For much the same reason, I do not watch T.V. very often that is not to say I never watch it, but the programme has to be of interest to hold my attention. Fortunately, we have only four channels to choose from, so it is comparatively simple to check what's on offer, and make a decision. We have to pay a licence fee for T.V. in this country, and the current cost, (it goes up almost every year) is £ 91.50, that's about $150.00 a year. Now this licence fee, is solely for the benefit of the B.B.C. (The British Broadcasting Corporation), who supply just two of the four channels. The commercial channels are free, but the fact that the viewer can watch B.B.C. if they wish, makes the payment compulsory. The availability of satellite T.V. has been around for some years, and many areas have cable T.V. as well, and of course, these have to be paid for also. However, to my mind, the cost of the B.B.C. licence is worthwhile, in that one can watch the programmes right through without interruption from commercial breaks, and while to many folk, this might not seem such a big deal, I do find it very annoying to have my enjoyment of a programme interrupted by having to look at somebody's washing being whiter than others, or some grinning imbecile telling me what food to eat, or beer to drink.

Now that you have read all my moans and groans, it might be difficult to believe that I truly enjoy my life,--- and to give a better understanding of the line of thought, I should explain that I retired ten years ago, at the age of 60. Among the many philosophies that have come with these advancing years, is the realisation that we 'wrinklies' have an inbuilt resistance to change. Naturally, these changes are going on all the time, it is part of progress! The tendency is for us older folk to look with disdain on the way younger folk dress, speak, listen to different music, cut their hair, furnish their houses, raise their kids, drive their cars, brush their teeth, feed their dogs, in fact virtually everything they do, we regard as wrong,--- because it is not the way we used to do it! What we invariably fail to appreciate, is that if it were left to us 'oldies', the world would make no sort of progress at all, and we would still be riding around in horse and buggies, cooking our food over an open fire, having our legs chopped off without an anaesthetic, and goodness knows what else we would miss out on. Maybe some changes are not perfect, but most of them are good, and with them comes the uplift in our lifestyles. Sooooo, albeit we senior citizens are dragged kicking and screaming into the modern world, retrospectively, it does us the world of good, and I for one thank the up and coming generations for their drive and thrust in looking for ways of doing things better than we did them.

Another thought for your consideration, is the way this progress follows a similar pattern throughout the various societies in our world. Looking at countries like the U.K., the U.S.A., Japan, Germany, France,etc., we realise, that although many of these countries speak different languages, their lifestyles are now very similar. Much of this drift toward uniformity could probably be due to the way the world is kept up to date with advances in technology, hence, we all tend to make the same sort of changes to our lifestyles. As an example of how this works, consider the way the automobile has developed. Not that many years back, we had all sorts of car designs, with lots of different gimmicks to make them unlike the other manufacturers. Things like, built in jacking systems whereby you could sit in the car and press a button, and the vehicle jacked itself up ready for you to get out and change the flat tyre. Also, we had front windscreens/shields which could be wound open to increase the air coming into the car on a hot day, and there were road wheels which fitted on to a splined shaft, and had just one large centre nut to hold them on. I don't want to go on, but there were as many different gimmicks as there were different automobile manufacturers, and each manufacturer had their own recognisable design which one could identify from quite a long way off. Nowadays, with so many amalgamations and take overs, all the car designs seem to have blended into one uniform shape. In fact, in the U.K. we have completely lost all of our major car companies. Many of the names still exist, but they are now owned by foreign manufacturers. The point I wanted to make though, is how all the car individuality has disappeared, and to come back to the original point, it now it seems as though the various countries of the world are following a similar pattern with a uniform lifestyle and level of technology, due no doubt to the process of natural selection / evolution sorting out which are the best ways for society to go forward, and, as I said earlier, the sharing of this information with each other. My, my, we are getting a little deep this month !

Let's break the serious mood with a true story,--- this is about my daughter who lives in the midlands of the U.K., and has a two year old son. One evening, there was a power failure, and all the lights went out. She eventually sorted out some candles and matches, and brought them into the lounge area where young baby Jack was sitting in the darkness. She lit two or three of the candles, and baby Jack, who had never experienced anything like this in his young life, promptly and seriously began to sing, 'Happy Birthday to you'.

In the hope that you now have a smile back on your face, and bearing in mind that this electronic magazine has a Scottish flavour, did you hear about the little old lady in Aberdeen who went into the local newspaper office, to place an obituary notice.--The fella behind the counter looked at the words, which were, 'James McKay of Aberdeen, dead.' --The guy felt very sorry for the lady, thinking that was all she could afford. So, he invited her to add three more words, free of charge. She went away and wrote some more, came back with the new message, now reading. 'James McKay of Aberdeen dead, Volkswagon for sale.' Hence, we come back again to our starting thought, the pleasantness of happy events. While accepting the need to face up to the sadness, cruelty, and violence in the world, can I suggest that we also need our 'happy pill' from time to time to offset the gloomy bits. Look upon this little newsletter as a pain killing tablet for a headache. The headache is still there in the background, but the tablet helps to make it bearable.

'til next time,

I would love to hear from you so email me at Frank Hatton

Frank Hatton

You can find more articles in the archive under From Over the Pond