Moans and groans

Tomorrow's History

webmaster — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 01:06:11 +0100

Today, we watch George Bush in his last days as president

...but in aew days he'll just be a footnote in history.

Most of us here in Europe wo't mourne his passing..

Just like 'the Gipper' he'll be judged in the old world as just another red kneck we had to live with, but perhaps it's a good time to review Reagan's term in office as we usher his successor into the wings.

We all, or at least most of us in Western Europe, took a deep breath when we heard of his 'evil empire' speech

We laughed at his 'star wars' program.

Moans and groans

Am I loosing the Plot

webmaster — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 23:42:47 +0100

Am I loosing the plot

I'm off on holiday tomorrow: two months in Australia with my sone and daughter in-law, so on Thursday I went up town to buy a couple of shirts and a pair of trousers.

Hardly the stuff of a good blog you might say, but for once in my life I got my timing right and turned up on the day of a huge 'get the punters in' sale: everything 25% off the marked price and somethings reduced by 50%.

Moans and groans

The US election was quite something

webmaster — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 12:24:34 +0100

We Brits are given to looking down on the Yanks as 'Johnny-Come-Latelies' and their elections as a load of vulgar razamataz followd by more of the same.

But this time we clearly got it wrong - well at least with regard to the razamataz though we still have to sea how the 'more of the same' bit goes.

Moans and groans

Thank God for That

webmaster — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 12:56:22 +0100

As a foreigner to the US elections, I judged McCain to be a decent man handed the poison chalice of the Bush heritage and a financial meltdown.

However, his choice of running mate was a self-inflicted wound of monumental proportions. To choose a lady whose very life style demonstrates an ability to ignore the facts and substitute belief for analysis, who reads no newspapers, who believes that being a 'hockey mum' and a distant view of Russia compensates for a total lack of knowledge of how the US, let alone the world, works.

Moans and groans

4000 Spammers and counting

webmaster — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 12:54:57 +0100

4000 spammers and counting - we must be doing something right.

Belief and Disbelief

Join the Retired but Active Team

webmaster — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 00:15:00 +0100

About Retired but Active

Retired but active is a group of Wiki sites for the over-50s consisting of

Belief and Disbelief

The Quiet Americans

webmaster — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 15:41:16 +0100

A few days ago I was in the company of thousands of young Americans in a field with sea views extending to the far horizons. Though it was late October the sky was clear and blue and though the Americans were young and visiting a foreign country they were quiet and ordered.

Moans and groans

The Flat Earth Society is alive and well

webmaster — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 11:00:15 +0200

and governing Alaska

Moans and groans

It's fundamental

webmaster — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 15:50:24 +0200

It's not often that I agree with my brother-in-law

...he's a man who always lives by the rules and I... well I'm a rule breaker, an iconoclast, a pricker of bubbles

Yet yesterday we agreed that the problem wasn't with Christian Fundamentalists, or Islamic Fundamentalists: it's just with 'fundamentalists' and Prof Dawkins has proved once and for all that there is such an animal as a 'Atheist Fundamentalist' - or more accurately a 'Darwin Fundamentalist'.

Moans and groans

What Temptation

webmaster — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 10:18:31 +0200

I look out of my office window..

..at a wind blown and stormy scene, and wonder if and when the summer will ever start.

I was brought up in South Wales which gets its fair ration of grey skies, and more than its share of drizzle and rain, but my memories include a huge number of fine days spent, shirtless, on my bike exploring the hills and valleys.

...If this is global warming you can keep it...

Still I plan to have December and January in Australia: I'll probobly forget to come home

Moans and groans

I used to be a 'has-been'

webmaster — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 23:58:33 +0200

My career came to an abrupt and unexpected end!

I wondered who I was now I was no longer defined by what I was

I had been 'the boss' to a hundred or so people, and I had been 'the boss' since my early thirties. 'The boss' was part of my persona; I liked it that so many people liked to work for me, that I had moved on so many careers, solved so many questions, moved so many forward and suddenly that was all gone.

I missed it when it went.

Now I am my wife's husband; my children's father, my grandchildren's grandfather.

I used to be a has-been

Retired but Active

Which Theme is the Better?

webmaster — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 18:01:32 +0200

* The 'Ad Novus' theme used for www.RetiredandActive.org * The 'Ubiquity' theme used for www.Retiredbutactive.com and www.Lifes3rdPhase.com

Internet Safety

Sight Seeing

webmaster — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 20:40:51 +0200

There's a lot of people at the gym in our age range

...and perhaps I'm unduly cynical

...but I wonder about the motivation of some of us!

Some of us are clearly worried about our waist lines and are watching them like a hawk

Others only watch the girls and - shall we say - the dynamic aspects of their excercises

Moans and groans

Radovan Karadzic and Retiring to Goa

webmaster — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 14:51:50 +0200

The arrest of Radovan Karadzic, in the guise of a harmless if useless practitioner of alternative medicine makes me wonder about the nature of all things foreign. When I worked in Nigeria there was a sign on the main road advertising 'Madame Comfort - Midwife and Cement Dealer', and across the road a native doctor had cures to 'exam failure' and 'wife doesn't love you'.

