Benefits!

RE: Benefits!

Neil Wheadon — Mon, 01 Aug 2016 20:54:06 GMT

[quote user="grumpyoldman"]I really dislike the ones that put a hand into your face mid conversation while they answer the iPhone 5 or 6 and discuss the coming evenings social activities. [/quote]

I've used this line once and it worked

'You're paying for my professional services, it depends how you want to spend this time, either discussing the case or talking on the phone, the choice is yours'

In nearly every other case I've found that folks are pretty apologetic when the phone rings and I include 'more deprived' clients.

Neil

RE: Benefits!

grumpyoldman — Mon, 01 Aug 2016 20:02:05 GMT

[quote user="Hannah Wynne Richards"]h) bring even worse behaved brats into the surgery[/quote]

I really dislike the ones that put a hand into your face mid conversation while they answer the iPhone 5 or 6 and discuss the coming evenings social activities.

RE: Benefits!

Hannah Wynne Richards — Mon, 01 Aug 2016 18:27:21 GMT

h) bring even worse behaved brats into the surgery

Wynne

RE: Benefits!

Thomas Johnson — Mon, 01 Aug 2016 16:37:48 GMT

[quote user="Neil Wheadon"]

I've often wandered who has the better life.

Middle class workers seem to work all day, return to their house, have a meal, watch the TV, maybe have a glass of wine and do this day on day. When asked many are incredibly lonely and can count good friends on one hand. They don't interact with the neighbours etc

Folks of a 'lower social class' seem to have a far more interactive life. I'm often struck by greetings in the waiting room or the street, they seem to know loads of people. Maybe it's because aspirations are lower and they are content with life in a local community?

Perhaps that's why professionals are so depressed?

[/quote]

Another contributory factor is that professionals have often moved away from the area they grew up in and don't have local family or childhood friends, so unless you are involved in a social sport or other activity it's hard to make new friends apart from work colleagues.

RE: Benefits!

Utlendigur — Mon, 01 Aug 2016 15:09:39 GMT

[quote user="Hannah Wynne Richards"]

I've just done a pre-spay check before a Dogs Trust neutering.

Why , oh why is it always Dogs Trust clients who:

a) drive brand new cars

b) stink of cigarettes

c) stink of last week's washing

d) own ill-disciplined dogs who won't stand still and

e) talk whilst I'm trying to ausultate the dog.

Wynne

[/quote]

You forgot

f) own the latest iphone

g) own a trendy expensive handbag dog or a giant breed (probably multiple!)

RE: Benefits!

Hannah Wynne Richards — Mon, 01 Aug 2016 15:05:56 GMT

I've just done a pre-spay check before a Dogs Trust neutering.

Why , oh why is it always Dogs Trust clients who:

a) drive brand new cars

b) stink of cigarettes

c) stink of last week's washing

d) own ill-disciplined dogs who won't stand still and

e) talk whilst I'm trying to ausultate the dog.

Wynne

RE: Benefits!

Neil Wheadon — Mon, 01 Aug 2016 14:46:10 GMT

[quote user="Martin Atkinson"] If there was a soap about nice middle class people going about their normal lives they probably wouldn't watch it[/quote]

It's an interesting social comment.

I've often wandered who has the better life.

Perhaps that's why professionals are so depressed?

Neil

RE: Benefits!

mariette asselbergs — Mon, 01 Aug 2016 14:32:40 GMT

See the lower back pain thread on this forum.....

Mariette

RE: Benefits!

Anna Battek-Kosiorowska — Thu, 28 Jul 2016 18:36:44 GMT

[quote user="Hannah Wynne Richards"]Given the number of "bad backs" who manage to produce brats.[/quote]

Hmm, I have to admit I do wonder sometimes..."But how on earth did they do that?"

RE: Benefits!

Hannah Wynne Richards — Thu, 28 Jul 2016 18:26:52 GMT

Given the number of "bad backs" who manage to produce brats. Add on the fact that it's now politically correct to be non-judgemental in selecting recipients for egg donation, I wouldn't bank on it being an impossibility.

Wynne

RE: Benefits!

Anna Battek-Kosiorowska — Thu, 28 Jul 2016 17:46:07 GMT

There is a hope for us taxpayers, even Easter European one here! She is 60 and they both are chain smokers, they may struggle to conceive I haven't seen that but are they fit enough to actually get engaged in some sort of a coital activity?

RE: Benefits!

Thomas Johnson — Wed, 27 Jul 2016 18:55:59 GMT

[quote user="Martin Atkinson"]

If there was a soap about nice middle class people going about their normal lives they probably wouldn't watch it because it would be too posh. But then again there would be nothing interesting to watch anyway!

[/quote]

They'd have to listen to The Archers, though it does seem to be straying a little further from normality than it used to!

RE: Benefits!

Martin Atkinson — Tue, 26 Jul 2016 18:48:50 GMT

[quote user="Hannah Wynne Richards"]My theory is that television manufacturers bribe TV production companies to put on programmes like soaps, or featuring wastes of space, knowing that sales of TVs will go up[/quote]No the conspiracy goes much deeper than that. The government sponsors soaps and Jeremy Kyle type shows same as it sponsors the gutter press to keep the great unwashed occupied otherwise they would be revolting (well they are revolting but not in the revolutionary sense). Same sort of conspiracy as why they don't ban smoking or control the sales of unhealthy food and cheap alcohol because it means the slobs die younger and although they are drag on the state while they're alive they don't have to pay pensions for so long and the slobs pay for their healthcare from the tax they pay on their fags, booze and betting. Simple economics.

