Retirement (or Last of the Summer Wine)

Sadly, keeping a diary and a work logbook is something I failed to do. I kept meticulous notebooks while a post-graduate researcher but got out of the habit once the day-to-day happenings became mundane. Fortunately I have never needed such evidence in my defence but now as memories fade questions appear that can never be answered. As a pensioner well into in my eight decade I find our superannuated and state pensions give my wife and me more disposable income that we have had at any time, except perhaps for the first few years of employment until we had no other responsibilities. The Boomer generation is flush with having bought their houses when inflation whittled away their debts and many have final salary, index linked pensions in addition to the state one. (Choirboy finds himself one of the fortunate Boomers.) I cringe at the adverts telling me "smart meters will put me in control". I have smart control of all my individual lighting and heating from wherever I am with an internet connection. What a smart meter does is put "them" in control by being able to charge me variable amounts according to when and how much energy I am using. Goebbels would be proud of the those creating the advertising. Why not explain truthfully that this has to be done to manage intermittent renewable energy. Perhaps people would respect politicians if they told the truth for once! On protest, I will wait until the bailiffs start smashing my doors down before I agree to smart meters.

When I completed my apprenticeship in 1971, I went straight onto individual piecework, and we only got paid for what we got passed by inspection. As the whole shop was on piecework, there was always comments when the new boy got one of the best timed jobs. At that time, I made notes on every job that I did, including sketches of the set up. Wrote down feeds and speeds, and made form tools that got locked away for the next time I got that component to machine. Not needed anything like that since.

I totally agree, Choirboy. I've only ever written down important events, occurrences, date etc. in a relevant folder, either for employees or aspects of the job, and this has always stood me in good stead. On a business studies course some years ago, we were supposed to do "learning logs" in addition to our notes. One or two of us soon stopped, regarding it a pointless exercise and waste of time. Smart meters - a recent newspaper report of their failings branded them dumb meters. As someone who has worked in electrics/electronics all my life, I could never see the point. To be told that a 2.5kW fire is costing me more to run than a 40W light bulb is an insult to my intelligence. As for reliability, I've only ever had one "smart" meter, in a shop. It wasn't long before Npower was asking me for meter readings! (Remember when the utility companies [who are now merely energy-billing outfits] regularly read their own meters?) Eventually, a bloke turned up and replaced both the "smart" gas and electricity meters. I think the gas one is still working, but the replacement electricity one has never worked since it was put in three years ago. Like all digital technology, it cannot be relied on. I shudder to think what will happen when driverless cars hit the roads. Time to give up motoring maybe. meanwhile, I regularly get pestered by companies exhorting me to have smart meters installed in various premises. Which of course I ignore.

Only related to work in a general aspect -I was sorting through a box of books a couple of weeks ago and came upon a stash of diaries I had kept from 1963! starting with little tiny ones and then moving on to those 'locking' ones from Woolworths. They went on through the years, varying in size and amount of information. I don't remember consciously thinking 'I'll keep these" but I'm really glad I did. Who were these boys I was mad about? Where are these old friends? What a great party that was. Oh the memories. When I had a bookstore I had information on day to day activities, both business and personal and then as a school librarian I had my daily duties and classes detailed. By then I'd moved on to one of those diaries that spanned 2 good sized pages in a refillable ring binder cover. Here it all is, almost 60 years of my life. I still keep a diary for day to day stuff and I have the last 10 years worth in my bedside cupboard so that I can refer to fairly recent events. I'm so glad I didn't throw them all out in my many moves over the years.

Hi all, Last week, the media was telling us about a glitch involving Tesco grocery deliveries. An isolated event. Then Sainsbury's, an isolated event. Today, Greggs have an issue. An isolated event? Rules of thumb. Once, isolated. Twice a remarkable coincidence. Three times, I'm not being fooled. A common thread might be an identical software glitch, so woe-betied my groceries on Friday!

Morrisons seemed to be having a problem yesterday as well. They could not come up with the information on my Morrisons More account.