Tuesday, 18 September 2018

Thoughts for the day.

I haven't posted anything for a couple of days as I've been busy at home catching up on jobs which were not done as we have been away for the last couple of weekends. What we are missing at home is hoards of staff who could continue the running of the house in our absence, something along the lines of Downton Abbey would seem appropriate as we are always behind with the household jobs.

Having had a busy day yesterday repairing one of the legs on the carport outside of the garage in anticipation of the arrival of the remnants of the latest hurricane to hit America which is on its way across the Atlantic as we speak. Today some lawn mowing and the arrival of a new large wheelbarrow which required assembling, so we now have something to move the grass cuttings to the compost heap in fewer journeys than before.

Now, on to the subject of my post for today, which involves our grandchildren and the modern habit of playing games on the television with the aid of a Playstation or some other device.

When I was young we only had the one television in the house which was in the sitting room which was presided over by my father who upon entering the room whilst we children were watching television would utter the phrase, "turn that rubbish off, I'm watching the news" or whatever other programme he desired. Bearing in mind that in those days there were only two or three channels from which to pick and television would stop at 11 o'clock or before preceded by the playing of the National Anthem and a dinner jacketed presenter wishing you a good night.

My, how times have changed, we have two televisions in adjoining rooms, the second of which was acquired so the grandchildren might watch television or play their games without interfering with our television. However with the aid of one of our daughters they have set up a system where each television is coupled to a Playstation which enables them both to play games at the same time whilst communicating with each other and the other gamers playing.

So we now find ourselves with what seems to me to be a ridiculous situation of being unable to view our own television because two 11 year olds have command of both television sets and are talking to each other through their headsets. The concept of talking to your brother in the next room through the internet rather than actually speaking to him seems strangely surreal to me, I must say.

Apparently the games that are played by the young people and indeed people who are old enough to know better last for 20 minutes so I'm told, which means one has to wait until they have finished their game or the lose points or something.

Oh, how I long to return to the olden days where one might enter the room and utter the phrase, "turn that rubbish off, I'm watching the Grand Prix" but it seems one must pander to the wishes of the youngsters as this is the modern way. My father would be turning in his grave if he could see such goings on.

Now briefly to my next topic and I should probably have to pay a fine for I am going to mention the dreaded "Brexit" word. There seems to be a slightly more conciliatory mood from the EU recently, perhaps they have realised that if we don't have a deal with them, they too don't have a deal and perhaps they could take a more active part in finding a solution to the problem.

I have another cunning plan to fix the problem and that is to employ the services of some modern young people who are more used to negotiating with mobile telephone companies than us older folk who just leave things the same for year after year.

However when a young person's contract is about to expire they contact their supplier and threaten to leave as they can get a better deal elsewhere, whether or not they can get a better deal seems not to matter, for immediately the current supplier will offer to match or better the offer.

This is a tactic employed by our daughter with success on many occasions and whilst she currently has a full time job, should the offer of gainful employment by the Government at the sort of money the European MP's are earning, I'm sure she would be only too happy to assist with the Brexit negotiations.




 










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