I have a waistcoat…not one that came from a suit! It’s more like one of the waistcoats you might see a fisherman/woman wear, or the kind of thing a farmer might wear. The kind of thing you would wear driving a Quad bike on a wintery day. A padded waistcoat (no the arms don’t wrap around and tie at the back, smart-arse! – there are no arms!) Anyway, I don’t get to wear it ‘cos Anne has nabbed it for when she’s cold and in the garden.
It got me thinking though…with all the bad behaviour of the UK Tory party in government – you know (or I assume you know) about how the day after the Scottish Referendum, we had David Cameron introducing English Votes for English Laws, which lessened, even further, the little influence Scottish MPs had on UK matters…or Boris’s ‘prorogation’ of parliament to get Brexit done…remember? Or, what about Ferry madness? Remember Chris Grayling (Transport Secretary) gave £15 million to the Ferry company who had no ferries? (It turned out to be around £40 million!!!) Oh how I laughed! But I’m sure we all laughed, didn’t we? And then there was the UK declining to join the Emergency EU Scheme to procure ventilators and PPE (because the UK said it “was no longer in the EU” and they were “making their own efforts in this area” – sniff!)…what a hoot! But then…they went giving out contracts to Tory donors to the tune of over £150 million for PPE equipment…which didn’t meet the requirements!! And their latest dodge is the UK Internal Market Bill, to strip the powers of the devolved administrations of this wonderful UK union…which requires the Scottish Parliament’s consent…which has NOT been given…but they’ll just go ahead anyway!! :-O Jeezy Peeps…I need a breather (no humour intended)! My laughter is developing manic overtones.
I’m sure I’ve said this before…but I’m generally fairly chill. And (this is important) I do know that Scotland will be independent one day…I do! But I can’t help thinking that Karma needs a wee push sometimes. And time is moving on! When you get older, at least to pensionable age, there are increasing bits of you that don’t work so well. I’m actually doing not bad because I’ve been stretching my spine and get less pain there. And, my gall-bladder has been removed, extracted, pulled, chucked…gone…and is no more (I was always told that I “had some gall!” and I didn’t believe it till I felt the pain in my back.) No, my main gripe is with my feet…they just don’t want to touch the floor anymore! They are only happy when I’m in bed. So I try not to get up before noon and I try to sit in a comfy seat for as long as possible, only getting up to make tea (or to pee-tea) and then I try to finish-off the day by hitting the hay at 9pm and watching something on Netflix. It’s tough but I’m managing!
Anyhoo…Waistcoats! I figure there are a good number of Scottish Pensioners might be in need of some focus…some project that could benefit their children or their grand-children. Something that would get them out of the house…a renewed sense of purpose. Or even some pay-back for robbing them of pension (paid for their whole working lives) and changing the State Pension Age (Remember the Beatles sang “When I’m 64”? Well, now it’s 66 and good luck reaching that in Scotland.) So, what I’m thinking is…we need a Scottish Kamikaze Pensioner Group to develop some kind of suicide fertiliser vests with waistcoats? I know the pockets aren’t that big but you might get a couple of handfuls in!!
We could maybe hire a bus, get tanked-up and go down in a group (that would cut the cost)…no-one would suspect a bus load of pensioners wearing masks with their waistcoats full of fertiliser. And if we arrived, and survived the smell of the journey, we could split-up and meander. Okay…there might be the occasional un-forseen consequence, like the odd explosion in a Greggs shop or people getting lost or maybe one or two device-failures due to incontinence. But…it would just take one to get through! Just one, to defeat dementia and have the satnav the right way up or to ask a policeman for directions! To be fair…I haven’t worked out all the details and I’m not even sure how fertiliser can explode anyway!!…because it’s quite wet when it comes out! It’s just an idea at this stage. Although, I do think we should get rid of the Tory party at the next election (and I’m speaking to everyone in the UK now) because this waistcoat project seems shit, the more I think about it!
Addendum: I am reliably told that the waistcoats could be best carried in a trailer, to avoid the smell, and people would only wear them when we reach London. Excellent suggestion. Back in the game!
Jackson Greenhorn 