Happiness is not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort.
Posted: February 23rd, 2011 | Author: admin | Filed under: About retirement - Howard Croft | No Comments »
Dear Philippa,
We went to the Festival Trials Day at Cheltenham recently, with Tim and Jenny. I had a pretty good day, as did daughter Helen. She wasn’t with us but I placed bets on her behalf. The trouble was that I also had to pick her horses, so in most races I had two runners backed to win, which left me with the dilemma when I got a result – whose horse had won? After wrestling with my conscience overnight I decided to split the winnings 50:50. She looked at me a bit old fashioned when she saw what I did, but I have to say she did pretty well out of it.
Fiona had a disastrous day, as usual picking her horses on the basis of the colours on the riders silks. Her final throw in the last race was particularly ill-judged – her pick came in well behind the rest of the field, cantering sideways and laughing to itself. As a result she has forsworn forever betting, and I am went alone to Sedgefield the following Tuesday.
The evening before the race the four of us had dinner in a Cotswold village pub together Peter and Libby, who live in the village and to whose house we went for drinks beforehand. I have know Peter as a friend and colleague for, I would guess, thirty years but I had not previously visited his home, nor had I ever met his wife. We were in the same room once, at a funeral, but we were not introduced, I can’t think why. I must say they live in some style. We swept up a long drive to be confronted with what looked to me like two houses, stabling, horse boxes and nice motors. Inside, I spent a bit of time admiring their pictures, one of which particularly caught my eye; I thought from across a (large) room that it was an Atkinson Grimshaw, but not as it turned out. I was reminded of Alan Bennett’s remark on visiting galleries, saying that he only knows if he likes a picture when he wants to remove from the wall and take it home. I felt the same about this painting.
Anyway, there was an amusing little incident at drinks. I mentioned, as I am apt to do, that we at home have five toilets – lavatories I expect they call them in Oxfordshire, or maybe powder rooms. Peter and Libby looked absolutely stricken, and as they stared at each other I could see the mental arithmetic going on – but their faces cleared when they obviously got to five. I wasn’t a bit surprised; it’s a lovely house. It was lovely to see Peter, and to meet Libby of course; we seldom meet now, though there was a time when we saw each other daily and did the Telegraph crossword together when things were quiet. Always finished it, of course.
If you happen to be at Sedgefield look out for me – I’ll give you some tips. Not a bad place to be; only there can you be sure of not running into Tony Blair.
Best wishes,
Howard
Posted: February 23rd, 2011 | Author: admin | Filed under: Miscellaneous | No Comments »
I know these are hard times for businesses but I have had four examples this week of very hard sell.
Example 1
Telephone call on my mobile from an insurance broker telling me she “needs to speak” to me about my home insurance. Then a letter, saying there are a few “points on your home insurance which need clarifying”. Feeling rather unnerved by this point and wondering whether there is a problem with the cover, I ring up. Of course, the brokers are just trying to secure the renewal of an existing policy. Actually, I am still comparing quotes.
Example 2
Letter from accountants warning that the risks of an in depth tax enquiry by HM Revenue & Customs have continued to increase. “HMRC officers are now using new wider powers to visit premises and inspect financial records…and the professional costs of defence are rising” and moreover “Even if you have done nothing wrong, the taxman will not give up and will still try hard to find errors”. And the way to provide “peace of mind” against such an onslaught is of course to pay for “Fee Protection” which incidentally costs almost as much again as the cost of preparing accounts. Terrifying.
Example 3
Letter from a party wall surveyor informing us that they understand from council records that our neighbours are building an extension to their property and that they are writing to let us know some “important legal information”, namely that the Party Wall Act applies if the extension involves “digging foundations within three metres” of our house. In these alarming circumstances we should appoint a surveyor “to safeguard” our legal rights and here’s a handy form we can complete nominating them. All very well except that we know that the “extension” is in fact a new bungalow our elderly neighbour is building at the end of her garden, nowhere near our house.
