I chose "Increasingly ashamed to be a baby boomer" as this month's 'blog header, in case you were wondering what it means, the Daily Mail has published an article by Mr J Paxman which says it all.
To choose one of his examples at random:
When the first of the Baby-Boomers were beginning to think about settling down, 425,000 homes were built in Britain. Last year, the total was just over 100,000 — fewer than in any year since 1923.
The inevitable Home-Owner-Ist shit storm is unleashed in the comments.
Monday 31 October 2011
Paxman explains my current 'blog header...
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19 comments:
65 just misses, its 60,61,62,63,64 surely? please spare me in the inter generational war.
S, do you mean 65 as in "1965" or 65 as in "years old"? As it happens, there is an inter-generational war, the fact that I am on the winning side doesn't stop that being true.
1965, it is my contention that this is not a baby boomer year....but yes you are more than right.
Mark, aren't you a bit young to be a baby boomer? Even the late fifties were more than ten years after the war and, by the early sixties, parents tended to be too young to have fought in the war.
Excuse me, are there 1, 2, 3 or even 4 different types of BB?
1. Me, those like me, Born 1943, father a quadraplegic due fighting some war, somewhere, for some reason. At the age of 5 put into the care of Dr. Barnardo's (Spennels, Kiddiminster) where we were not so much looked after as "played" with by the fucking "staff".
Aged 10 removed by my mother from Dr. Barnardo's because she wouldn't give them permission to ship me off to Australia where, I hear, those that were suffered more abouse at the hands of their "sponsors".
Secondary Modern Schooling until at the ripe old age of 15 I had the choice of Borstal or the Royal Navy, chose the RN where I obtained a much better education in 12 months that the whole of my former school days.
27 years later left the RN did a TOPS in Gas fitting, spent the next 22 years as a self employed gass fitter (corgi registerred). retired at age 64 when diagnosed with prostrate cancer. now I'm enjoying my retirement with the wife and dog - kids all grown up and left HOME to make their own way in the world, this means of course that I have two "spare" bedrooms, Whoopee!.
Type 2, born 1942 into untold wealth, Joined the RN and promoted to Admiral in what seemed like 5 minutes. Gets people to iron his laces and underwear. Has about 400 - 500 spare bedrooms.
Type 3. Paxman.
No I'm not after sympathy, just leave me the fuck alone and find something useful to do with your, I assume, empty and possibly futile life.
S, B, the last Golden Age was under John Major until 1997, when you could snap up houses for a very reasonable price, prices didn't go stupid again until about 2000, so people people who are now 45 years or over have had a decent opportunity offered to them on a plate (unless they are at that awkward aged to have been stuffed with late 1980s house price boom).
It was Paxo who defined it as born between 1945 and 1965, which seems like a fair place to start.
Anon, firstly, it's spelled "Barnados" with one "r" and secondly, I'm sticking with Paxo's definition of people born 1945 to 1965, so clearly you are not a Baby Boomer.
From your capitalisation of the word HOME I suspect that you are Comrade F, but that's just a guess. And the fact that Paxo is himself a Baby Boomer of the worst kind doesn't stop him saying it, does it?
It all seemed so much simpler then.
"The inevitable Home-Owner-Ist shit storm is unleashed in the comments"
Sadly, from the DM website, "We're sorry but reader comments are currently unavailable." So the shitstorm was too much eaven for the Dail Wail. Must have been some shitstorm!
I hope Anon is Comrade Fuckov. Typical socialist to claim "I've made my own way the world!! Actually the State paid my wages for 27 years."
Yep, top stuff from paxman.
Richard Allan.
Your hope is realised, 27 years making sure that you can do as you please as long as it's legal and doesn't hurt anyone else.
Mark - You normally leave the spelling errors to Bayard.
Who gives a FF how Dr. Banardo's is or was spelt?
Mr Paxman is wrong, any baby conceived between 1939 and early 1946 can rightly and proudly call themselves baby boomers.
do as you please as long as it's legal and doesn't hurt anyone else
Ah the Goldman Sachs defence.
JH, that's because They hadn't realised what they can get away with.
B, they're back up.
RA, that was a bit below the belt, but made me smile.
RR, you've not dropped in for a while.
Anon/Comrade F, that's fine by me, if you want to count yourself a Baby Boomer then you will be taxed like one. Out of interest, you say you had a choice between Borstal and Navy...
a) What did you do wrong?
b) The RN and Army are a lot smaller today, so there is no natural home for people from broken homes/ Barnado's etc. That's another way in which the young are being f-ed over.
QP, Comrade F is a Socialist and probably doesn't think too much of Goldman Sachs.
Wrong again, YOUR generation saw to it that the youngsters of today have nowhere to find work.
They outsourced all of the country's industry, ship building, the rag trade, car manufacture, the shoe trade, British Gas, British Telecom, The whole of the power generation network, YOUR generation saw to it that the armed forces were shrunk to current pitiful levels. You fuckers need hanging on the lamp posts (figuratively speaking) next to YOUR generation of politicians.
As to your question regarding Borstal or the RN - data protection. another example of YOUR generation's legislation.
Comrade F, I think you'll find that these decisions were largely taken over the last thirty or forty years by people who are now aged 45 and over (how old's Thatcher?), in other words the Baby Boomers and earlier.
You can hardly blame all this on people aged 40 or under, it wasn't them who stopped the grammar schools, stopped building houses etc.
Why the arbitary age of 40? do you and your coommunist buddies fall just short of that particular blame age.
I have never said that all the baby boomers were angels, I defend those of us baby boomers that have no responsibilty for all the current ills of the world and therefor no guilt.
If there were more people with the baby boomer spirit and less of your generation, the generation that wants benefits for breathing in and more benefits for breathing out, the world, or at least England, would be a much, much better place.
Comrade F, from where I'm sitting, it's the older people who subscribe to the Socialist doctrines of spending money on themselves (free uni, generous pensions) while denying it to younger people, as well as enforcing very high income taxes and Stalinist rationing of housing on young people (the under 45s).
Young people have 'got the spirit' to do like the Baby Boomers did (free uni, more house building, Domestic Rates and Schedule A taxation and so on), and it's the old Socialists like you who stopped all this.
OOPS re my comment 31/10 at 19.55, it is indeed spelled "Barnardo's" with two R's. My bad, apologies for that.
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