Grumpy Old Man Part 1

Made My Blood boil! 

 

I got very annoyed one Friday listening to Radio 5. There was an interview with an Anna Taylor who was complaining that she would lose out to the tune of £89 per week if she got a job, rather than claiming benefit! This is a woman who has been “on the sick” for a number of years but is well enough to have given birth to five children in the last five years. Her husband/partner does not work either. Between them they “earn” in benefits the equivalent of an annual salary of £35k.

It made me so mad. She gets paid £35k per annum so that she and her partner can stay home 24/7 “bringing up” five kids under the age of five. I don’t know for sure, but I guess that £35k is probably more than a properly trained and qualified Nanny would earn. Someone who has worked hard to get a job as a Nanny.

What really grated was the woman’s attitude. Her whole defence was that she was only getting what she was entitled to and that it was ridiculous that she would be worse off if (and this is a huge, huge if) she got a proper job. I am sorry! The ridiculous thing is that the Government is willing to use my hard-earned tax contribution to fund a family of layabouts and enable them to afford five kids. As far as I am concerned there is an easy way to resolve this dilemma…Cut her benefits by a couple of hundred quid a week and force the parents out to work!!!

My mom and dad were hard up when they were bringing me and my sister up. My dad’s final year annual salary before retirement was less than my first year starting salary of twenty years ago. And he had worked for some 35 years for the same company! My mom often held down two jobs at a time to make ends meet. She took night shift work in factories so that she would always be at home when my sister and myself came home from school. And dad would be there when mom was at work. And, if dad had to work at night too, then a relative would be called upon to look after us.

The only Government benefit we got as a family was the family allowance and my university grant. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate how lucky I was to have had my university education funded in this way. I’m not sure that I could have survived in this current world with loans and huge overdrafts.

But, even then, while a student, I topped funds up myself with two scholarships, that I earned, and by working every Summer holiday! Including a job stripping asbestos from a factory. Wearing full breathing apparatus with an industrial vacuum cleaner strapped to my back up the top of a ladder! And, another job cleaning out oil sumps under tyre presses during the industrial shutdown weeks in Birmingham.

That was one helluva job. It involved being lowered on a rope down a sump shaft that was about one metre square and several metres deep. It was so hot that we worked in ten minute shifts. Ten minutes down the sump and ten minutes on the rope. When in the sump, a bucket would be lowered and you had to dig out all of the gunk, rubber and oil at the bottom of the sump and pass the bucket past your face back up to the top. It was quite horrific when you got to the bottom. Rubber beetles live on this stuff. Rubber beetles are like a cockroach’s worst nightmare. Huge. Scary buggers! Not the kind of thing you want to pass by your face by the bucketful!

My mom and dad worked every hour that God sent; took every and any job that they could to put food on our table and to give my sister and I the opportunity to go to university. They worked hard. They never had a credit card and they only bought what they could afford and when they could afford to have it. They saved for things like camping holidays or for the colour TV. They saved so that they could afford their babies. They were hard working, working class, looking to do better for themselves and their kids.

And then this Anna Taylor comes along complaining that she can’t find a job paying her £35k per annum to bring up her five kids. She left school at 16 and she aspires to a salary that kids who have put themselves through university would aspire to. And, she sees it as an entitlement. She genuinely believes that she is doing her bit by bringing five kids into the world.

Indeed, many sprang to Anna’s defence on the radio chat show, explaining that with our increasingly elderly population, we’re more and more reliant upon children growing up and becoming the tax payers of the future to pay for our pension and health care. I’m sorry! It is actually the past generations not the future ones that have paid for my pension and health care. The past generations and the current workers such as myself.

And, are you really trying to convince me that these five kids, given the example of their not-so-hard-working or civic-minded parents will develop a strong work ethic, get themselves a good education and solid jobs, paying lots of taxes into future social-welfare funds. They will be unusual if they do. I so hope they prove me wrong. Or, is it more likely that we will have another five adults living off entitlements/benefits, producing other kids for the state to feed and clothe, while they sit around all day watching Sky Movies, Jeremy Kyle and Judge Judy on their huge plasma screens. I wonder.

Also, when did it become Government policy in this country to pay people to breed? C and I, unfortunately, have not been able to have children. Not through lack of trying. For many years my annual bonus, which is a reflection of how hard I worked, was spent on privately funding IVF or other fertility treatment, without success. £35k would pay for about ten such procedures, every year! Could you imagine the furore if people such as C and I got that.

So, Mr Brown, please review the benefit system in this country. Think a little more about the tax payers, the hard workers. I am not saying that we shouldn’t look after the weak, the poor and the needy. Indeed I am more than happy for my tax pounds to go towards the needy and to pay for the pensions and health care of those people who have worked hard all their lives. But, you cannot convince me that giving someone £35k is the answer to anything. That woman’s attitude is proof enough.

