Benefits Britain episode 7 -I'm speechless!

Gone a long way from your op, phoenix, but did you watch Dispatches tonight?
Apparently benefit claimants can afford to pay a lot of money for something ridiculous, according to Hugo Swire, Tory MP.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/mar/23/tory-minister-benefits-claimants-joke-channel-4-dispatches-hugo-swire

It seems to be the law that only men can be deemed to be sexist!

Yes it is a sexist remark Rose, go and stand in the sin bin for ten minutes and think about your wickedness.

tiggypiro

I can't stand it when a man I have only just met calls me 'love'. It makes my hackles rise.
I don't seem to mind if it is another woman, it seems friendly, but from the male of the species it seems patronising.

(is that a sexist remark?)

But lots of cheeses have mould on; Stilton, Roquefort, Gorgonzola etc etc and, while pregnant women are advised to avoid cheeses made with raw milk, and eggs may harbour salmonella, beyond that I am unaware of information telling us dairy products beyond their sell date are dangerous.

Here is an interesting link on the subject www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/mouldy-food-still-safe-eat-4493286

To return to 'old dears'. 'Love' is a casual and lazy way of addressing directly someone whose name you do not know and anyone form 0 - 100 plus, male and female, can be called love. 'old dear/s' is a phrase used between people about another person/people and is always used in a dismissive, patronising and derogatory sense.

In a similar vein rosequartz I was once told by a school nurse (after I had let fly about a meeting with a very unpleasant parent) that when giving an enema after half an inch in they were all the same. It always brought a smile to my face on future occasions !!

Should I be cutting the mould off my Gorgonzola?

Anything other than cheese though, and it gets binned.

I always cut the mould of cheese and then use the remaining cheese, and thought that everyone did!

Im sure many of us have talked to a boring person and smiled and been polite but make a face behind their back

Someone once told me that if they are very pompous or snobbish, to smile when they are talking down to you and imagine them sitting on the lavatory.

lol whitewave, that's a new one, must try it sometime Im keen on alternative remedies

You could always have stuck the mouldy cheese on your mothers infection - I believe it is what the Romans did?

also flick, I find hospital staff who pat me on the hand and call me 'love' is offensive too but they still do it. I cant say anything as Im going to have an operation and I don't want to upset anyone who is going to have my life in their hands.
Also I cant see what harm it does calling anyone anything as long as they don't hear it. Im sure many of us have talked to a boring person and smiled and been polite but make a face behind their back, its called manners. I always say manners are just pantomime but we all do it.

I try to advise my mother what to do because in the long term I will have to deal with the results. ie. she gardens in a skirt, there is no reason why she cant wear trousers just for the garden to protect her legs. Last year she gardened as usual and got a tiny skin prick in her leg resulting in a skin infection. there was no appointments as it was a weekend so it was me who ended up taking her to A&e and waiting for over three hours. She will not tolerate anyone helping her apart from me and im not a nurse nor can I stand looking after people. That is why I try to tell her to be careful, as for cheese with mould on, we are always being told that dairy products past their sell by date is dangerous, mould is dangerous too and I don't want to have to take her with vomiting to A&E.

I am sorry I think it is offensive to call any older person an 'old dear' regardless of age or mental condition.

Sometimes it is not what you say, but the way that you say it. If you discuss and advise the generation above you in the same casual way you would give information to a friend or grown up child then do it, but if you are advising and telling older people what to do in the nannying I know better than you voice , then no wonder they ignore you.

Equally you should expect older people to receive your suggestions in the way you would expect a friend or grown-up child to receive them with interest, consider them, and then choose to accept or reject them as they will. All of us have aspects of our life style, however trivial, that some other people, of all ages, will either totally agree with or think completely beyond the pale.

As you say your mother is a fully functional adult, active and alert, what right have you to decide what she should or should not eat and whether it might be good or bad for her. She is free to make her own decisions.

Have you ever considered that you might be doing things that shock and appal her as unsafe and dangerous to your health and would you follow her advice if she told you so?

I agree with you about advising your mother to protect her skin, ethelbags, I think that's important at any age but especially when older and more at risk due to health problems.

Eating hard cheese after cutting bits of mould off is not dangerous, though!

My DF used to say cheese wasn't worth eating until it was ready to walk off the table. Whereupon we all used to shout 'ooh, not eating that, revolting'.
But he lived through two wars and was in the RN!
Weevilly biscuits and all that ....

sorry to anyone offended by my expression 'old dears'. It was aimed at my mother and friends father to whom we are both at our wits end with their behaviour. How can anyone be offended at that? im not calling g netters 'old dears'.

I agree it is hard to decide what is ok to do to allow people their freedom to choose. I really find that my mother cutting mould off cheese is bad, there is plenty of fresh cheese in the shops. As people get older their immune system wears out making them vulnerable to infections.

however I also agree that we all have the right to live our lives the way we want to, so I suppose I must just allow my mother to eat out of date food, this is what she wants to do, I must let her risk her life gardening as she has a condition that means a tiny scratch could give her a life threatening illness and just keep silent. But I don't do that I try to point out where she is going wrong and suggest she wears trousers to protect her legs and gloves etc. This is better than a health professional interfering. We should all look after our own.

I would prefer my daughter advising me to do a certain thing rather than a social worker, if I was older and frail. I hope this is clear as I am finding it hard to express my thoughts on this one.

Fortunately fairly rare- but in their case there would be no questions about whether to give lung transplant or not- unless there are other issues, be they 'behavioural' or health or both.

Not to mention those non-smokers who get lung cancer.

Your replies confuse me Ethelbags, and I am just not sure what you are saying. On the one hand you seem to say that it was OK for th NHS to refuse to give your friend who refused to stop drinking a liver transplant- and at the same time that the NHS (eg its doctors/nurses) has no right to give strong advice about other types of 'behaviour' which has a strong correlation to some illnesses and their treatment. So which is it?

If somenone has, say, lung cancer- to what extent should be receive expensive treatment, even a lung transplant- if they continue to smoke, for instance.

Not easy is it, as nicotine is so addictive. My young neighbour, 32, married to a lovely woman and with 2 lovely children, age 4 and nearly 3- had Hodgkins liymphoma, stage 4- he had loads of chemo and radiotherapy- and survived. He is so well now, back to normal- and he has started to smoke again- the odd roll'up at first, and now back on a packet a day. It is heart breaking.

I still cut mould off cheese and then eat it, although I do have a problem with Stilton, it is so fiddly. I do not eat supermarket bread so my bread goes stale not mouldy. I then put it in the freezer until I have enough to make bread pudding.

I think it is offensive to ever describe anyone as an 'old dear', it is dismissive and patronising.

My father lived to be 92. He lived independently, ran three organisations in his village, thought nothing of driving the 90 miles to visit my sister and myself and was as efficient and effective at running his life at 92 as I am of running mine in my early 70s. I would not have dreamt of supervising or checking on any aspect of his life or criticising it. He was an intelligent man with no mental problems and fully functional. He ran his life in a way that suited him. His age was irrelevant.

I just wouldn't have the nerve - apart from not wanting to be dishonest.

On news tonight. Cardiff man jailed for benefits fraud after having been secretly filmed taking part in a 4 hour golf tournament, while claiming he 'couldn't walk more than 50yds without pain'
Ie mobility allowance.

I'm puzzled as to why you and your friend are frustrated with your respective 'old dears', ethel, when all they're doing is cutting the mould off bread and/or cheese and eating what's left! What's wrong with that?

Obviously it's not doing either of them any harm, given the activities you say they pursue.