What newspaper can I buy?

Wll Mr Murdoch has put me in quite a dilemma now. What newspaper can I buy that will fulfill the three main objectives I have set for newspaper conspumtion?

1. Inform and entertain me.
2. Make me look intelligent when I tell people what I read.
3. Make no contribution to the Murdoch empire.

I used to take The Guardian in my working years mainly for the jobs section but when learned conversations took place I could look right on and politically correct or as my husband observed a Champagne Socialist - more like Cava I thought on a nurses pay.

I graduated to The Times on Sunday after exhaustive research of all the colour supplements revealed a paucity of quality shopping opportunities and fashion advice. Later in my fifties I began to enjoy the gardening, travel and book sections and howling with derision at the Home section where impoverished middle clases bewailed the lack of Georgian rectories in the country for sale under £800K.

Recently approaching the dreaded landmark birthday The Telegraph on Saturday holds my interest for the Weekend, Gardening and Review sections although I still contemptuously read out loud the plight of middle class ladies 'juggling' work and motherhood on salaries in excess of £100K its wonderful to hear that they have left the 'rat race' moved to Cornwall and set up a small but lucrative business selling artisan pin cushions and Peruvian birthing stools whilst having baby number 5.

So this Sunday best beloved strode out on a fine summer morn to garner the best Sunday paper unbesmirched by the dead hand of the Murdoch empire. We tried The Independant- adequate but woefully short on fashion, make up, sex and gardening.

So my objectives remain unfilled as befits a retired NHS Manager- shouldn't I get some sort of promotion for this?

Catering gone to pot!

I'm having a rant about the standard of service in catering outlets today. I am really fed up with catering assistants, waitresses, waiters etc greeting me with the words 'Are you alright there?. Can't somebody train these dear people to ask 'What can I get for you ? or how can I help you? Sir or madam on the end would be too much to ask. When oh when will they stop ordering me to' Enjoy your meals'? I usually reply 'I'll do my best but its up to you really', my husband is sick of hearing this. Do we not have catering colleges anymore where people learn how to service the public? I fully appreciate waiting table is a low wage low status occupation but as it is so dependant on tips why don't the staff work a bit harder on their customer care skills. I certainly don't leave a tip for someone who has got my order wrong, forgot to provide me with cutlery, spilt the food, brought my meal later or earlier than my dinner companion and forgot to attend to my drinks order. Today the last straw. My golf club holds a major in club tournament and the caterer has no bread for sandwiches (despite being close to a major supermarket) and when the rolls which were left were brought out no serviette or cutlery. Its not the fault of young staff that they dont have the social graces involved in the catering industry they have to be trained, supervised and managed. thast your job restaurant and cafe owners!One would have thought a golf club would be the last bastion of appropriate social behaviour.

Backing a dead horse!

So David Cameron would now like me to put my meagre savings into a Social ISA to fund social projects. This man is not in touch with ordinary people at all let alone older people who guard their savings and have made sacrifices to get savings in the first place. He might as well encourage me to put money on a dead horse winning the Derby. Most of these social projects are doomed to failure overrun as they are by beaurocrats and it has to be said people who are very happy to be on one social project after another without putting any real effort into changing their lives. My father found little work to come home to after the Second World War so did anything he could to keep his family labouring, fairground work, odd jobs anything. he instilled into us the need to stand on our own feet and to keep down a job no matter how horrible or difficult it was until you had a job to replace it with. He also recognised the need to serve ones country and encouraged us into public service. One final note I had the misguided notion that the taxes we paid the governement were so that they could run the country including any social projects they might have dreamed up while watching Wimbledon in the Royal Box or holidaying in the Caribbean.