Things that get my goat!

A friend and I wondered in what cloud those who fix low-incomes live. Income tax ceilings are lifting, yet we, living alone, recycling, pay €200 for rubbish collection. Previously, as a widow, I had a good discount but, with new laws coming in, I was told if your pension is above (the princely sum of) €10.000 a year, yes, per year, you have to pay the full amount.

We worried over the coming cost of bins/packaging (more plastic?) the new system will incur without a discount. We grumbled about people with satisfactory salaries and lifestyles with regular cost of living increases fixing rates for pensions, benefits and minimum wages.

Does the choice between food versus heat, for example, not cause them a twinge of guilt over their own salaries? The president said he is giving pensions a Botox puff up. Let’s hope it will cover more than a souvlaki… if it affords the rare, sinful extravagance of a take-away.

The rent-greed situation here has caught up with other EU countries suffering that plague. Affordable housing has long been neglected in supposedly progressive states, and the result is governments spending continuous, wasted sums on patch-up solutions because building for the poor has been delayed, as genuine, statistical suffering was for decades blatantly obvious.

Tradespeople can be greedy too. A problem saw us calling our usual Capable-Reliable, but he was on a job and couldn’t come, tomorrow would be OK. It was urgent, we called a random, unknown quantity. He arrived, took stock of the problem and said ‘Oh, a big job! Can’t do that now it’ll take time; I’ll come back tomorrow.’ And put his hand out for a whack of euros. When asked for a receipt, ‘Oh, left my receipt book at home, I’ll bring it tomorrow.’ He left with his euros, we stayed with our problem.

We contacted Capable-Reliable to come next day and cancelled the unknown quantity. He came on time, looked at it and fixed it quickly and well. No consultancy fees required.

I enjoyed the latest episodes of Lincoln Lawyer. Series like this, however, display the difference between real-life European film makers’ normality, and the obligatory glamour of US made similars. Accused of murder, charismatic Mickey Haller is unemployed, his assistants do their utmost to keep the non-earning office afloat while they prove his innocence. Yet – with money supposedly very tight, everyone orders take-out or they eat out, instead of making a sandwich or bringing a Tupperware of cooked food from home like ordinary people on measured income.

Distance travel seems unimpaired, the Lincolns grounded, except for a token old banger used by his investigator. Both Izzie and Lorna appear in every episode in new, flashy outfits and, unlike real people on an endangered wage, never seem to wear the same thing twice.

Is it because I’m old I yell at on-screen couples having sex ‘Your curtains are open to the public and you’re going at it as though someone were observing and performance rating you.’ Are modern lovers oblivious or uncaring that people in that building opposite/next door/across the street can see them? These now obligatory, time-consuming scenes drag an episode on, the ubiquitous, explicit, simulated sex, holding up the plot.

It is consumption-packaged and interesting to gaze at as the notes on your processed food packages. Has familiarity bred boredom, or it that just me?