Paul Brownjohn @Paulos_the_fog@social.cleverlibre.org
Retired software engineer & woodworker.
Anglo-francophone.
Detest tories. Subscribe to green, leftish radical politics but not to any particular political party!.
Love the EU and all it stands for, moreover, I spent the last 10 years of my career working at an EU agency.
Enthusiastic photographer, especially wildlife and most especially butterflies.
Slightly knowledgeable gardener.
Atheist; loathe almost all religions and pity the people deluded enough to follow them. I make exceptions for Buddhism as it isn't really a religion in the strictest sense of the word as it doesn't postulate the existence of any god, and Jainism which is the epitome of peace.
For anyone who is interested, my header photo is of the most stupendous sunset I have ever seen. On the right is the waterfront of Vientiane, the capital of Laos, on the left is Thailand and in the middle, acting as the border between the two countries is the mighty Mekong river.
Joined Nov 2022
UK politics, lettuce lady
@stavvers@mastodon.social
and there was me thinking the maths we all learned at school would never be of any use to us!
I did a Patreon donation yesterday - is that what folk need to do?
Paul Brownjohn
boosted
You’re not the product anymore. You’re a community member in your host’s ad-free server they pay for. There’s no venture capitalist payday coming for them. Everything you do here costs your host a little bit of money. Find out how you can chip in.
At school, I was taught that Marie Curie was French. Now, whilst she was married to a Frenchman, and may have acquired French citizenship later in life, by birth, she was Polish!
Were other people taught the half-truth that she was French?
Paul Brownjohn
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Breaking: Government ministers to be locked in a large fridge each morning, until the TV and radio breakfast programmes are over.
Oh come now - Russia has a long and fine tradition of having fuck all in its supermarkets dating back to soviet times!
Oh dear! I put a poll up on Twatter asking if people would be tempted to migrate elsewhere now that Trump has been re-admitted to Twatter and those heroic, valiant warriors for free speech, the Twatter moderators, appear to have deleted it!
😂 😂 😂 😂😂 😂😂 😂😂 😂😂 😂😂 😂😂 😂😂 😂😂 😂😂 😂😂 😂😂 😂😂 😂😂 😂😂 😂😂 😂😂 😂😂 😂😂 😂
The problem with Britain is there are still millions of people raised on an exclusive diet of 'British is best' and when confronted with the reality that, in the matter of pensions, 'Britain is the worst in the developed world', they refuse to believe it!
So the residents of Pompeii liked their bread rather more 'well done' than do I
Paul Brownjohn
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Hi Mastodon! 🐘 The Max Planck Society will provide you with exciting toots about science, research and the people behind it.
The French have always been at the forefront of technology - it's just that the British hate to admit it!
They had a version of the internet up and running in the early 1980s, a decade before the internet was generally available to the public in other countries. It was called the Minitel and very useful it was too!(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minitel)
The French also developed and implemented the chip and pin system for credit and debit cards long before other countries.
Yes, double sounds about right but bear in mind that is the MINIMUM! Most people get far more than that; the average pension pay-out being around £800 /week, as I said.
I get £370/week for only 11 year's contributions to the pensions system but OK, I was earning quite well so my contributions were pretty high.
Over here they have a bizarre system (bizarre if you're a tory). If you don't earn much, your deductions are quite low but if you are a high earning, single taxpayer you get thoroughly spanked by the taxman. Whereas in the UK, if you are a low wage earner you get taxed to death but if you are rich you can pay accountants to make sure you only pay a pittance!
Iceberg - ICEBERG - what are you talking about that's not an iceberg, it just Liz Truss!
Paul Brownjohn
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“Iceberg? What iceberg?” Don’t bother the Captain of the Tweetanic now, he has deck chairs to rearrange
Mind you, if the filthy tory scum find a way remain in power, I imagine the pension will soon be restricted to those who live in the hell-hole that the UK is rapidly becoming, if indeed they don't abolish it completely!
The UK pension is already the most miserly, most niggardly in the entire developed world so nothing would surprise me!
Over here in Luxembourg which has one of the most generous state pension schemes in the world, the average pension pay-out is around £800/week (depending on the exchange rate). You don't see pensioners over here riding on the buses - they driving around in brand new BMWs.
The absolute minimum pay-out is around £350/week (for someone who has worked a full 40 year career) and the maximum for someone who has been a top earner for their entire career is around £1600/week.
The system here is contributions dependent; the contributions being a fixed percentage of your salary deducted at source.
Paul Brownjohn
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#Newbies PLEASE be patient. The servers are being massively overloaded with an influx of people and it's taking the admins (in our instance, the wonderful @jaz ) a lot time, money, and effort to keep things afloat. It's not usually slow, things will return to normal, and you are all very welcome here! #TipYourServer
Well, it's not like I am hiding my true location from them or anything of that sort! My UK pension is paid into my Luxembourg bank account and the address they have for correspondence and to which, from time to time, they send letters requesting that I prove that I am still alive which proof is duly furnished by the lovely ladies in my local council offices IN LUXEMBOUG, is the same one to which they sent the letter this morning.
If they have got it wrong - it's nothing to do with me!
I was very surprised to receive a letter from the DWP this morning informing me that my winter fuel allowance payment will be £500.
I thought that once Britain fully left the EU, as I live in Luxembourg, all those sorts of discretionary payments would cease along with increases in pension payments, just as they do if you move somewhere like Brazil or to some other exoticretirement destination.
I guess somewhere in the small print of Blojob's "Dustbin Ready Deal" there must have been some stuff about mutual continuation of extra payments to pensioners. I'm surprised that the band of small minded fascists like Frost et al who negotiated the deal let extravagance like that creep into the text!
Paul Brownjohn
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£4.30 in @tesconews@twitter.com
Exactly the same stuff, same size etc. in Farmfoods for 95p.
So much for 'every little helps' you highway robbers 🤢
Retired software engineer & woodworker.
Anglo-francophone.
Detest tories. Subscribe to green, leftish radical politics but not to any particular political party!.
Love the EU and all it stands for, moreover, I spent the last 10 years of my career working at an EU agency.
Enthusiastic photographer, especially wildlife and most especially butterflies.
Slightly knowledgeable gardener.
Atheist; loathe almost all religions and pity the people deluded enough to follow them. I make exceptions for Buddhism as it isn't really a religion in the strictest sense of the word as it doesn't postulate the existence of any god, and Jainism which is the epitome of peace.
For anyone who is interested, my header photo is of the most stupendous sunset I have ever seen. On the right is the waterfront of Vientiane, the capital of Laos, on the left is Thailand and in the middle, acting as the border between the two countries is the mighty Mekong river.
Joined Nov 2022