Example 4
Telephone call from the call centre of a nationwide optician telling me that my “next appointment is due” and indeed “recommended” by the optician and offering to arrange it. That’s fine except I have no ongoing relationship with any optician and this was simply one of the last companies which checked my eyes a couple of years ago.
Whilst I am happy to consider buying all these services if I need them, I do object to being frightened or pressurised into buying them. Anyone else had similar experiences?
Posted: February 17th, 2011 | Author: admin | Filed under: About retirement - Howard Croft | No Comments »
![howard_croft1-150x150[1]](http://blog.thefutureperfectcompany.com/wp-content/uploads/howard_croft1-150x15012.jpg "howard_croft1-150x150[1]")
Dear Philippa,
I have been thinking about apostrophes, the way you do. I recently received a long letter from a middle manager in a public authority of some importance. He is, I would guess, in his mid-thirties, and a graduate. It contains a few grammatical errors, and several spelling mistakes, resulting from a failure to appreciate that Spell Check cannot deal with homophones. But the document’s most outstanding feature is the deployment of apostrophes – or apostrophe’s, as my correspondent almost certainly would have written – which are scattered about completely at random. Many words, but not all, ending with an “s” were apostrophised, usually the plural forms, and where possession required an apostrophe it was either absent of misplaced, and words that had a whiff of possession about them, such as “ours” and “theirs” had them confidently supplied.
There were a couple of examples of apostrophes appearing where I thought they should not, but I was unsure – for example, GP’s, as in “GP’s are a lazy bunch who won’t turn out at night”. Should it not be “GPs are the salt of the earth whose concerns for their patients overwhelm all other considerations”?
I turned to Fowler’s Modern English Usage, a splendid book that draws you in and sets you wandering until you can no longer remember why you went to it in the first place. On this visit I discovered something I hadn’t known. We all know about the greengrocers’ apostrophe, so called because of the frequency with which such expressions as “orange’s 20p each” appear in the windows of their premises. But what about “potato’s 20p a pound”? Fowler tells us – not Fowler, of course, he’s long dead, but someone called Burchfield, the current editor, a New Zealander of all things – that in the 17thc the apostrophe was used in the plural number when the noun ended in a vowel; thus “Romans wore their toga’s when peeling potato’s in their grotto’s”. This usage continued until the mid-19thc when it fell into disfavour with grammarians. So, greengrocers may simply be traditionalists defending ancient usage in the same brave spirit that they fought for imperial weights until cruelly crushed Nazis from Weights and Measures, enforcing in their supine way diktats from Brussels.
As a schoolboy I was mystified by those of my classmates that could not master rules of grammar and punctuation, which seemed then as now relatively simple and logical. In my day, 15% of the marks in O Level English Language were available in the grammar section, an easy banker in contrast to the more subjective and nebulous 85% balance. But some regularly in tests failed to score. It is not a matter of intelligence, but what it is a matter of I cannot tell. When I was at university we were taught Classical Greek, which gave much trouble to a mature student in our group. Without getting too technical, Greek has very many more tenses than we have in English and these are created by building suffixes and prefixes around the root of the verb, and these accretions are useful indicators of which words are verbs when wrestling with translation into English. This mature student, when composing in Greek, would more or less randomly supply suffixes and prefixes to nouns and adjectives clearly having no grasp of the function of such words, never mind verbs. What is amazing, and supports my assertion that this is not a matter of intelligence, is that this student already had a BSc and a PhD in engineering, therefore by no means a fool.
Anyway, don’t get me started. By the way, I was right about the “GP’s/GPs” issue. GPs is right – otherwise we would have to write: “I have no problem with GP’s’ salaries being higher than that of the Prime Minister”. As I do not – most people should earn more than some prime ministers I could mention. A silly benchmark.
Best wish’s
Howard
Posted: February 15th, 2011 | Author: admin | Filed under: Offers and competitions | Comments Off
![product-mensclassicgardening-attribute-2-19[1]](http://blog.thefutureperfectcompany.com/wp-content/uploads/product-mensclassicgardening-attribute-2-1911-300x214.jpg "product-mensclassicgardening-attribute-2-19[1]")
To get you in the mood for Spring (and yes, it is on its way!), we are offering free delivery on all internet orders until 7 March.
