This night that I lay down to sleep....*

Mortality, it is said, creeps up on you.
The call yesterday telling me that a dear and longstanding friend of mine had prostate cancer - and not in any benign way either - came as a rude shock, driving thoughts of my being still 18 out of my head.
Perhaps I'm 30 now.
My friend is having injections and will then undergo 7 weeks of radio therapy, 5 days a week. I'm afraid I slightly thought of Simon Gray, who decided not to have anything done, continued smoking manfully and lasted quite a number of years, despite having virtually killed himself off years before with alcohol.
The fact we are all living longer is, of course, partly to blame for the illnesses we oldies suffer. Never forget when Bismark first promulgated pensions for the elderly workers of the Prussian Railway system, he set it at 65, when the average mortality age was less than 60. It's also worth remembering that people worked ALL their lives in days gone by, and it's only relatively recently that we have had a period of ( s0-called) leisure as the shades draw in. I am, however, assured by friends in that position that they have never been busier.
I'm afraid I don't see myself as ever retiring, keeping at least some business activity going to keep an interest, but then, you never know - I might win the lottery tonight.
But back to my friend. I teased him that his present predicament was becuase he had had too many women in his life.
" Oh no," he said," It's clearly because I've had too few...."

*"... I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take"

Gold-plated pensions

I can hardly credit it, but I have checked and the following is absolutely true.
In year 2002/3, the cost of public employee pensions in Scotland was £211 million.
For next tear ( 2010/11) John Swinney's budget has a figure of £2,500 million.
In other words, within an 8 year period, the cost of pensions to the Scottish Government has risen more than 11 fold.
I can only assume that the UK Government figures are not entirely unadjacent to these - Scotland after all is about 10% of the UK, in terms of population, even though we have more public service employees than the UK average.
I can't help but think there will come a point where the people who are working ( whose taxes actually pay these staggering sums) won't be able to pay their taxes, and more importantly won't be prepared to pay them either.
Of course, when Bottler Brown ( remember that?) repeatedly says he borrows to invest, what he actually means is he borrows to bribe people to vote for him. Unfortunately for him, this option has now ended.
The one interesting thing is, there are definitely now some projects which I would invest in. There's no takers for the space, the banks won't give any money to undertake them - but all that means that maybe - just maybe - there's a bargain out there for those with some cash and a lot of balls.
You need to want to do it, and you need to be young enough to be bothered.
That lets me out then.

My way of life is fallen into the sere...*

As I edge slowly closer to the day when all the tax I've paid over the years starts to get paid back to me ( that's the OAP pension by the way - and is itself taxed) I am beginning to realise that I have lived my entire life without realising quite how pernicious and intrusive this Government is.
It all kicked off when I claimed my winter fuel allowance.
Then my bus pass.
That triggered visits from council officials, entailed visits to doctors, tests on my perfectly healthy body ( its like the police - trap unsuspecting illegal parkers and let the thieves and drug dealers go free) - and forms.
I have now lost count of how many forms I have had to fill in, just to make sure the Government doesn't strike me off it's list of future dependants.
The idea is quite simple. They send a form, and at the bottom it says ( in small letters, natch) words to the effect of " If you don't send this back timeously ( is that 14 days? 7 days? A month?) you will lose your entitlement to xyz until you fill in another form asking for us to be very kind and send you a new form like this one again - oh, and its not back-dated."
I've just had to fill in a form to confirm my tax code.
Now bear in mind it's not me who sets the code - the Government sends out a form every now and then which has the code on it. I effectively have little or no input, and the code is the one applied to my tax affairs until they change it.
Even so, the form stipulates that I need to tell them what my tax code is and failure to do so blah blah blah.
It also has my tax reference and NI number on it, and my date of birth, all of which I have to write in as well.
Why?
I have no idea - apart from the Government employing bodies to send the forms out, and presumably check them before filing them away.
But I'm absolutely sure I'm not going to lose one penny of what I'm entitled to.
I have to go now as the post has arrived - with yet another form to confirm I'm still alive and they do have to pay the winter fuel allowance...
*... into the yellow leaf ( Macbeth)
PS
At least it gives me something to do whilst waiting for the "upturn" we are assured is... er well er....well, the upturn.