Thursday, November 29 2018

08:30 Lois and I lie in bed drinking our morning tea. We chat about my late sister Kathy. Today would have been her 71st birthday if she had lived, but sadly she died nearly 6 years ago.

She spent her first 4 and a half years (1947-1952) at a military boarding school (DYRMS - Duke of York's Royal Military School) located a little outside the port of Dover. We lived in a large building along with approx. 30 schoolboys - our father, a captain in the army, was their housemaster. There was also a full-time matron, Mrs Beane, who served as the boys’ substitute mum. Most foodstuffs and many other products were rationed in the UK at that time.

Flashback to June 1948: Kathy at 7 months sitting in the garden of our quarters,

part of a military boarding school located a little outside the port of Dover.

In 1952 our father left the army and we moved to the city of Bradford in the north of England where my little brother Steve was born. In 1954 we moved again, this time to Kingsbury, a small suburb of London. Our father had got a job as a deputy headmaster at a large high-school in Haverstock, north London.

January 1955: (left to right) me (at 8 years of age), and my red-headed siblings 
Steve (2) and Kathy (7) out in the snow-covered backyard of our house 
in Kingsbury, a small suburb of London.

Happy days !!!!

09:00 Lois and I get up and take a shower. After breakfast, I get started on collecting the papers and information we need to change doctors. Our current medical centre is to close within the next 2-3 months because the clinic's doctors have decided to move into a new medical centre located 5 miles away from here, on the other side of the town of Bishops Cleeve. Their current surgery is to be demolished and 6 new houses are to be built on the land. Damn - they are such bastards, those doctors, there’s no doubt about that !!!!

We have decided to register at the Overton Park Medical Centre, which is close to the town centre. We can get there by bus if it ever turns out in the future we are no longer able to drive a car - yikes, scary! The buses run every 12 minutes and the bus stop is just opposite our house, which is lucky. And the bus stop where we get off is less than 5 minutes from the medical centre on foot.

Overton Park Doctors Surgery

Lois and I sit in the living room with a cup of coffee. We complete the clinic's application forms and medical questionnaire.

We also have to turn up in person at the clinic and show them a passport or driving license with photo. We also have to provide proof of our address using an electricity or gas bill and bank statement. Unfortunately, we have already switched to online utility bills and online bank statements, which makes it all the more difficult, to put it mildly - damn!

12:00 We call the doctor's office and say we will drop in at the clinic tomorrow morning to hand in  their forms.

It's nice that I can write on the medical questionnaire that I am not taking any medication regularly, but I'm afraid they'll suspect I'm a medical drop-out and presume  I have a lot of problems that  I have not reported ha ha!

Unfortunately, I also have to admit on the forms that I drink a small quantity of alcohol every week, which is a bit of a shame, but honesty is the best policy I think.

Doctors tend to say nowadays (currently at least) that no alcohol consumption is good. However, I think that they are only talking health and life expectancy, etc., i.e. nothing particularly important. On the other hand alcohol may sometimes have financial benefits, as I read in a story in the Onion, the influential online news source.

Although only having  the haziest recall of what happened between the time he left work Friday night and waking up late Sunday afternoon, local marketing assistant Ben Taylor told journalists that during his 36-hour drinking binge he somehow managed to fix all his financial problems.

"The last thing I remember is getting another tray of two-for-one mug-a-ritas with the guys from work," Taylor told reporters. "The next thing I know, I’m coming to on my sofa, I've got nausea, my head is pounding, and I'm fully vested in a Roth IRA, which is fully deductible and contains a diversified spread of stable dividend-paying stocks with one impressive tax-to-growth ratio. "

"How the f*** did this happen?" added Taylor, who, when he woke up, also discovered that he had left his front door wide open with his keys still in the lock. "Three days ago, I didn’t even have a savings account."

On assessing his situation, Taylor quickly discovered that his car and cellphone were missing and that his pockets were full of beer bottle caps, crumpled napkins and £363.60p in itemised drink receipts with an attached note from an accountant explaining that the entire amount could be written off as entertainment expenses.

