Tag: NHS

Guest Post: 7 Reasons You Need A Personal Budget

So, what is a budget anyway and why do I need one? A budget isn’t just a piece of paper carried in that big red sandwich box that worried looking bloke waves about every March outside 11 Downing Street. The Budget is the Government’s best estimate of what they will receive in income for the year ahead – taxation, revenue, sale of signed photos etc – and what they intend spending it on – NHS, wars, salaries, new dart board for Dave’s office etc. In the same way, a personal budget will have a forecast of your year’s income and how you intend to spend or save it; this can very easily be done with accounting software now readily available on-line. Like the Government, you can include borrowings in your budget, but unlike them you can’t decide to “print” money to ease your financial troubles – well not legally anyway! Here are 7 reasons for making a personal budget.

1. Paying The Rent. Unless you still live with Mum and Dad, housing costs – whether rented or purchased with a mortgage – will probably be your largest regular expense. Unless, that is, you are addicted to chocolate in which case see below. It is a good idea to start with listing your main living expenses including fuel and Council Tax, Sky TV and other essentials so that you can then assess what you have left at your disposal for your other needs or aspirations.

2. Chocolate. If you do have a passion for chocolate or indeed any other luxury for that matter, having a budget will show you the areas of expenditure that you can economise on so that you can indulge your passions ad nausea. This advice is given only on the understanding that you are responsible for your own health and that the author cannot be held liable for any complications arising from excessive consumption.

3. Holidays. Home or Hawaii? A few people enjoy holidays at home, but if your ambition is to spend six months in California then your budget can help you reserve the cash to achieve it. If you know in advance how much you can spend on tickets and trips you can often pick up a bargain by advanced booking; or you could be in a position to make a spontaneous purchase when you spot a good deal and be confident that you will have the funds to cover it already in your holiday savings pot.

4. Food. In the intervals between clubbing and sleeping, most people eat food. This may be dispensed with but that is not a recommended plan for enjoying a longer life. If you are already aware of what you spend on food regularly it is easy to budget. If you are not aware, then you can take a stab at it and adjust the budget after a while to reflect how much you wish to spend and then shop accordingly.

5. Work. Unless you are lucky enough to be able to work from home, then you need to budget for travel to and from work, whether for bus or train fares or the cost of running your own car or bike. You may need to reserve funds for buying tools or clothes. Unless you are expert at charity-shop scavenging you could need to spend a bit on looking smart in the office. Especially true for the office-party when you need to impress someone you want to share your pencil with; or even your boss for that matter.

6. Christmas Is Coming! For many people Christmas is the time for giving and having a good time; and the rest of the year the time for remorse – especially after the afore mentioned office-party – and for scratching around trying to pay for it! You can set yourself a budget for presents and entertaining and, as long as you stick to that, the only headache you will have in the New Year will be a hangover and not a financial one. No longer will you have to wrap up a box of tissues for Granny’s gift, trying to convince yourself in doing so that it is the thought that counts and that she will forgive you for your spendthrift ways once again.

7. Play. You will need to know in advance whether you can afford that season ticket for your favourite team or will instead have to resort to standing on the touchline at the Rec. to get your sports fix. Perhaps you might want to start a new hobby or activity and to plan ahead for equipment purchases or memberships. Your budget will help you make those decisions wisely

You don’t have to keep your budget in a big red sandwich box, but it will be useful to have it to hand to see how well you are managing your finances and how much you will have left at the end of the year for shoes or chocolate. Accounting software will provide you with an easily accessible reference and a method of budgeting to enable you, and not your bank, to have control of your finances!

April 16, 2012
Guest Post: 7 Reasons That It’s Pimm’s O’Clock

It’s another Saturday here in Blighty and that means another chance for Marc and I to leave the comfort of the sofa and go and air our hairy legs. All four of them. In our place today then, is John Phipps. A man who, when not painting Gordon Brown’s face, can be found doing other things. Though we’re not quite sure what. For those of you in the twitterati, you can follow John here. But do that after he’s talked to you about Pimm’s. It’s only courteous.