Moans and groans

In who's Interest?

webmaster — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 13:25:14 +0200

I visited my Mother this week

She was a wonderful person, she was the mother of five and kept us all warm. well fed, clean and happy.

Now the youngest of us is in his mid-40s and she in in her late 80s. She's had at least one stroke, and is deeply confused.

She's deeply unhappy, but kept alive by a pile of pills. She's tried to kill herself once, but now she's incapable of doing even that.

My wife has a relation who'se 101 and spends her days in silence staring at the ceiling.

In who's interest?

Moans and groans

Decoration is not my forte

webmaster — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 16:03:55 +0200

Even my most ardent admirer

....would have to admit that decorating rooms is not a forte of mine. i have painted more carpets than walls and the kitchen cupboards I put up for my good lady fell on her just a few months later.

As a bodger I can spot another bodger at a mile - usually I buy their houses.Today I have a professional decorator in and he makes everything look very easy and me feel a bit of a failure. It wouldn't be so bad if the lad didn't look like he was about 12.

Moans and groans

My friendly pound

webmaster — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 18:06:35 +0200

Some friends are just too persistent!

Ten and more years ago, when I lived and worked in West Africa and lived on a diet of gin and tonic and beer, I topped 16 stone.

My life was not sedentry: I walked to and from my car and often excercised my arm when lifting food to my mouth.

Moans and groans

Choice - what choice?

webmaster — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 11:26:52 +0200

We're told that we 'baby-boomers' have more money, health and ambition

... than any generation before us. Many of us have bought our houses, and most of us have benefitted from medical treatments unheard of when our parents needed them so we should be pleased.

We should be pleased that our grown up children who can't afford a house 'return to the nest'

We should be pleased to baby sit our grandchildren whilst their parents work to buy the newest gadgets and have the best holidays

Moans and groans

The Advantages of Age

rogerwebb — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 18:09:35 +0200

Sometimes it's difficult to appreciate the advantages of age

When your joints creak, more tablets than food pass your lips and your short-term memory starts to fade, it's hard to imagine that 'maturing' is supposed to be a positive process. As a friend said over the weekend, you know you're getting old when you don't have to run to the gents; because it simply and gently seeps out.

Moans and groans

The World gets by Without My Input

rogerwebb — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 18:44:50 +0200

Its all very strange...

that I'm up with the lark every morning, eager to turn the radio on and suck in all the misery that the world can generate.

... and just of late it has much on offer

What with earthquakes, African Dictators, droughts and floods, every morning I can find enough to get me worked up for a day or more. Bush or Brown has only to open his mouth, another celebrity get arrested for drugs, some guy in Austria lock up his daughter.......

Then I go on holiday and the world is denied my input

...and it didn't seem to notice.

Moans and groans

No-Talents

Wilde — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 12:16:21 +0200

I've got no talents - make me a star

I watched a programme on the box last night which explained that TV companies find it cheaper and easier to elevate 'no talents' to stardom than to pay real talents to produce real entertainment. The evedence of my eyes says you don't have to be good looking, and that of my ears says intellegence isn't a pre-requisit.

Well I've got no talents so why did they leave me out? I'm only moderately ugly and my family frequently comment on my dimness. I qualify!

Creative Writing

The Retired but Active Chat Room

rogerwebb — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 15:13:22 +0200

Chat Rooms put you in touch with the world

Chat Rooms are for teenagers: True: many Chat Rooms are designed for teenagers and others are dominated by them; Retired but Active Chat Rooms are for members only, and we don't have teenage members.

On enforced retirement

webmaster — Tue, 20 May 2008 12:12:40 +0200

I didn't really want to retire

I made no secret of it. On the one hand i couldn't really afford to retire and on the other what would I possibly do with my time.

The year before had given me a dose of reality: my dear stepfather had a business of his own and carried on with it for far too long - until he was 86 - and took a thriving business down into the dust.

So the questions arise. If it's too early to retire at 65 when is the right time? if that's a different number for different people who is going to tell us?

Moans and groans

Group Leadership

rogerwebb — Sun, 18 May 2008 10:31:08 +0200

The success or otherwise of Retired but Active

... in its mission to improve our retirement experience depends on our ability to attract Group Leaders with the time and inclination to explain their own area of interest to others.

Retired but Active

On Celebrity

webmaster — Sat, 17 May 2008 19:11:55 +0200

I'm not really into celebrity
When some celebrity turns up on the box, or in the papers, a state of ennui comes upon me. I don't know which one's which, who's on the way in and who's 'so last year'.
They all seem to have appeared, like so many sorts of coffee, at some moment whan I wasn't looking. In any case they're all about twelve years old and with more money than i will ever see. Most of them seem only to be famous for being famous so i can't see that even with my limited talents i couldn't be one too.

Moans and groans