Why pay benefits for five kids? Why not limit it to two and force would-be parents to think about the consequences of their actions and to develop a social awareness? My mom and dad planned their family, why shouldn’t these? And, by planning, I mean they worked out if and when they could afford a family rather than whether or not the state benefits would cover the additional cost.

Why not make benefits conditional upon certain caveats, such as attending parenting classes, guaranteeing to take the kids to the park twice a week, the kids’ attendance rate at school, etc. And while I think about it, why don’t we bring back National Service? I don’t necessarily mean putting young men into the army and sending them off to fight an illegal war somewhere. But, why not work as hospital porters, or visiting the elderly in hospices, or as support staff in the fire service, the police, or painting civic buildings. Anything to give them a work ethic and a sense of pride and discipline. I think this would solve your ASBO culture and the underage pregnancy rate in one fell swoop.

It just makes my blood boil.

OK rant over. I think I’m turning into Jeremy Clarkson….

 

 

Shameless

Not Nice Place To Live (Shameless)

To protect my anonymity and the feelings of those poor souls who live and work in the place, I have changed the name of a particular vicinity of South Manchester (near to the Airport), replacing it with the fictitious name of “Shameless“. Shamelessly, I have used the title of that great Channel 4 comedy/drama because, well, I think it is fitting………..

It was quite a shock to the system moving from working in the Strand in London to Shameless in South Manchester.

My apologies to all residents of the somewhat maligned corner of South Manchester, which is Shameless. It is nothing personal. I have nothing personal against underage single-moms, asylum seekers, immigrants (illegal or otherwise), drug addicts (recovering or otherwise), the mentally ill, the infirm, or the great unwashed. In many ways I fear Shameless is a vision of the future…….some kind of post-holocaust Bladerunner-like future. My point is only that, Covent Garden it is not.

That said, I do have something against drug dealers, thieves, muggers, and anti-social neighbours. And, Shameless has more than its fair share of those.

Shameless was a bit of a culture shock after the West End of London. Gone were the Savoy and Strand theatres. Shameless “entertainment”, other than that induced by narcotics and alcohol, comes in the form of Line Dancing classes held at the local Conservative Club (working class conservatism is apparently alive, well and the preserve of the over 60s and unemployed, social scroungers), local bingo halls, and, one-armed bandit arcades. Gone were the Savoy Hotel, Smolensky’s Balloon and the Coal Hole. In Shameless, you can breakfast at the drive through MacDonalds or local “greasy spoon”, while the very brave and foolish could always risk a drink in the local Benchill public house, renowned for having the hardest girl gang in the country (as shown on TV).

Shameless is a mess. Shameless is the worst example of social engineering. The best example of town planning gone wrong. Shameless was purpose-built in the 1960s as Europe’s largest council estate. Companies like the Co-op, Ferranti, Barclays and Shell were offered incentives to build offices in the area to provide work for the inhabitants. These companies did build their offices but failed, it would seem, in providing work for the locals. Instead, they provided employment and careers for people from the more affluent surrounding areas such as Wilmslow, Hale, Alderley Edge, Didsbury and Cheadle. Over the decades, Shameless became the white ghetto of South Manchester. The great unwashed and unemployed were dumped there with little prospect, less respect, few amenities and no hope. Over the decades, certain inhabitants of Shameless became jealous of the material wealth of their neighbours and crime in those areas rocketed.

Indeed, we were visited by the Shameless criminal fraternity when we lived in Alderley Edge. You have to know that Alderley Edge is affluent. It is a nice place to live. It is very Cheshire. It is the home of many a Manchester United and Liverpool footballer and their Wags. Posh and Becks lived here before he signed for Real Madrid. Its many charity shops are renowned for their array of designer cast-offs. It is known “affectionately” as Bolliwood (Bollinger) because it has the highest per capita sales of champagne in the country. Alderley Edge is just 15 minutes drive and a million light years from Shameless.

At a time when my sister-in-law was living with my wife and I in Alderley Edge and I had been working away Monday to Thursday in that wonderful concrete cow of a place, Milton Keynes, I came back one Thursday night and sent the girls to bed as I “relaxed” with a large scotch and Thursday night football on the telly. Of course, I fell asleep on the sofa, only to be woken in the early hours by the sound of broken glass. I looked out of the window and saw a car parked outside the Pine Shop that was opposite. I also saw two blokes, one of whom was, rather bizarrely, sporting a jester’s three-cornered hat, complete with bells. I assumed that it was their car and that it had been broken into. I was rather tipsy. I decided to help. So, I went outside and began to cross the road towards them, in my socks.

I was greeted with a tirade of abuse, which was most unexpected, “Just f*ck off back inside!”. In my drunken haze I became quite affronted and continued to walk towards the two guys, “What’s your problem!”. The next thing I knew, my wife was at the front door in all her naked glory shouting, “Come back, I’ve called the police”. The guys got in their car and drove off, leaving me standing in the middle of the road attempting and failing to make sense of what was going on. At this point one of the neighbours came out in her nightie and rushed up to me, “You’re so brave! My husband has locked himself in the bathroom, he was so scared…..” Not so brave as stupid.

