Well I never

I should have said food manufacturers not retailers.

Thank you, Flickety. Now I recognise the term, having seen the film Trading Places - Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd.

Commodity traders buy and sell raw materials, these may run from pigs to concrete to electricity. They smooth the curve between producers and users and stop prices in the shops yo yoingup and down throughout the year.

Some of them use the power they have over markets to manipulate them to their personal financial advantage, to cause shortages or gluts to meet their own purposes but most of them work in a very mundane way. Many are employed by companies like large food retailers to use them to buy strategically for them to ensure they buy commodities at the lowest price.

I'm not sure what commodities traders do - apart from making money - but that's what Farage was before he got involved with UKIP and I'd have thought that it might have involved using a computer.

I am a technophobe - I can switch the computer and laptop on, send emails, browse sites but that's about it. If it starts playing up, I have to call my son or eldest granddaughter to sort it out.

I have a really basic mobile phone with no touchscreen - I just want a mobile phone to make and receive calls (and I was too heavy handed, apparently, with the touch screen phone my son bought me) and never used (or felt the need to use) the facilities on it.

Do I feel embarrassed or inadequate? No, it's just an area that I'm not particularly good at and often uninterested in.

But secretaries work specific hours and are not available 24/7.

I expect he'd just hire a secretary...

Yes, it is. What makes me curious is why he has never learnt these skills? And do we really want to have in government as leader of any party someone who, at a relatively young age, has backed out of dealing with modern technology?

The mother of a friend was in her early 50s when decimalisation came in in 1971. She decided she couldn't deal with the new money and from then until her death around the turn of this century never again handled it. This was fine when her husband was alive and managed everything for her but after he died it made her children's lives almost impossible as they had to micro manage everything for her from newspaper bills to hair dressing.

What if Nigel Farage's wife leaves him or downs mouse for any reason?

Isn't it Farage himself who is computer illiterate? It's Frau F. who answers his emails, etc.

Phoenix how interesting, doesn't Farage "employ his wife" to work in his "office"? What the flip does she do? Take shorthand and use a manual typewriter to write up his speeches? Surely this must be bare-faced fraud on his part? Can she actually use a modern phone with, you know, buttons and things?
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/ukip-leader-nigel-farage-defends-employing-german-wife-at-launch-of-antiimmigration-poster-campaign-9275453.html

DDiL's mother tried computing, didn't like it and has decided to do without. She is in her late 70's.

However as this numpty interviewer should fit in with the similar numpties, including Age UK, who feel that there should be a major crusade to get all older people on line to combat loneliness.

What lonely people need is not a computer, however friendly Gransnet may be, but contact with people and LAs will soon find ways to replace expensive carers with emails and logins, thus making isolated people even more isolated.

The report seems also to fail to realise that most of the over 60s not using computers are actually in their 80s and 90s, many are in poor health, in pain, have arthritic hands and mild mental impairment. None of these things is conducive to learning new skills like computing. However time will solve the problem.

In ten years there will be very few older people not using a computer, other than for reasons that mean that they are no longer physically or mentally capable of it.

I do not know how I survived without banking, clothes, furniture and grocery shopping on line. I am not interested in Facebook and Twitter but it would not be a problem if I was.

I have a friend, same age, who has a new laptop and sends maybe 3 emails a month. She is "frightened" of on line shopping and banking. I am not sure why she has a computer at all.

To be an airhead on telly,

1 You have to look pretty

2 You have to look sideways at the camera, ignore your co presenter, cos you are a man and know best Guess who this is?

3 flap your hands.

4 Be ignorant of any facts, only read the telly prompt or the earpiece .

5 Lucky you , and are guaranteed good salary.

How many G mums have kids like this…….. not me for a start, son is on contract work, and it is good when the job comes in , but his friend has been out of work for 6 months, self employed etc.

Confession I have still not managed to work out the more complicated things on my Android phone

I am on my fifth IPAD and following sorting out many problems along the way am now am able to sort out my two DD's IPAD's for them.
My BIL who worked in computers for many years also needed help from me paring his IPAD to his printer. He was turning off the printer so flushing its memory and then getting angry because it did not work with his IPAD.
My sister on the other hand is VERY proud of the fact that she is unable to use a computer or mobile phone.
I do most of my shopping on line and FACETime the DGC from all over the world.

And now - I have the latest thing: a Chrome book. Great little laptop!

I remember combing the shops all over East Anglia to find a Sinclair Spectrum for the boys' Christmas present. Finally found one - maybe the very last one - in Peterborough. Now - think of all the searching we can do on the net; how much time, frustration and petrol would that have saved me!

My friend's father bought an ipad at 89 so that he could keep in touch with family all over the world, his first experience of computing and he is very competent.
DH studied computing at college in 1961, a time when a computer occupied a large room.
We bought Sinclair computers for DS from the very first model, he tried to teach me but I was too impatient to wait for the tapes loading and type in each instruction. I got a desk top in 1994 and it was so bulky but only had 32Mb of memory

When I worked in a college they made a big song and dance when they first got onto the Internet and made us all go for a very elaborate explanation on how to use it. Then I went on holiday to stay with my DS who was managing a holiday club in Corsica at the time. In about five minutes he had clarified the whole thing and I found that it couldn't be easier. I have never looked back.

OH bought a BBC micro when they first came out in the early 1980's. He had experience of big computers at university. I got into using that and it was very useful when I moved up north and the place I worked at had just got into their own computerised data base system.

The network connections were very unreliable to begin with but it was a vastly improved system on the previous jobs card index systems. This was in a job where rapid access to basic "people" information was very important.

The person who was sent to get me started on this system was very impressed with my familiarity with computers. I was no expert but I did have a good basic grasp of how to use one.

I have never stopped since. I would hate to be parted from my laptop.

I meet lots of older people in my job and they nearly all have their mobiles by their side and if they do not own a computer, they use equipment owned by their families or friends. My mother 83, regularly e mails friends, runs a voluntary group and has a enjoys her photography hobby by editing and printing her photos (too complicated for me). Being computer literate is ideal as those who are less mobile can have an interesting hobby without leaving their sofa.

That's interesting, phoenix. I seem to remember NF saying how much work she did for him. Nowadays I would have thought that would involve computer skills!

I use daily my main computer, laptop, IPad and IPhone couldn't do without them. Having said that I do work for my son who needs me to be up to speed with modern technology.

However I have one or two friends plus my sister who never use the above and almost take satisfaction from being computer numpties. I have offered to help friends but they usually prevaricate or say they are too old.

Did anyone else read the interview with Nigel Farage's wife yesterday? She said he had no computer skills AT ALL and could only just about manage to scroll down if she asked him to read anything on a screen!

My step mother was doing the wages for a large company on a computer before she retired at sixty. She is now in her eighties, around 87/88 years old.

I wonder how some of these presenters get their jobs, seeing how some of them have no brains.

Yes, Flickety, we had a ZX80, too. No decimal point as I recall.
We also had a BBC before the schools had them. I used to have to take it in for parents evenings to show what the school was going to get.