While trying to find his shoes and clean up the pan of burnt macaroni and cheese he found on the stove, Taylor placed calls to the police, several friends and various financial advisers whose business cards he found on his nightstand.

"It turns out that the accountant was a lovely lady named Lauren," said Taylor. "When I asked her if anything had, you know, like, happened, she just said demurely that I’d seemed to be more interested in ways to set up tax-deferred accounts to save for retirement while also switching to a lower income bracket. "

Lauren, Taylor's "lovely" accountant: Taylor asked her if anything

had “happened”, when he visited her at night in an intoxicated state

A tired and dehydrated Taylor said he cheered up after a return call from the police confirming the location of his Lexus, which he had traded back to the dealer in exchange for a more economical and fuel-efficient Toyota. And while the 38-year-old admitted that he was disappointed to find out that he had repeatedly vomited in his kitchen sink and burned out the garbage disposal in the process, he added that the damage was covered by the tenant's insurance, which he had apparently taken out on the Saturday morning.

Taylor also told journalists that as he rummaged through his medicine cabinet looking for a couple of ibuprofen, he discovered a new smartphone that turned out to be his - the result of an alcohol-fuelled decision to switch to a carrier both cheaper and better suited to his needs - and a quick glance at his call history revealed that he had repeatedly dialled three ex-girlfriends, two doctors and a brokerage house specialising in puts and margin calls.

"I was a little shocked that Ben had the nerve to call me at 3 in the morning on a Saturday, considering how things ended between us," said Rachel, 37, who had shared an apartment with Taylor until their break-up in October last year. "But it turns out he just wanted to tell me he got a doctor to write a letter confirming that we were both in a state of mental stress when we broke our lease and we should be receive back £3,350.15p within 10 business days. "

Flashback to 2010: Taylor and Rachel in happier times, when the couple

were sharing an apartment until their break-up in October.

After another call, Taylor confirmed that he had left several messages telling investment brokers that as soon as the markets opened, they should short several particular stocks, increase his holdings in various commodities that he thought would probably rebound, and then asking them to "come on over here and have a f****** beer, you sons of bitches!"

Taylor's methods have not worked for me yet - I have to say. But that may simply be because my alcohol consumption is too moderate, but I'm not entirely sure - the jury is still out on that one. But what a crazy world we live in !!!

12:30 Lois and I have lunch and afterwards we go upstairs to change the sheets on our double bed - they badly need washing, that’s for sure!

I jump into bed and take one gigantic afternoon nap. Meanwhile, Lois walks over to Rose’s, one of her former work colleagues, who lives a quarter mile  away on Linden Avenue, to chat with her a while.

17:00 I get up. Lois comes home after her chit-chat with Rose, and we relax with a cup of tea on the couch.

18:00 We have dinner and afterwards we spend the rest of the evening watching television. The latest episode is on in the current (and last) season of Big Bang Theory, our favourite sitcom.

A fun episode. And it's nice to see the two marriages, Howard and Bernadette’s, and Leonard and Penny’s, reach a more mature stage, where petty marital bickering and unspoken minor grievances become a routine, which injects a sense of reality and gives the sitcom a new lease of life, we think.

21:00 We continue to watch a bit of television. The 4th (and last) episode of a special series of "Grand Designs" is on, focusing on RIBA's (Royal Institute of British Architects) competition to find "the house of the year". The host of the program is the charming Kevin McCloud.

Tonight we see another 4 houses in the competition - there have been approx. 20 houses taking part and at the end of tonight’s episode we see the judges choose the winning house out of a short list of 7.

Lois and I do not like the houses in the modern style that you usually see in the Grand Designs series. The owners are often the architects themselves, and everything in the houses screams "spectacular to look at" rather than "practical and comfortable". And the owners are also all the kind of people who like to hold massive dinner parties where their many guests stand around and talk all night, looking out on the view and being impressed by the owners' taste and wealth. Yuck !!!!

We would swap it all for a cosy living room with a small comfortable sofa where you can sit and read in peace and quiet,  and a small television that's not so massive that it dominates everything, I have to say!

