Our Readers Say Blue badge cheats get fined - and a criminal record warning
08/05/2008
Recent editions of the Mature Times have carried considerable correspondence from readers about blue badges - as well as about those who routinely misuse disabled parking spaces. One reader, aged 81, who was refused a blue badge despite three heart attacks and diabetic neuropathy, tragically died of a heart attack as he struggled up a hill to attend his beloved college course.
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Has the world gone mad - or is it me?
Do we now live in one of Stephen Hawkins' dimensions where common sense and helpfulness have been edited out?
Stop the mudslinging - some politicians are trying to help
Any politician who sees an error in his ways and has the courage to try and make amends deserves to be congratulated.
Mixed reactions to the new bus passes
MT REaders give their reaction to the new bus pass.
Plagued by BBC repeats!
I and other pensioners who have not yet reached 75 have noticed that the BBC are showing certain programmes - like the life of Frankie Howerd and that of Hugh Green - on stations other than BBC1 and BBC2.
So what about us pensioners who cannot afford the extra equipment?
End of life care: we need love as well as dignity
The article by Alison Davis about voluntary euthanasia (MT, April 2008) really made me think. I am very supportive of Dignity In Dying, but Alison very eloquently put across arguments for the other side. Yet somehow what she said was defeated by her very last sentence: "what we really need is assistance and encouragement to live with dignity until we die naturally."
An insight into care
I would like to advise MT readers to be wary regarding personalized budgets for care. I worked for Social Services for 20 years, and became very aware of how the so-called 'benefits' actually benefitted the Local Authority - because it was a cheaper option for them.
Abolishing the 10p Tax band could send pensioners beyond the poverty line.
RPI does not appear to be a true reflection of inflation, particularly not for pensioners and those on fixed incomes.
A solution to Mr Brown's 10p problem...
Now that the 10p tax on pensions has arrived it is easy for Gordon Brown to extract himself from the home goal he has created for himself.
The best health advice: ignore the experts
What are all these so-called experts rabbiting on about? Steak is simply nothing more than an efficient mechanism of delivering vegetables to your system. Chocolate comes from healthy cocoa beans and round is as good a shape as any other to be in.
Promises, promises ... the politicians who don't deliver on our overseas pensions
Over half a million ex-pat British pensioners have had their pensions frozen - some by more than £55 a week – because they are now living overseas in Commonwealth countries rather than the EU. But, writes Brian Havard, if UK Government Ministers were to implement the promises they have personally made, our pensions would not be frozen.
Are we a happier society?
Happiness - or a lack of it - seems to be on the political agenda these days. But what makes us happy? Can you really measure it? And is it anyone's responsibility to make us happy? Mark Hunter from Community Care adds his thoughts to the subject.
Fingers crossed and the end of faith
I suppose that it all started in Cyprus so many years ago, and then it grew into a monster, an all-consuming monster...
Research programme looking for diabetes sufferers
Some 500 people with type 2 diabetes living in the South West have been participating in the largest diet and exercise trial in the UK for people with type 2 diabetes - but now more people are needed to help.
Government petition for frozen overseas pensions
The Mature Times has highlighted the unfair freezing of overseas pensions. So I am writing to alert people to the fact that there is now an e-petition on the subject.
