Latest Moan From You and Me 2025

@pete RSV jabs are to protect against a respiratory virus that can seriously harm babies and vulnerable older adults. I believe it's being offered to 75 to 79 yr olds. The virus is a factor in common colds and flu and can lead to pneumonia and bronchiolitis which ar eboth killers of weaker people such as those with COPD.

 

Only 75 to 79 year olds.
I know from personal experience that the NHS give up on you once you reach 80

 

Watching wimbledon, has the scoreboards change format, it doesn't seem to show the sets, games points etc. It just shows games and you have to look through the games to work out who has the most sets.

A very shouty bitch on there atm playing Radercanu, cant watch anymore its just awful.

 

Can't watch any of it anymore @pete - too much grunting and shouting.

No idea why that jab is limited in age range - costs?

 

Polio vax was given on a sugar cube in my day. You queued up to have it popped in your mouth. Some of the kids would get theirs then run around to the back of the queue again.

 

It was in my day, I was disappointed when in my 50's I had to have a polio booster and it was a jab.
Human papilloma virus vaccine is proving to be remarkably effective.

 

"@CanadianLori, here state pensions count as welfare."

@ViewAhead I'm sorry to hear it called that as I don't consider it a handout. I, like most Canadians put into the Canada Pension Plan out of every pay cheque for over 50 years and we're not talking small change so I find that label pretty nasty. I also have some small RRSP's but my company pension taking a walk was really terrible for everyone who worked there and contributed to it with payroll deductions.

Do you not have a government pension plan contribution that you must make?

 

Well, it is really a gov pension plan, @CanadianLori, as we have to pay National Insurance contributions and need enough yrs to qualify. You can top-up extra yrs too. But the gov insists on calling it a benefit so it is not actually an entitlement and, technically, could be reduced ... or even scrapped. Also, calling it a benefit means it gets added to the "welfare" portion of any pie diagram showing gov spending, which makes this section look huge and allows the "we must cut all these social handouts" mantra to be perpetuated.

 

It also doesn't matter how much youi pay into the government scheme, you get the same out if you contribute 35 yrs or 50 yrs.
So to me its not a pension plan, its a rip off plan and needs scrapping anyway, there are even some people on the lesser amount because they were paying in from an earlier date, its pretty much just pocket money rather than a serious pension.

You should have been allowed to pay your money into a private plan that way your money would be ring fenced to your pension and not used by government to pay for other things.

 

The people on the lesser amount (old state pension) were also able to accumulate state second pension, or SERPS. Younger people on the new flat rate pension have no such provision. There are plenty of older people whose combination of SERPS and basic pension adds up to much more than the new basic state pension.

 

I paid some in graduated pension before they scrapped it, then I paid into State earnings related, designed to give you a higher pension closer to the amount you was earning while working, they scrapped it, them I opted out into a private scheme that extra payment, which was supposed to do the same thing, then when you retire they decide to just take that private part off of your normal pension, so basically you end up with no extra, just the basic state pension.
The whole thing would be illegal if run by a proper company, but as its the government, they decide what is legal and what isn't.

Robert Maxwell basically did the same thing the government do.

 

The serps that I paid into a private pension was calculated as giving me X amount on retirement, so that amount was taken off of my basic state pension.

The only amout I get extra is what I paid into an AVC while working, before that got scrapped and we all had to pay into another pension plan, forget what it was called now.

Government goal post moving has gone on for the whole of my working life.