So far in England we’ve had a summer of sporting mediocrity – topped off with headaches from the whine of Vuvuzelas and Sue Barkers’ bitter tone. Amazingly the sun is still looking favourably upon our otherwise gloomy Nation as music festivals and sporting events help draw our attention away from our melancholy lives.

Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to a proper English summer. With everything in place, it seems appropriate that the mind should turn to Pimm’s – the quintessentially English Summer drink. In its traditional style, 7 Reasons is here to help celebrate “Pimm’s O’clock” with seven somewhat ironic, self-mocking pointers.

1. Quality refreshment. A sensible man would say refreshment comes in the form of water. Brian Badonde would even join me in saying “Bah!” to those opting for some Council juice on a warm day. What sets Pimm’s aside from the rest is its ability to truly refresh. The fabulously fruity rich mix, shifts the clouds with sweet honey-like sunshine resin. Your palate will explode long before your bladder as you taste the heady delights of the English summer.

As an added bonus for those of you clogging up the NHS, the fruit not only gives added enjoyment but counts for a significant part of your important 5 a-day too.* Your Consultant will be (slightly) pleased.

2. Prudence. Guardian columnist Oliver Thring (who by the way sports a truly magnificent side parting) wrote that Pimm’s “epitomises seasonal events featuring irritating rich people: trilbied fops in preposterous blazers; hawing women in silly hats; drunken trustafarians lounging on riverbanks; fans of Nigel Farage doorstepping ahead of European elections.”

Now, I’m not a fan of Nigel Farage, more of a Bercow man myself, but young Oliver is spot on; this bizarre scene is a fundamental part of the attraction. Some drink Stella and go home and beat their wife. Others sip Pimm’s and go home after beating themselves because they threw a game of croquet. It’s a drink for those with common sense.

3. Social Mobility. Fortunately the price seems to dissuade anti-socialites and general miscreants from dropping their favoured bottle of White Lightning for a Pimm’s. I defy anybody to find evidence of Pimm’s being drunk neat, or otherwise, on park benches by the Adidas tracksuit brigade. It is widely believed too that Staffordshire Bull Terriers will not drink this refined goodness. That being said, there is every opportunity with Pimm’s to elevate your standing – therefore perfect for the character who some years ago failed the 12+ or an entrance exam at Stowe and ended up carrying a briefcase into a modern Comprehensive on his first day in Year 8.

You see a nice ‘whistle’ or a posh frock only go some of the distance in pushing you up the ladder. However, put a jug of Pimm’s on the table and a glass in hand and you my friend could be someone with symbolic capital. The power of absolute mobility that this drink possesses is indeed, absolute.

4. Grandeur. Only a sexually insecure beefcake or a leftie with a face like a melted wellington would refuse a Pimm’s – regardless of cost. Pimm’s is Land Of Hope And Glory and Jerusalem in a glass. It screams Pomp and Circumstance with its typeface let alone its taste. It arouses illusions of grandeur, times gone by; an idealised Nation; a Country under Thatcher; a home-grown Wimbledon winner; Mr Darcy; cricket at Wormsley, the majesty of Temperate House; an impassioned Glyndebourne.

Prince William and his Army chums once cleared the supermarket shelves in Weymouth just after I bought my first bottle of the summer. I hope the lucky bar-stewards didn’t choke on a strawberry, but love him or hate him, be assured that this is a drink of Kings.

5. Women. Proper ladies don’t drink Pints of lager; it’s not the done thing, so be on guard for freeloaders. Make sure your flys aren’t undone etc. First impressions count and Pimm’s has already done the hard work for you. Don’t let yourself down.