The police did arrive. Apparently these two Shameless boys were known to them. They were high on coke and had stolen the car and come to Alderley Edge looking for easy pickings. Easy pickings this night meant breaking into the Pine Shop in search of cash. Apparently my “intervention” must have scared them off. What a hero.

Anyhow, venturing into the Civic Centre at lunchtime is akin to visiting another planet. Shameless Civic Centre is a mess of cheap shops, pawn and porn brokers, and bookmakers. The local supermarket sells out-of-date cans of cheap lager even more cheaply. This is very popular with the winos that sit on the benches all day long, among the squalid pigeons and other local vermin, drinking from their rusting cans, hurling foul-mouthed abuse at passers-by and laughing hysterically at some unshared amusement or the voices in their heads.

Shameless is the only place that I know which has two “pound shops”: Pound Stretcher, and, Pound City, where everything is a pound. Except when there is a sale on, of course. They stand in perfect competition directly opposite each other in the Civic Centre. Pound Stretcher has been there for a while. Pound City is a relative newcomer, possibly encouraged by the Government’s recent injection of £2.5 million to regenerate the area. £2.5 million doesn’t get you a lot these days, but it does buy you a pound shop and a few blue street signs that point you in the direction of the police station and the NHS drop-in centre…….The competitive triangle at the heart of the Civic Centre is completed by “Cash Generator”, where you can sell as well as buy. Yes, Shameless’ second Pawn Brokers. Shameless is the only place I know where the shops still advertise “the tick”, HP (hire purchase), something for nothing. Shameless is not so much Neverland as the Never, Never Land…..

The Pound Shops and the Pawn Brokers are amongst the most popular shops in the area, together with the “butchers” claiming proudly to sell “Manchester’s cheapest meat”. I wouldn’t eat anything that came off that shop’s shelves. It is not meat of any kind I have seen before. Meat does not come in those colours! Animals don’t come in those shapes. There is another, better butcher further round the precinct. You can tell that this one is better because they have better security. There is a steel shutter across the entrance to this shop which is permanently pulled halfway down so as to stop thieves running in, snatching a joint (of meat) and running out. You actually see old aged pensioners (or should I more politically correctly say, senior citizens) getting down on their hands and knees to enter and leave the shop. How degrading! Every Tuesday there is a second-hand “flea” market, including the second-hand underwear and swimwear stall called “Sniff and Go”. I do not joke.

Otherwise, the market is a haven for rash-inducing cosmetics, pirate DVDs and CDs (which don’t work in card stereos as I have learnt to my cost), knocked off or imitation “designer” labels (which here mean Nike, Burberry – how the mighty are fallen – or Adidas rather than Gucci or Louis Vuitton), replica football shirts, and, cheap pet food stalls. At least the local rottweilers, bulldogs and pit bulls are well cared for here. Either that, or the pensioners are eating it for themselves.

And then there are the people. You will never see any people poorer than Shameless-people on the streets of the UK. You will never see so many missing eyes, missing teeth, missing limbs, walking sticks, prosthetics, invalid carts, and Zimmer frames as on the streets of Shameless. In fact, if you care to look closely you will find that most of the local pigeon population is also disabled in some way, with broken wings, missing claws or legs and a lack of ambition prevalent even amongst this local population. Every young man seems to sport an underage girlfriend on his arm, love bites on his neck, a tattoo, a shaved head, an earring, a bulldog or similar mean-mannered critter on a lead, an attitude, and, a chip on his shoulder the size of a railway sleeper. They are often bare-chested, irrespective of the weather, and, invariably, looking for a fight. Most are stoned or drunk or both. They have come to the Civic Centre to get their dole, sign on, score drugs, or sell drugs. You give these blokes a wide berth. And the there are the girls – 14-year-old girls with too much make-up, little taste, pierced belly buttons and thongs on display irrespective of time or season. They drag multiple small multi-coloured children behind them and push smaller multi-coloured children in buggies in front of them. It would seem that every Shameless-girl of a certain age is a mother, several times over, by the time they leave school. And, they leave school early here, if they attend at all. The lunchtime bustle of the Civic is often drowned out by the maternal cry of “Kylie, f**king leave Jason alone and get the f*ck back here you little ba*tard. Not much hope for the next generation of Shameless inmates……….

I think that you get a flavour of Shameless from one particular episode that sticks in my memory. It was Easter weekend. My wife and I were going to Habitat, which meant driving through the heart of Shameless. The council had attempted to brighten the place up by planting lots of daffodils. Shameless was teaming. Shameless was teaming with hoards of women and children armed with carving knives and decorating scissors stealing armfuls and armfuls of these daffodils. I can only assume that vases were the favourite items shop-lifted from Habitat that day…..