This is a year of great change at home.
The two offspring will disappear from home during the summer. The Cat will go off to a university, yet to be decided. The Boy is having a 'gap yah', some of which at least will be spent partying and instructing in the ski resort.
The Cat's Mother and I will be empty nesters. It's a big house, we'll rattle around.
Oddly, I have been pigeon-hold as a 'Daddy Blogger' by various media lists, but as it is The Boy's 18th birthday in May, my days as a Daddy Blogger are numbered. I never really understood how or why I was on those lists...after all I've never given a parenting tip in my life. Well not a decent one anyway. So I wonder how I will be re-categorised. Perhaps I won't. I don't much mind.
At the same time I've decided to give up membership of my professional body...yes after 25 years of being a Certified PR man, I will just be a consultant. I was hoping I would get fireworks and a gold watch, but I've not even had a response to my not of resignation. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, I've never been that comfortable with people who bend the truth to earn their crust because almost to a man and woman they are shallow, unthinking and uncaring. I thought I might do a top ten worst PRs, but really the worst are so hideous I can't bear to type their names....and by naming only ten I would be missing the hundreds that are guilty of distorting the truth day in day out A special mention should go to Alistair Campbell whose manipulations Beelzebub would be proud of...he was being featured on a repeat of Top Gear last week, and I just had to walk out the room.
There is one PR man I like though
The news that Cyprus is being bailed out should be good news, but in fact it has sent shock waves around the world. I'm sure you've read about it.
The principle that individuals that have deposited money in banks should not be penalised has become well established since the start of the financial crisis. This has been an important principle in helping restore confidence.
But in the case of Cyprus, a tiny little country with a tiny little economy, the jack-booted financial institutions have decided that it is the people who must pay for the follies of the banking sector. We've all suffered from the reckless negligence of the bankers, but in this case the knife has been stuck in and twisted and twisted. There's no real reason for this deal to have been done like this other than the suggestion that it will secure some Russian money which has been illegally salted away in Cyprus. In truth there's a big question as to whether that money is there anyway. And anyway that won't stop many, many not very well off people getting hit hard. There is a large ex-pat British crowd out there..Grandma and Grandpa in Cyprus are amongst them. In my experience these are not wealthy people who have salted away their millions, but rather hard working, often working class people, who have saved hard to be able to retire to the sun. They've suffered badly in the last few years as interest rates have plummeted, and as the value of sterling has collapsed causing their pensions to be worth less. Or do I mean worthless? The maths is simple. Imagine you've got £100,000 tucked away...that's a lot. But with today's interest rates, you'd be lucky to earn £3000 a year. Have you ever tried to live on that much? So, many of the ex-pats have taken up working in one way or another, but wages out there are not what they are here....not even close. So whilst they and the Cypriots get hammered, the sweet talking bankers continue to sun themselves on their yachts in the Mediterranean Nice. if you've got no conscience or moral fibre.
In the meantime, it looks as the deal may unwind and with it all the efforts that have been taken to prop up the European economy over the last several years. After all don't think that the snatching of private savers money will stop in Cyprus. The Greeks, the Spanish, the Irish, the Portuguese and the Italians will all be quaking in their boots today. And don't think that Britain is too far off either.
The conspiracy between the political and financial elite continues