . Started off at midnight just off the Hebrides and finished the day on the north east coast (Aberdeen again). Fantastic journey, very scenic, no one caught up.

This decade's trip was still a good one, even if the evasive action bit didn't work out.

Glad your pension's ok. Mine too (though not up to NHS standards.) - touching wood the Govt. takes no drastic action... Can't say I'm looking forward to it particularly though, because this 3 days a week I do suits very well. Well, usually. I'm not particularly enjoying working out why our first VAT return says we've sales of £36m. That's out by a power of ten. Stil, looking for £33m is much more interesting than 3p.

Three days a week sounds lovely. At least I'm back down to a 40 hour week. Progress is being made.

I have 3 options. I can take two thirds of F's pension when I'm 60 and my work pension. Which means I'd need a part-time job as a supplement. Or I can work until I'm 62 and get a larger amount on both. Or wait until I'm 66 and get both of them at the full amount.

Dear ageing friend - unlively and fleeing from all!

Happy birthday, my dear even if it was a couple of weeks ago and you wanted - like Garbo - to be alone!.

I hardly understood a word of your second oistiung to Hypatia. . All about millions of pension money. Thank goodness that I never made it in my first year of B.Com.

Have you ben to the islands this year - or only to Cielo. I haed such fun reading that thread again. It must have been such a super holiday.

I have just had my hair done and look a magnificent redhead!. I think I an going to put a yashmak over my face and then I shall be able to face the world!!.

I send you a great many very fragrant red s plus lilies - the St. Joseph ones, with some lovely honeysuckle entiwined.

With belated good wishes from K and I

Christiane AR1

"Old age is always fifteen years older than I am."

Bernard Baruch (1870–1965), U.S. financier. quoted in Observer (London, Aug. 21, 1955).

http://www.amazon.com/Age-Always-Years-Older-Than/dp/0740718924



Here, over the age of sixty, you have free travel on all public transport. Fun, eh?

Some time yet for me: I'm in my early twenties.

TRiG.

Free travel for seniors is a great perk. I knew you got free bus passes in England if you've over 60. Found that out from watching Hetty Wainthrop Investigates. Do you get free rail passes too? And subway passes in the city? What a deal.

Of couirse where I live there isn't any public transportation to ride for free or otherwise. At least not of the local variety.

Christiane, my mother and sister are natural redheads. I dyed my hair red once upon a time, but it didn't suit me nearly a well as it does them.

As Hyp's naturally red headed sister, I must confess that it isn't red any more--at least naturally. I have the freckles, so I may as well have the red hair to go with it. Besides, the gray in my hair is "ugly", unlike Hyp's. What little gray she has is silvery rather than yellow.

While we are speaking about hair, mine has been many colors through the years, but I still prefer the reddish hues--not bright red, mind you--just sort of red.

Public transport? HARRRUMPH!

We've two buses per week here. Forget the time, (so easy when you've a few decades under your belt), miss your bus home, and it's three nights sleeping in a Tesco trolley by the bus stop till the next one comes.

AR1 the Red! ! I'll call by the other thread and explain all the pensions, millions, and Value Added Tax stuff .

Hyp, no free passes for trains and tubes here. But the local council do give you £7.50 of travel tokens .

This will take you one fifth the way to London, if you get a cheap rate. Or ... to Crewe and back. Crewe has a very large railway junction, where you can 'spot' trains, and ... a bigger supermarket. Or you could go twice a year to the Council offices in Wem to harrrumph about the inadequacy of their tokens.

Hair colouring - I never have. I did like the dark purple/maroon my niece had once.

Hyp, in the Midlands (UK) we get free bus/train/metro passes at 60, but they only cover our local transport authority area, not the whole country.

Lucky Australia. A friend of mine is planning a wonderful trip on her pass.

Websailor

Hey, does that mean you're older than I am?

That's made my day...

Oh yeah, and I'm back. As oiltowns go, Calgary is SO much er than Aberdeen

When you're older, Pin, you'll learn to appreciate 15th century seats of learning above jumped up ex-colonial trading posts.

I am sorry you got rejected by the Mounties, though, you'd have suited the hat.

Hey Waz, happy (belated) birthday!

Thanks Willem .

I'm putting the baobab down by the front gate. The aloe and the thorn tree are in the back garden making a nice group with the gage tree and the buddlia. The giraffe and rhino are having a wander down the road to suss out their new whereabouts. They're actually going in the direction of the pub, atm.

Pin must have visited a different Calgary than most folks.

That'll be it. I saw a website referring to it as the Californian 'Dallas'!

Canadian 'Dallas' I mean!

Been googling Aberdeen.

this is hardly harrumphing...

Who cares.

An "!" I didn't know - Union St, the main, 2 mile long high street of Aberdeen (http://www.mysterious-scotland.com/Aberdeen1.jpg), is built on a viaduct. An 'engineering feat of its time' (1801-05). The street is built on enormous granite arches spanning a valley. The project bankrupted the town. Minor blip - Aberdeen's been going since before 1124, and is still going strong.

Going to see if I find any traces of granite arches next time I'm there.

And something else . Aberdeen gave shelter to Robert the Bruce and were rewarded by his waiving their land rent. The savings went into a 'Common Good Fund' and are still, *still*, that's since the 15thC, being used to pay for its parks and such like.

It has some beautiful parks.

I'd like to find out more about that. It's brilliant. Good old Robert.

I never said Calgary was

I only said it was way er than Aberdeen

If someone gave me a free vacation and the choices were Calgary or Aberdeen, I'd pick Aberdeen in a flash.