A complete family

I'm pretty upset to have been reading some statistics recently.  The average salary of a quoted company CEO is 130 times that of the average wage.  5 million people in the UK live beneath the official poverty line.  How can that possibly be?  What has happened to the concept of a fairer society.  One where we are all rewarded for our endeavours?  The poverty line statistic is utterly disgraceful, the CEO statistic is shameful.  How come 'Greed is good' has ceased to be a satirical line in a Hollywood movie and instead a life philosophy?  The salaries of top earners are way way beyond what they can spend in any way, let alone whether they deserve it or not.  I've often pondered what might be a reasonable annual salary for a top earner..one that allows them to live a luxurious lifestyle, but that does not represent exploitation...I rarely get above a few hundred thousand quids.  That's a massive amount by any standards, and beyond that it is just pure evil greed.  Having met and socialised with people whose wealth would make your eyes water, it never ceases to amaze me how clever, clever they think they are, how deserving they think they are and how resolutely detached they feel from the dreadful state that western societies are in.  The rapid concentration of wealth in the bank accounts of fewer and fewer people cannot be anything other than bad...and sooner or later it must bite back.

 I wonder if any of my Facebook friends have noticed that I've stopped clicking the 'like' button...I will comment on posts, or share, but not click like.  I saw somebody had suggested as a way of  'transforming my Facebook experience'.  I wouldn't say it's done that, but it does make me think a little bit more about what people are posting and why..so I'd say I get more out of it than I used to.

If you're wondering, and there's no reason you should be, I'm currently running about a fortnight, nearly three weeks in fact in fact make that four weeks), behind with my blog posting...so a bit like looking at a nebula, all the action happened a little while ago.

It was my brother's birthday in early October, and we always meet up for dinner. There's one thing he always is.  Prompt.  To the second.  He's never late.  So it was of some concern that we were sat in the restaurant for quite a while without him and his other half.  Eventually I texted, and a few moments later they walked in.  I'd say a little sheepishly; they'd deny it.  As it happens the reason they were late was because they'd been in the car park.  Not just sitting there.  They'd bought a new campervan...practically on the way to see us, so were excitedly exploring their new purchase.  No doubt they'll have many happy weeks exploring the English countryside...but hopefully not at the moment as we're currently enjoying the tail end of a hurricane the Atlantic has sent us.

The next day we jetted off to Cyprus for a few days to see Grandma and Grandpa.  It's a trip we've been promising for months, but it has proved difficult to juggle all our commitments...if only they lived just down the road we could drop in for a cup of tea and piece of cake every week.  A five-hour flight, and the clock being two hours ahead mean that flying out there effectively you lose a day.  So we left  comfortably in the morning and arrived in time for a late dinner.  A few days in Cyprus is lovely...enough to get some sunshine and a bit of relaxation and to catch up on how life is for Grandma and Grandpa in Cyprus.  My brother followed us a week afterwards...and even sent back a photo of the local launderette for the launderette blog