....hell in a handbasket

[woolybanana]

Well, the world is going there. Evidence: Shell has cut its dividend for the first time since the 2WW. Which means that the Netherlands are in deep mourning and most pension funds in the UK and the world will be hurting. So, your and others pensions will be weakened if not reduced over time if this Covid nonsense carries on.

But dont worry, the rate at which pensioners are dying off in hospitals and homes, there will be plenty of money to go round for the next generation.??

Roundabouts and swings!

[idun]

Well, not quite, most young people I know reckon that there would be s od all in pensions left for them, so maybe there will.

Yes, I think that pensions will go down. At least us old folk should know how to tighten our belts and live not only frugally but well. And if we don't well, we had a life time to learn and silly us if we didn't.

[NormanH]

The Hollow Men

Mistah Kurtz-he dead

            A penny for the Old Guy

                       I

    We are the hollow men

    We are the stuffed men

    Leaning together

    Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!

    Our dried voices, when

    We whisper together

    Are quiet and meaningless

    As wind in dry grass

    Or rats' feet over broken glass

    In our dry cellar

   

    Shape without form, shade without colour,

    Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

   

    Those who have crossed

    With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom

    Remember us-if at all-not as lost

    Violent souls, but only

    As the hollow men

    The stuffed men.

   

                              II

    Eyes I dare not meet in dreams

    In death's dream kingdom

    These do not appear:

    There, the eyes are

    Sunlight on a broken column

    There, is a tree swinging

    And voices are

    In the wind's singing

    More distant and more solemn

    Than a fading star.

   

    Let me be no nearer

    In death's dream kingdom

    Let me also wear

    Such deliberate disguises

    Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves

    In a field

    Behaving as the wind behaves

    No nearer-

   

    Not that final meeting

    In the twilight kingdom

   

                   III

    This is the dead land

    This is cactus land

    Here the stone images

    Are raised, here they receive

    The supplication of a dead man's hand

    Under the twinkle of a fading star.

   

    Is it like this

    In death's other kingdom

    Waking alone

    At the hour when we are

    Trembling with tenderness

    Lips that would kiss

    Form prayers to broken stone.

   

                     IV

    The eyes are not here

    There are no eyes here

    In this valley of dying stars

    In this hollow valley

    This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

   

    In this last of meeting places

    We grope together

    And avoid speech

    Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

   

    Sightless, unless

    The eyes reappear

    As the perpetual star

    Multifoliate rose

    Of death's twilight kingdom

    The hope only

    Of empty men.

   

                           V

    Here we go round the prickly pear

    Prickly pear prickly pear

    Here we go round the prickly pear

    At five o'clock in the morning.

   

    Between the idea

    And the reality

    Between the motion

    And the act

    Falls the Shadow

                                   For Thine is the Kingdom

   

    Between the conception

    And the creation

    Between the emotion

    And the response

    Falls the Shadow

                                   Life is very long

   

    Between the desire

    And the spasm

    Between the potency

    And the existence

    Between the essence

    And the descent

    Falls the Shadow

                                   For Thine is the Kingdom

   

    For Thine is

    Life is

    For Thine is the

   

    This is the way the world ends

    This is the way the world ends

    This is the way the world ends

    Not with a bang but a whimper.

[NickP]

I'm very glad that I settled for a fixed pension, also I lashed out yesterday and bought next years heating oil which saved me 250 Euro over the February delivery. Money for nothing and chicks for free. LOL??