Why not check out our gardening range, maybe buy the ultimate pair of gardening gloves you have been promising yourself. Planning on growing your own this year? Have a look at the popular Culti Cave - the space efficient, go anywhere portable greenhouse.
And our fantastic OXO Good Grips pruners are currently on special offer at £10.99.
Offer ends 7 March – so be quick!
Posted: February 9th, 2011 | Author: admin | Filed under: Miscellaneous | No Comments »
Love Grand Designs? Always wanted to build your own but lacked the funds? Interested in sustainability, innovative building methods and all things green? Here’s the chance to help rebuild Kevin McCloud’s famous eco house.
Planning permission has just been granted for the University of Brighton to rebuild The House That Kevin Built which was first erected in London’s Docklands live on Thames TV in six days in 2008 for Channel 4’s Grand Designs Live and heralded as the UK’s first low-energy prefabricated house made from eco-friendly materials.
The house was later dismantled but – and here’s the exciting part – the concept is being reborn in the courtyard of the University of Brighton’s Faculty of Arts.
Kevin McCloud, the British designer who presented the TV programme, is backing the idea along with Brighton & Hove City Council and the Building Research Establishment . The house was designed by architect Duncan Baker-Brown, a Brighton graduate.
In an article for Grand Designs Magazine, Kevin writes:
If you made it to Grand Designs Live at ExCeL in London in the spring of 2008, you will have been greeted by the sight of my house.Thousands of you tramped round it. I slept there during the exhibition, in fact, spending my 49th birthday there. It wasn’t, of course, the house where I spend the bulk of my time and which is full of my detritus. It was the house that I built, admittedly with the help of around 73 muscular adults, in just six days as an exemplar project of where domestic house building might go…..
The house came down, sadly, as it was there only for the duration of the exhibition, but being a component-built project it was always intended that it might go somewhere else. The exciting news is that it now has a new home in Brighton where we’re hoping to reincarnate it as a project for the University. The House That Kevin Rebuilt is goingto fit in the quadrangle of the Faculty of Arts in Grand Parade, which is a lump-of Hemcrete’s-throw away from the Royal Pavilion, so it’ll be available to see for anyone in the towncentre.
It will also provide a working laboratory for researchers to monitor the building’ s performance, carbon footprint and evolution. Different faculties will be involved and the building adapted and furnished by students.. ..
And here’s where you come in – £300,000 is needed to re-build the house. All donations to the University are eligible for both Gift Aid and the government’s matched funding scheme; for every £2 received in philanthropic donations, the University can claim an additional £1 from the government.
If you would like to make a donation to the project, click here and you will be taken to the University’s secure JustGiving site. Mention The House That Kevin Built in the comments box when you make the donation to ensure that your donation goes directly towards re-building this unique Grand Design.
More information HERE.
Posted: February 9th, 2011 | Author: admin | Filed under: Grandparents, Press coverage | Comments Off
You may have noticed that we have been getting some good press lately from a new website called www.virtualgranny.com and last week I got in touch with the founders to find out a bit more about what had inspired them to set up the site and what they are planning. Here’s what I found out.
VirtualGranny was set up last summer to provide a space for entertaining, informing and offering support to lively over 50’s grandparents by Marrisse Whittaker with the help of her business partner and husband Bob Whittaker.
Marrisse and Bob are TV producers (www.oriontv.co.uk). Bob’s background is as an onscreen TV Journalist and Marrisse was a TV/Film makeup artist for years before becoming a TV scriptwriter. They make TV programmes for all of the major broadcasters.
However, time and time again they find that TV commissioners request that programmes be targeted at the 18-34 age group, despite the fact that it is the over 50’s who have the money, watch TV and have the ability to buy the products advertisers want to sell around the programmes.
Marrisse and Bob often found hugely talented people over the age of 50 to appear on screen, with great stories to tell, all to no avail. So one day they decided to set up a website dedicated to over 50’s grandparents, “to help give them a voice as well as a place to chill out”.