The architects you see in the program are largely just slaves of fashion and we have noticed in the latest series a new craze revolving around having massive glass sliding doors, the taller the better. We see tonight a set of 3 massive sliding glass doors, 20 feet tall (6m), weighing half a metric ton.

Good god, what madness !!!!

Three massive sliding glass doors, 20 foot tall (6m), and

weighing a metric ton – good god, what madness !!!!!

22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzzzz !!!!!

Danish translation

08:30 Lois og jeg ligger inde i sengen drikker vores morgenté. Vi snakker om min afdøde søster Kathy. I dag ville have været hendes 71. fødseldag, hvis hun levede  endnu, men hun døde desværre for snart 6 år siden.

Hun tilbragte sine første 4,5 år (1947-1952) på en militær kostskole (DYRMS - Duke of York’s Royal Military School) der ligger lidt udenfor havnebyen Dover. Vi boede i en stor bygning sammen med ca. 30 skoledrenge – vores far, en kaptajn i hæren,  var deres housemaster. Der var også en fuldtidsoldfrue, fru Beane, der fungerede som drengenes substitutmor. De fleste fodevarer og mange andre produkter var sat på ration i den periode i Storbritannien.

Tilbageblik til juni 1948: Kathy på 7 mdr sidder i haven af vores bolig,

en del af en militær kostskole, der ligger lidt udenfor havnebyen Dover.

I 1952 forlod vores far hæren og vi flyttede til byen Bradford i det nordlige England, hvor  min lillebror Steve var født. I 1954 flyttede vi igen, denne gang til Kingsbury, en lille forstad til London. Vores far havde fået et job som vice-skoleinspektør på en stor højskole i Haverstock i det nordlige London.

januar 1955: (fra venstre til højre) mig (8 år), min lillebror Steve (2) og Kathy (7)

i den snedækkede baghave af vores hus i Kingsbury, en lille forstad til London.

Lykkelige dage !!!!

09:00 Lois og jeg står op og tager et brusebad. Efter morgenmad går jeg i gang med at samle papirer og information vi har brug for for at skifte læger. Vores nuværende lægehus lukker ned indenfor de næste 2-3 måneder, fordi klinikkens læger har besluttet at flytte ind i et nyt lægehus, der ligger 5 miles væk herfra, i den anden side af byen Bishops Cleeve. Deres nuværende lægehus skal rives ned og 6 nye huse skal blive bygget på jorden. Pokkers – de er sådanne nogle sjufter, de der læger, ingen tvivl om det!!!!

Vi har besluttet at indskrive os på Overton Park-lægehuset, der ligger tæt på bymidten. Vi kan køre der med bus, hvis vi i fremtiden finder, vi ikke længere orker at køre bil – yikes, skræmmende! Busserne kører hver 12 minutter og busstoppestedet er lige overfor vores hus, hvilket er heldigt. Og busstoppestedet hvor vi står af, er mindre end 5 minutter fra lægehus til fods.

Overton House-lægehus

Lois og jeg sætter os i stuen med en kop kaffe. Vi udfylder klinikkens ansøgningsformularer og mediciniske spørgeskema.

Vi skal også dukker op personligt på klinikken og vise dem et pas eller kørekort med foto. Vi skal også forsyne beviser på vores adres ved hjælp af en el- eller gasregning og bankkontoudtog. Desværre har vi allerede skiftet til onlineregninger og onlinekontoudtog, hvilket gør det hele mere vanskeligt, for at sige mildt – pokkers!

12:00 Vi ringer til lægehuset og siger, vi vil smutter ind i klinikken i morgen formiddag for at indgive deres formularerne.

Det er rart, at jeg kan skriver på det medicinske spørgeskema, at jeg ikke regelmæssigt tager nogen medicin, men jeg er bange for, at de vil mistænker, at jeg er en medicinsk drop-out, og formoder jeg har en masse problemer, som jeg ikke har anmeldt ha ha! 