RE: Benefits!

Bob Russell — Tue, 26 Jul 2016 16:37:05 GMT

Sadly watching pond life in their natural environment is very cheap television and has a guaranteed audience. A bit like the Victorian travelling fairs where the bizarre were put on display!

The companies making these programmes like the notoriety they bring with them.

Channel 4 made a documentary about a street in Southampton. With the help of The Sun journalists and others, they drummed up such bad feeling, bordering on violence. The TV series was reduced to one programme. Very sad because that street is very cosmopolitan and multi-ethnic. People get on with each other and those of us that go shopping there for Thai/Chinese/Indian/Polish specialist foods.

It used to be a street where ladies of the night entertained sailors on leave from ships in Southampton Port!! That might have made 'good' TV too!

RE: Benefits!

Robin Grimmer — Tue, 26 Jul 2016 14:34:46 GMT

The pond life featured in the programme were predictably xenophobic. All lacking in personal hygiene, chain smokers and blaming all the foreigners rather than their own fecklessness.

RE: Benefits!

Hannah Wynne Richards — Tue, 26 Jul 2016 11:25:20 GMT

My theory is that television manufacturers bribe TV production companies to put on programmes like soaps, or featuring wastes of space, knowing that sales of TVs will go up.................all the people who've chucked bricks through their screens buying new sets. Why do you think so many people tune in when they show a Jane Austen drama, in which people behave, and virtue is rewarded at the end?

Wynne

RE: Benefits!

Martin Atkinson — Tue, 26 Jul 2016 10:35:11 GMT

[quote user="Hannah Wynne Richards"] The sad thing with the soaps is they convince the gullible that bad behaviour is the norm If they only featured good people, then perhaps they'd help to raise average standards of behaviour[/quote]Doubtful, the vast majority of people who watch these programmes identify themselves with the characters. If there was a soap about nice middle class people going about their normal lives they probably wouldn't watch it because it would be too posh. But then again there would be nothing interesting to watch anyway!

Even middle class soaps like The Good Life and My Family, even Dallas et al, were about oddballs/slightly dysfunctional families.

What I can't work out is why my wife who is otherwise an intelligent person is glued to East Enders.

RE: Benefits!

Hannah Wynne Richards — Tue, 26 Jul 2016 10:01:04 GMT

I agree 100% with you there Martin, so have given you 5*s The sad thing with the soaps is they convince the gullible that bad behaviour is the norm If they only featured good people, then perhaps they'd help to raise average standards of behaviour

Wynne

RE: Benefits!

Martin Atkinson — Tue, 26 Jul 2016 09:31:52 GMT

[quote user="grumpyoldman"]

There is no point watching these things , it will annoy and depress you , and no one can make it better. Just turn over or download a film , they are probably also Brexiters !!.

[/quote]I doubt very much they got off their fat lazy arses (sorry its the A word) even to vote let alone have a considered opinion.

I can't watch soap operas or any reality show, even ones involving animals, they all depress me so much as to the state of the human race.

RE: Benefits!

Robert FalconerTaylor — Tue, 26 Jul 2016 09:21:16 GMT

Precisely! I live deep in SNP heartland. There was similar division during the Scottish referendum with intimidation, violance and vandalism on the YES side against the NO, even in the little community-based villages. It's scary how close this kind of behaviour is to the surface.

RE: Benefits!

grumpyoldman — Tue, 26 Jul 2016 09:14:04 GMT

[quote user="Hannah Wynne Richards"]Most Brexiters are either (like myself ) on the traditional (right wing) side of the Conservatives, or the traditional ( actually working in unskilled jobs ) side of the Labour party.[/quote]

Actually I live in Brexit capital, all the none graduate staff voted out, they have no patience with malingerers and benefit con merchants even though at one surgery its every other client, the problem is that they are also racist and have no patience with the eastern european migrants who work and pay but struggle a bit with the language sometimes. Ironically they voted with the benefit claiming smelly UKIP/BNP supporters from the council estates they dislike to try to get rid of the eastern europeans who are generally quite decent, hardworking and manage to have a wash in the morning. So the referendum created a common enemy and brought the worst out of everyone. It will be interesting to see where it goes over the next 3-4 years .

RE: Benefits!

Robert FalconerTaylor — Tue, 26 Jul 2016 09:12:25 GMT

Well at least the fallout from Brexit has given them all a good kicking up the arxx.

RE: Benefits!

Hannah Wynne Richards — Tue, 26 Jul 2016 08:51:30 GMT

That's because politicians haven't yet realised the depth of feeling amongst taxpayers against this sort. They are very divorced from reality. It's in exactly the same way they underestimated the strength of feeling against the EU.

Wynne

RE: Benefits!

Robert FalconerTaylor — Tue, 26 Jul 2016 08:39:09 GMT

I agree Hannah, but sadly no politician / party will touch it, look what happened to Osbourne's disability benefit reform in the last budget.

RE: Benefits!

Hannah Wynne Richards — Tue, 26 Jul 2016 08:30:12 GMT

Grumpyoldman Actually, I think you're wrong. Most Brexiters are either (like myself ) on the traditional (right wing) side of the Conservatives, or the traditional ( actually working in unskilled jobs ) side of the Labour party.

Neither has any patince with shirkers.

Robert We all have influence in our own circles. Unless we articulate our total disgust at this sort, then the politicians won't get it into their thick heads that their own very cushy lifestyles are at risk unless the tax/benefits system is drastically rebalanced to eradicate this sort.

Wynne