As they are TV makers, VirtualGranny has video on site and eventually they are hoping to launch a regular on-site soap series. They also have more celebrity interviews in the offing and video series planned on consumerism, grandchild care, gardening, books and more. They currently have sections for discounts and competitions and a shopping mall.
Most of all, Marrisse and Bob want to develop the social networking area of the site, with visitors logging on to tell them what they think about issues and what they would like to see on the site. VirtualGranny are about to launch a search for 50Grand – 50 grandparents who will group together via the website to speak out as a group, road test products and give honest reviews and insights on a huge range of issues as they come up in the media.
Marrisse says:”Think Mumsnet for lively minded grandparents, with lots more TV footage, eventually giving the site the feel of a glossy magazine and TV channel rolled in to one”.
Marrisse and Bob’s plans sound very promising and we particularly like the upscale, intelligent and funky feel of the website and the interesting, good quality videos. There are several other websites out there vying for the attention of grandparents but we think VirtualGranny looks set to stand out from the crowd.
Have a look around and tell us what you think www.virtualgranny.com
Posted: February 9th, 2011 | Author: admin | Filed under: About retirement - Howard Croft | No Comments »
Dear Philippa,
Frugality is coming back into fashion. Discussing this over a decent bottle of claret the other day I found myself remembering habits I formed in childhood when “rationing was on”, some of which survive. For example, when I have toast and marmalade or jam I never butter the toast first and apply the preserve on top. I should think that this was a common practice when I was a child, but by the time days of plenty returned, with butter pouring in from New Zealand I was set in my ways, and so I remain. People occasionally make personal remarks about this, suggesting that my behaviour is rooted in my working class upbringing, and they are generally a few years my junior, their childhood having started after rationing “went out”.
My wife in particular enjoys commenting on this, usually at breakfast in smart hotels. Her childhood was very different from mine. Rationing was over for one thing, but also, both her parents being medical consultants, there was more money kicking about, and she was brought up in a castle in Hampshire where she, her sister and her brothers, all had their own bedrooms. And they had servants. There was Mr Cake, the gardener, who had his own toilet, and Mrs Cakebread, a sort of housekeeper. In addition there was a man whose sole duty was to retrieve the children’s tennis balls from the moat, and another who made the mustard. Her brother Martin so impressed the mother of a university friend, who came from a simpler background in Newcastle, that whenever young Martin went to stay she would remove that harsh, shiny toilet paper, called I think Bronco, and substitute the gentler, softer variety advertised by puppies. No such consideration was shown to poor Cake in whose garden loo hung squares of paper cut from the daily paper, threaded on string.
Sugar in tea was another thing. Adults put sugar in their first cup, but not in the second – the residual sweetness from the first had to suffice – while children, in our house anyway, were never offered sugar. To this day I do not sweeten tea, and even the smell of it makes me queasy. Coffee I do like sweet, but I was a young adult when first I encountered it. Now of course not taking sugar is all the rage and whenever I ask for it for my coffee when visiting there is always a great pantomime search - “I know we have some somewhere” - you’d think I’d asked for an ashtray.
Once we embarked on the second bottle of claret memories really started to flow. My Uncle and Auntie were both longsighted, but he refused to have an eye test relying instead on inheriting her spectacles whenever she had a new prescription. Auntie’s taste in frames ran to ornate pink; Uncle was surely the only lorry driver in Hull, or anywhere else, to whip out a pair of Edna Everage specials to study delivery notes. I remember watching him adjusting the focal length along his nose as he struggled to pick winners from the racing pages and saying to his wife, “It’s you, you got your eyes tested”. I am sure now that this was not, as I thought at the time, eccentricity but frugality with origins in wartime shortages and pre-NHS concerns about cost. Faced as we are by an uncertain future we can learn from this.
Now I’m off to root about in my neighbour’s wheelie bin in search of nourishing kitchen scraps. I heard they had dinner party last night, to which I was not invited.