Jeg er desværre nødt til at indrømme på formularerne, at jeg drikker en lille antal alkoholiske drikker hver uge, hvilket er lidt af en skam, men ærlighed er den bedste politik, synes jeg.

Læger har tendens til at sige nu til dags (for tiden i det mindste), at ingen alkoholforbrug er godt. Jeg tror imidlertid, at de her taler kun sundhed, og forventede levealder osv, intet særlig vigtigt. Det kan nogle gange for eksempel have financielle fordele, som jeg forleden læste i Onion News, den indflydelsesrige nyhedskilde.

Selv om han kun har de vageste minder om, hvad der skete mellem den tid han forlod arbejdet fredag aften og vågnede sent søndag eftermiddag, fortalte den lokale marketingassistent Ben Taylor journalister i dag, at han i løbet af hans 36-timers druktur på en eller anden måde formåede at ordne hele hans financielle problemer.

"Det sidste, jeg husker, er at jeg fik en anden bakke med to-til-en mug-a-ritas sammen med vennerne fra arbejde," fortalte Taylor journalister. "Næste ting jeg ved, jeg kommer til mig selv igen på min sofa, jeg har fået kvalme, mit hoved pulserer, og jeg har fuldt investeret i en Roth IRA, der er helt fradragsberettiget og indeholder en diversificeret spredning af stabile udbyttebetalende aktier med en imponerende forhold mellem skat og vækst. "

"Hvordan fanden var det her sket?" tilføjede Taylor, der da han vågnede op opdagede også, at han havde forladt sin hoveddør på vid gab med sine nøgler stadig i låsen. "For tre dage siden havde jeg ikke engang en sparekonto."

Da han vurderede sin situation opdagede Taylor hurtigt, at hans bil og mobiltelefon manglede, og at hans lommer var fulde af ølflaskehætter, sammenkrøllede servietter og £363.60 i specificerede drikkekvitteringer med en vedhæftet seddel fra en revisor, der forklarede, at hele beløbet kunne afskrives som underholdningsudgifter.

Mens han forsøgte at finde sine sko og rense panden af brændt makaroni og ost, han fandt på ovnen, Taylor ringede til politiet, flere venner og forskellige finansielle rådgivere, hvis visitkort han fandt på natbordet.

"Det viser sig, at revisoren var en hot  kvinde ved navn Lauren," sagde Taylor. "Da jeg spurgte hende, om der var noget, der skete, ved du, hun sagde bare, at jeg syntes at være mere interesseret i måder at oprette skatteudskudte konti på, for at spare for pensionering, samtidig med at jeg skifter til en lavere indkomstgruppe."

Lauren, Taylors ”dejlige” revisor:  Taylor spurgte hende, om der var noget,

der skete, da han besøgte hende om aftenen i en beruset tilstand

En træt og dehydreret Taylor sagde, at han blev mutre efter et returopkald fra politiet bekræftede placeringen af hans Lexus, som han havde udskiftet hos forhandleren med en mere økonomisk og brændstofeffektiv Toyota. Og mens den 38-årige indrømmede, at han var skuffet over at opdage, at han havde gentagne gange opkastet i sin køkkenvask og samtidig udbrændt køkkenkværnen, tilføjede han, at skaden var dækket af lejerens forsikring, som han åbenbart tegnede  lørdag formiddag.

Taylor fortalte journalister også, at mens han rodede igennem sin medicinskab efter et par ibuprofen, faldt han over en ny smartphone, der viste sig at være hans - resultatet af en alkoholbaseret beslutning om at skifte til en operatør både billigere og bedre egnet til hans behov - og et hurtigt blik på hans opkaldshistorie afslørede, at han gentagne gange havde ringet til tre ex-kærester, to læger og et mæglerhus der specialiserede sig i puts og margin opkald.

"Jeg blev lidt chokeret over, at Ben havde den frækhed at ringe til mig kl 3 om morgenen på en lørdag, i betragtning af hvordan tingene sluttede mellem os", sagde Rachel, 37, der delte en lejlighed med Taylor indtil deres brud i oktober sidste år. "Men det viser sig, at han bare ville fortælle mig, at han fik en læge til at skrive et brev, der bekræftede, at vi begge var i en tilstand af mental stress, da vi brød vores lejekontrakt, og vi skulle modtage tilbage £3,350.15.  inden for 10 hverdage."

