Is anything worth the terror of the deep?

NB: Warning ~ This post contains politically incorrect material, politically correct persons of all genders should click on the “back button” immediately!
1977 the year of the Queen’s Silver Jubilee and the year in which I turned 22.
It was also the year when a certain Winifred Jacqueline Fraser Bissetswam underwater wearing only a T-shirt for a top in the movie, “The Deep” which due in very large part to the delightful Miss Bisset’s charms displayed thus, was a box-office success!
The title of this post is taken from the text of the publicity poster for the movie.
Many – including myself – credit her with popularising “wet T-shirt contests”! This because in the autumn of that year I took a holiday in the Greek Islands with an organisation known as Club 18-30. There were a number of young ladies and a wet “T-shirt” contest was organised. Notwithstanding the youthful charms of these late teens and early twenties, Miss Bisset then aged 33 was for me a lady to fantasise about.
Of course, the never ending stream of time has flowed since that autumn and in September this year of COVID-19, I will turn 65 and Miss Bisset will turn 76. I do hope that Miss Bisset has and continues “to stay safe”.
“Staying safe” is something that many Britons who were young adults in the 1970s will trying to do. Back in 1977 on that beach I never imagined that I would be “celebrating” my 65th birthday as a resident of Cornwall. I do remember during the next decade when I became self employed, mother reminding me to keep up my National Insurance Contributions. “You want to be able to get your state pension when you’re 65.” she said, continuing, “Our pensions form a very important part of our income.”
In the mid 1980s, being 65 was still a distant prospect. Today the prospect is but one month away! And NO state pension will be paid. It is however promulgated by the apparatus of the state that I will receive the state pension next year.
Nothing however is certain! Certainly, if the worst case scenarios contained in Doctor North’s blog-post today (http://eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=87709) come to fruition, I and many of my of fellow 1977 holidaymakers that autumn will be very lucky indeed if we end up with what we so far have been promised!
At the moment my income comes from the following sources:
– the Dunedin Income Growth Investment Trust
– Phoenix Group
– Royal Dutch Shell
– SSE
NO income currently comes from Lloyds Bank Group!
This because António Mota de Sousa Horta-Osório the CEO of Lloyds Banking Group was telephoned by Mr Samuel Woods, the deputy governor of the Bank of England and head of the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) who proceeded to threaten the good Catholic, Senhor Horta-Osório with all manner of Hell Fire and Damnation should he and his fellow directors proceed to pay the already promised dividend to the bank’s shareholders!
Not wishing to enter a Purgatory of Mr Woods’s creation, Senhor Horta-Osório duly obliged!
IF the worst case scenario reported in Doctor North’s blog-post today comes about it is clear that the UK will enter it’s own version of Purgatory on New Year’s Day 2021!
IF this happens I am concerned about my shares in Lloyds Bank. In such circumstances, that there will be no dividend in 2021 is a given!
Of course, those members of the Liberal Democrats with their index linked state pensions and their generous final salary pensions living locally will be chortling their schadenfreude in my direction!
A small measure of compensation ~ for me ~ will be the collapse of Sterling. You see, Royal Dutch Shell – who earlier this year slashed it’s dividend – trade largely in the US $ which means that their profits are declared and dividends paid thus. Therefore IF Sterling collapses (against the US $) I will receive more than I otherwise would have done.
Footnote: It must be a trial to find oneself suddenly possessing the name of a famous fictional character. Some names such as James Bond and James Kirk must have been quite common, but imagine being stopped by a police officer and asked for your name! In a peculiar way if one had an unusual name such as “Gail Berke” (the name of Miss Bisset’s character) it would have been much worse. Those ladies who did possess this name in 1977 will have eventually have found the name disappearing from popular memory.
I wonder if the next arch villain of SPECTRE will possess the name Peter Rogers? Maybe ~ in these politically correct times ~ such an arch villain will be portrayed as an elderly gentleman who will have an elderly wife ~ played by Miss Bisset who would perforce be “Mrs Rogers”!
I can but hope!
NB: I do not have a long haired white cat!