Best wishes,
Howard
Posted: February 8th, 2011 | Author: admin | Filed under: Designing for the Future Competition - Collyer's, Press coverage | Comments Off
Design For The Future
Three cheers for The College of Richard Collyer and their innovative and stylish designs focused on overcoming one or more of the challenges of ageing, with pioneering, stylish and. aspirational creations.
“Designing for the Future” is a competition run by The Future Perfect Company and Richard Collyer in Horsham, for entry by AS students, who embraced the brief readily.
Philippa Aldridge, founder of The Future Perfect Company found that the most thoughtful designs came from those who had spoken with their older relatives about the realities of ageing, something which must seem almost unimaginable to this group of 16 year olds.
The winning designer Glen Crombie, made a push out plug socket, which can eject a plug from a socket at the touch of a button – a fantastic concept for people who have not so nimble fingers for any number of reasons.
Other fantastic winning designs include a very stylish self heating mug, which does away with heavy kettles by using electromagnetic induction to heat a mug of water. Not only a great energy saving idea, but ideal for people who want a quick cuppa at their desks or want to boil up a brew on holiday.
Other designs include an ingenious light bulb changer which avoids the perils of step ladders and a very funky grip glass which makes it easy for people with gripping challenges to drink with confidence and without drawing attention to their disability.
So top marks to the students and especially to Philippa Aldridge, for bringing old and young members of the community together on a brilliant project which can only benefit both parties in the future.
For more information about the “Design for the Future” competition, which runs yearly and to peruse innovative products created especially for people who have age related challenges or general disabilities – or actually for anyone who likes funky stylish gadgets and designs, visit http://thefutureperfectcompany.com
Posted: February 8th, 2011 | Author: admin | Filed under: Designing for the Future Competition - University of Brighton, Inclusive design | No Comments »
Yesterday was the launch of the “Designing for the Future” competition at the University of Brighton. This is the second year of this competition which follows hot on the heels of the successful student design competition at Collyers’ sixth form college. All part of our mission to encourage designers to consider the challenges of getting older. And we think it’s working. The winning design from the Collyer’s competition went viral on the internet meaning that blogs all over the world were discussing how best to redesign plug sockets for less nimble fingers. Great result!
Nick Gant (Principal Lecturer) and Gareth Neal (Senior Lecturer) are leading the project at the University which is open to staff and students from the Faculty of Arts and the School of Environment and Technology.
We were delighted that Age UK policy advisor Gretel Jones has agreed to be a judge again. And this year we are also joined by one of the UK’s leading occupational therapists, Maggie Winchcombe OBE, FCOT from Years Ahead. Anne Boddington, Dean of the Arts Faculty at University of Brighton and Philippa Aldrich from The Future Perfect Company complete the judging panel.
We return to Brighton in April for a “Dragons Den” to assess progress and give feedback. The judging will take place in May with the results announced in June.
All very exciting. We are hoping for some new and innovative designs and will keep you posted!
Posted: February 3rd, 2011 | Author: admin | Filed under: Designing for the Future Competition - Collyer's, Inclusive design | Comments Off
Joint Second: Lucy Martlew
The Light Bulb Changer is designed to help people who are less dexterous, disabled or have difficulties using a step ladder to change a light bulb. This innovative product has a silicon finger print grip on the claw providing a strong and safe way to hold the bulb; a handle moulded to the shape of a hand to aid human grip; and a light weight structure which can rotate and has integral lights. This modern yet simple design is an easy and safe way to change a light bulb.
Joint Second: Lauren Hale
This Soap Holder has been designed to help meet the needs of the older generation. The bathroom can be an unsafe environment
so I have designed a product which allows older people to use soap without fear of dropping the soap, slipping over it in the shower and risking injury.
The two handles make the product easier to hold for people suffering from physical problems, such as arthritis. The soap is attached to the product by a plastic screw. The extended bar allows older people to wash their feet and backs easily without having to move too much or bend over.
Dear Philippa,![product-mensclassicgardening-attribute-2-19[1]](http://blog.thefutureperfectcompany.com/wp-content/uploads/product-mensclassicgardening-attribute-2-1911.jpg "product-mensclassicgardening-attribute-2-19[1]")