Tilbageblik til 2010: Taylor og Rachel i lykkeliger tider, da parret

delte en lejlighed før deres brud i oktober måned.

Efter et andet opkald bekræftede Taylor, at han havde forladt flere beskeder, der fortalte investeringsmæglere, at så snart markederne blev åbnet, skulle de låne og sælge med det samme  flere forskellige aktier, øge hans aktierposter i forskellige råvarer, som han troede sandsynligvis ville rette sig hurtigt, og derefter bad han dem om at "komme herover og få jer en fucking øl, jer sønner af tæver. "

Taylors metoder har ikke virket endnu for mit vedkommende – det må jeg nok sige. Men det kan være på grund af mit alkoholforbrug er for moderat, men det er jeg ikke helt sikker på – juryen er stadig ude om det. Men sikke en skør verden vi lever i !!!

12:30 Vi spiser frokost og bagefter går vi op ad trappen for at skifte lagnerne på vores dobbeltseng – de trænger til at vaskes, ingen tvivl om det!

Jeg hopper op i sengen og tager en gigantisk eftermiddagslur. I mellemtiden smutter Lois ind  hos Rose, en af sine tidligere arbejdskollegaer, der bor 400m væk på Linden Avenue, for at snakke lidt.

17:00 Jeg står op. Lois kommer hjem efter sin snik-snak med Rose, og vi slapper af med en kop te i sofaen.

18:00 Vi spiser aftensmad og bagefter bruger vi resten af aftenen på at se lidt fjernsyn. De viser det seneste afsnit i den nuværende (og sidste) sæson af Big Bang Theory, vores yndlingssitcom.

Et morsomt afsnit. Og det er rart at se de to ægteskaber, Howard og Bernadette, og Leonard og Penny, når til en mere moden stadie, hvor mindre skænderier og uudtalte mindre krænkelser bliver rutinemæssige, hvilket giver en anelse af virkeligheden og indgyder nyt liv i sitcommen, synes vi.

21:00 Vi fortsætter med at se lidt fjernsyn. De viser den 4. (og sidste) afsnit af en speciel serie af ”Grand Designs”, der fokuserer på RIBAs (Royal Institute of British Architects) konkurrence for at finde ”årets hus”. Programmets vært er den charmerende Kevin McCloud.

I aften ser vi endnu 4 huse i konkurrencen – der har været ca. 20 huse der deltog, og ved slutningen af aftenens afsnit ser vi dommerne vælge det vindende hus ud af en kortliste af 7.

Lois og jeg kan ikke lide de huse i den moderne stil, man plejer at se i Grand Designs-serier. Ejerne er ofte selve arkitekter, og alting i husene skriger ”spektakulært at kigge på”, snarere end ”praktisk og bekvem”. Og ejerne også er de slags personer, der godt kan lide at holde massive middagsselskaber, hvor deres mange gæster står og snakker hele aftenen, kigger ud på udsigten og blive imponeret af ejernes smag og righed. Yuck !!!!

Vi ville udskifte det hele for en hygglig stue med en lille, bekvem sofa, hvor man kan sidde og læse i fred og ro, og et lille fjernsyn, der ikke er så massiv, at det dominerer alting, det må jeg nok sige!

Arkitekterne man ser i programmet er i stor vis bare slaver af mode, og vi har bemærket i den seneste serie en dille, der kredser om at have massive glasskydedøre, jo høje, jo bedre. Vi ser i aften et sæt af 3 massive glasskydedøre, 20 fods høje (6m), og vejer et halvt metrisk ton.

Du godeste, sikke et vanvid!!!!

Tre massive glasskydedøre, 20 fods høj (6m), der

vejer en metrisk ton – du godeste, sikke et vanvid !!!!!

22:00 Vi går i seng – zzzzzzzzzz!!!!!