Retire at 40? This should’ve been pensioned off after four minutes
Consultant William Frankland, an allergy specialist at Guy’s Hospital who pioneered the daily pollen count in tV weather reports, is 105, and he’s still working.
Even though he was born two years before the outbreak of World War I, he has no intention of slowing down. Dr Frankland is a flag-bearer for a generation of antique workaholics — including 91-yearold David attenborough, nicholas Parsons at 93, and, of course, the Queen, who is 91.
their lives are the best refutation of the terrible advice doled out by presenter anna Richardson in How To Retire At 40 (C4). she wants everyone to give up work when they are barely middle-aged, so they can do nothing but exist for decades on a pittance.
anna is oblivious to the notion that doing a job you love is the best way to be a valuable member of society. With the population rocketing, the last thing the planet needs is millions of idle 40-somethings, gobbling up resources and giving nothing back.
luckily, anna’s prescription for early retirement is not appealing. start by slashing your monthly spending by three-quarters: if you are living on £1,000 a month, pare that back to just £250. Bank the rest.
that may mean subsisting on
DAFT DISH OF THE NIGHT: At Sainsbury’s ready-meal factory, salmon fillets were injected with fake flavours on Supermarket Shopping Secrets (BBC1). ‘Some customers don’t like a fishy taste,’ a manager said. So why not have sausages?
cold baked beans, under canvas in a layby on the a1, wearing clothes that you scavenged from the salvation army. But never mind, you only have to do this for seven years.
after that, you can retire...and continue living on beans and roadkill for the rest of your life. But cheer up! at least you won’t have to go to work.
the show’s researchers must have taken the work-free ethic to heart, because they had put no effort whatever into planning this one-off documentary. It was a ragbag of half-told stories, padded with random snippets and unfinished ideas.
We were informed that one enterprising online estate agent was pairing off complete strangers, who could pool their resources to afford a downpayment on a house. that’s not so much economics, more a sadistic psychological experiment, and it ought to make great tV — but we saw no evidence that it’s actually happening.
then we met young parents nicola and Dave, who spend no money at all for five days a week and claim to be saving £14,000 a year. How do they manage this, and why? no idea, because instead of staying to ask questions, anna dashed off to meet a man who sends personalised potatoes as greetings cards.
the self-styled Duke and Duchess langsford Holmes of Belfast were plotting to retire into the upper echelons of the landed gentry, in Eamonn And Ruth: Silver Service (C5).
Dressed to the nines in pearls and plus fours, they comfortably looked the part.
Whereas their excursion to Dubai last week involved a lot of silly costumes, Eamonn especially appeared at home with a land Rover, a spaniel and a £100,000 shotgun. He was blasting clay pigeons out of the sky with the confident aplomb of a six-year-old zapping zombies on a video game.
next month brings the Glorious twelfth and the official start of the shooting season. any grouse that overhears Eamonn’s brash tones ought to be worried.
Ruth was less smitten with the snobby milieu. Casting her eye around a debs’ ball, she said: ‘let’s be honest — if it wasn’t all so posh, it would be a bit of a cattle market.’
Eamonn was oblivious to her unease. However much he claims to be a common bloke, he yearns for ermine.