Brace yourself kids, because I have had another one of my insanely
brilliant ideas.
This cold weather of February has reminded me winter brings
with it stupid cold weather, snow and rain and of course the sad and lonely
come out to make us all feel even more miserable.
If all goes to plan we have 10 months to get this amazing
formula of mine put in place and up and running.
The best thing of all is – it’s easy!
Here’s the problem:
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| I'm not the problem - You are... |
When it gets cold and/or towards the end the year, the vulnerable
parts of or society tend to find themselves cut off meaning they feel even more
lonely and afraid.
These two sections of our communities are often referred to
as the Old and the Lonely.
I propose we offer an outlet for both of these types that
allows the rest of us “normal folk” to carry on with buying our gizmos and
gadgets without fear of guilt creeping into our subconsiousness and ruining
what promises to be a cosy weekend in front of our massive TVs.
Old people, as we all know, love nothing more than talking.
They can talk about anything and everything. Sometimes it doesn’t even make
sense.
On the flip side of things there are the loners. The
socially incompatible who, for whatever reason, can’t or won’t speak to others.
They go unnoticed in our day to day lives until a few weeks after they die and
someone calls the council about the smell. It’s at this point the police smash the door
down to find mountains of old newspapers and a load of feral cats feeding off
the remains of some house bound hermit.
Let’s get these two groups together via the medium of
telephones!
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| Listen to me if you want to live.. |
There are currently... oh I don’t know . . . 9 million
charity hotlines of each and every aspect of speaking your mind or just getting
things off your chest so that you can feel better about yourself or hear that
piece of advice that you already know to be true.
Who better to hear it off than someone’s Gran?
Grans and Nanas know EVERYTHING! They have lived lives to
the fullest and bake and do things with knitting needles and other dying arts
that will soon be lost forever.
Moreover, these retired folks often complain that they too
have nobody to talk to.
So I think we (and by we I mean somebody else) should
install dedicated telephones in old people’s homes in an attempt to create a
network of hotlines for those who need help but don’t want to be preached at by
a self righteous do-gooding vegan crystal healer.
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| Think of the Shit I got upto as a teenager! |
Think about it.
Who else but a Granny can tell you to pull your socks up and
get on with life, while passing on their special recipe of treacle toffee and
sponge cake all the while making you feel like YOU are the one doing THEM a
favour by getting in touch?
A Granny would never be patronising or talk down to you.
They listen.
That’s what grannies do best.
They have life experience. Lived and fought through wars,
depressions, 3 day weeks, rationing and a myriad of problems and issues that
were never a life defeating stop the clocks and punish yourself milestone
around your neck that they are today, because people simply didn’t have time to
sit around and over think things back then.
In the old days people didn’t have such problems as obesity
(because people were just called fat in those days) nor did they have
overflowing debt (because nobody had money anyway and there were not as many
things to buy).
Grannies would just tell you get on with it and remind you
times used to be a lot harder in their day. But it would be done in such a way
that you knew it was right and you were being very selfish and or lazy.
Here comes the clever bit.
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| ...Umm.... |
Because these grannies would be” working from home” although
not being paid as such, they would be able to take advantage of a little known
government policy that allows those who work from home to claim up to £3 per
day for use of their own utilities.
This equates to around £1000 per year.
Starting to make sense now isn’t it?
This extra money could be put towards heating bills, food
bills or those extra scratch cards they insist on buying.
These phone lines can be open 24 hours a day because old
people rarely sleep. They’re always outside the post office well before opening
times so there are no issues there that I can see.
The one and only problem might be when we have to close the
phone lines at 3pm when countdown is on, or Eastenders, or Coronation Street,
or Downton abbey, or antiques roadshow, or Bargin hunt...no that’s it I think.
Just those shows... oh no Masterchef. They love Masterchef don’t they? Can’t
disturb them when Masterchef is on. They’d be livid.
The conclusion of this would be three fold.
Firstly, people would have another avenue to communicate
with someone on the end of a phone who will listen to them and be able to offer
some real life advice. This would free up some much needed time and cost for
the hard working charities that already exist.
Secondly, old folks will live a bit longer because they
would have someone to talk to and pass on their experiences and knowledge as
well as properly earning themselves a little extra cash that has already been
side lined and therefore won’t cost the tax payer any extra money.
Thirdly, these phones lines will need to be monitored and
the grannies trained in some respect so there are some jobs made up for the
unemployed.
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| Not everyone will be suitable for the job though... |
WALLOP!
I’ve saved the country yet again.
I think I probably deserve a big shiny medal or bronze statue
or something.
As always people – you are all very welcome.