6. Create Perfection. The official recipe is one part Pimm’s to three parts lemonade, strawberry, orange and mint, mixed generously with ice. Generally speaking one should stick to it. I would suggest perhaps using Tonic Water instead of lemonade, adding cucumber and maybe a stick or two of celery.

If your greengrocer has run out of celery, a Chelsea fan is bound to have some.

7. Imitation is suicide. The world is full of pretenders, I urge you not to join them by succumbing to a cheaper and quite frankly, poorer alternative. You will think you are cool, but instead you are unquestionably sad. You need to ‘wake up and smell the cock’ before your half-empty glass ruins your life.

You will not reach more of a lower point in life than if a guest samples your fake product and comments accordingly. At this point you will probably continue drinking the alternative just to forget what happened. This is not clever and you really should have read points 1-6 more carefully.

*Not scientifically proven, just an educated guess.

**DRINK RESPONSIBLY. Pimm’s is not good to binge on and can make quite a mess for your partner to clear up the next day. It will also quite probably smell most foul.

July 24, 2010
7 Reasons You Shouldn’t go to the Doctor’s

1. Hand-wash. Little plastic dispensers of antiseptic hand-wash: They’re inside the main entrance, they’re in the reception area, they’re in the waiting room, they’re in the doctor’s office, they’re everywhere! They outnumber patients by about 40-1; they outnumber patients’ hands by about 20.5-1 (there was a one-armed man). Why could they possibly need so many? It will bother you.

2. Sick people. There are sick people at the doctor’s surgery, it’s full of them: Coughing, retching, groaning, wailing, with blotches, pustules, buboes and weeping sores; it’s more like Hell’s waiting room than Dr Butterworth’s. If I ever write a historical novel about the Black Death in medieval Europe I’ll visit the doctor’s for inspiration – and just hope I live long enough to complete it.

3. Light. The soulless, ceaseless hum of the fluorescent strip-lights is the soundtrack to your stay in the waiting room. Worse still, their glow bathes everything and everyone in an unnatural light, giving the room’s occupants a grey, bleached-out pallor that makes them appear unwell, even if they’re not.

4. Magazines. Due to the Swine Flu scare they no longer have magazines in my local surgery; no Country Life, no Woman’s Weekly – in fact, nothing to read at all. Presumably they think our hands would be too slick from the hand-wash to leaf through the pages. Fortunately, on my last visit to the doctor, I had a copy of Vanity Fair with me, so I pulled that out of my bag and began to read. My fellow patients – envious, I assume – saw my magazine and started moving toward it. They rose slowly from their seats and shuffled gradually forward, eventually forming a groaning, coughing semi-circle around me. With their fluorescent strip-light pallor, obvious wounds and missing limb they resembled the un-dead. Fortunately, the doctor called me in before they started to feast on my brains.*

5. Manliness. Convention has it that real men don’t visit the doctor. This is nonsense. If he has misplaced a limb, his elbow has unaccountably turned purple, or his urine is pure Bovril, a man should visit the doctor. In all other cases, he should soldier on.

6. Discouragement. They don’t want you to see you. Why would they? They might catch something dreadful or you might try to show them your hemorrhoids. If they really wanted to see you they would open outside of office hours and they’d give you an appointment less than a week into the future. They might also consent to visit you at home on occasions other than your imminent death. They do these things to discourage you from seeking medical advice. If you don’t go to see the doctor, their whole system runs more smoothly. And that’s the way they like it.

7. Feelings. Doctor’s surgeries aren’t just places to treat your physical ailments, they’re places that are concerned with your general wellbeing too. These days, they seem just as concerned with your emotional wellbeing as they are with your physical health. This isn’t necessarily a good thing:

Bond strode into the uncluttered, homely office. After some light conversation, the G.P. asked how he felt about his condition.

“Do you expect me to talk, Dr Blofeld?”

“No Mr Bond, I expect you to cry”

break

No one wants that, who knows where it may lead?

break

*Did I mention that I had a bit of a temperature?

February 22, 2010