Toasty Hot
Friends of mine who live on islands or out in the country, in old houses with poor or no central heating, are amazed when they come to the mainland and find us southern softies lounging around the house in teeshirts in temperatures they consider positively Mediterranean. They'll be delighted to see this meme from Facebook - obviously posted by a parent - you know, the one who pays the bills!
I keep my flat at a steady 22C, except in really cold spells when I turn the heating up to 24C. My cleaner clearly regards me as a cheapskate because she puts her heating up to 29C for the winter. My nephew thinks I'm wildly extravagant since he keeps his heating at 20C in the winter. But you'll notice we all have heating.
I'll bet I'm the only one of those three who lived for a long time in houses with no heating. Just coal fires or electric heaters you carried with you from room to room. Maybe you don't remember ice gathering on the insides of the windows of your house but I do. I also remember chilblains, not to mention piling blankets and coats on the bed in really bad winter weather. Even now, I can't get to sleep unless I have a wee blankie round my shoulders to keep me cosy. On the rare occasions in my childhood when the doctor was called, the sick person was shunted into the one bedroom with a gas fire, which was switched on to high but only for the duration of the consultation. That, of course, was 'last century' - in my case 60 years ago - you know, the era of Elvis, not exactly 'the olden days'!
So are we just spoiled wimps now? Tell that to the very elderly, the sick and the poor who suffer 'fuel poverty' every year and who are the first to get sick and end up in hospital sometimes because of lack of heating, but just as often because they are cutting back on food to keep the heating on.
Of all the crimes this Tory government has committed against us, I think the crazy cut in benefits is the worst.
It's not a coincidence that life expectancy is not improving any more in the UK. The joke we used to crack that delaying paying people their old age pension was a way of controlling the population is sadly turning out to be true.
I'm sure there are people reading this who will want to point out that the elderly get a heating allowance. Yes, we do. And it's true some of us elderly don't in fact need the heating allowance. I don't. So long as it keeps coming my way, half will go to the local food bank and half to the children in my family. And yes, I'm against the means-testing of this 'benefit' because whatever else comes of means-testing, some folk will be deprived of the cash who really need it and others will still get it who don't.
So what to do? Frankly, change government.
I keep my flat at a steady 22C, except in really cold spells when I turn the heating up to 24C. My cleaner clearly regards me as a cheapskate because she puts her heating up to 29C for the winter. My nephew thinks I'm wildly extravagant since he keeps his heating at 20C in the winter. But you'll notice we all have heating.
I'll bet I'm the only one of those three who lived for a long time in houses with no heating. Just coal fires or electric heaters you carried with you from room to room. Maybe you don't remember ice gathering on the insides of the windows of your house but I do. I also remember chilblains, not to mention piling blankets and coats on the bed in really bad winter weather. Even now, I can't get to sleep unless I have a wee blankie round my shoulders to keep me cosy. On the rare occasions in my childhood when the doctor was called, the sick person was shunted into the one bedroom with a gas fire, which was switched on to high but only for the duration of the consultation. That, of course, was 'last century' - in my case 60 years ago - you know, the era of Elvis, not exactly 'the olden days'!
So are we just spoiled wimps now? Tell that to the very elderly, the sick and the poor who suffer 'fuel poverty' every year and who are the first to get sick and end up in hospital sometimes because of lack of heating, but just as often because they are cutting back on food to keep the heating on.
Of all the crimes this Tory government has committed against us, I think the crazy cut in benefits is the worst.
It's not a coincidence that life expectancy is not improving any more in the UK. The joke we used to crack that delaying paying people their old age pension was a way of controlling the population is sadly turning out to be true.
I'm sure there are people reading this who will want to point out that the elderly get a heating allowance. Yes, we do. And it's true some of us elderly don't in fact need the heating allowance. I don't. So long as it keeps coming my way, half will go to the local food bank and half to the children in my family. And yes, I'm against the means-testing of this 'benefit' because whatever else comes of means-testing, some folk will be deprived of the cash who really need it and others will still get it who don't.
So what to do? Frankly, change government.
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