How come I'm subscribing to 8 streaming services when all I wanted was Gardener's World?

Remember when you just turned on the telly and it worked? You didn’t need a remote that looked like a spaceship control panel or spurious accounts with any number of commercial TV channels charging the earth. Like Netflix, Paramount+, Disney+, Apple TV+, Prime Video, Discovery+, and - God help me - YouTube Premium. I didn’t even know YouTube had a premium!

There was a time when you’d go to a pub, someone would smile, hand you a printed menu, and you’d choose your lunch like a civilised adult. Nowadays you’re expected to scan a QR code with your phone, order online, and hope the kitchen doesn’t mistake your pork belly for a vegan wrap! WHY?

Back in the day, air travel was considered to be sophisticated, with good-looking pilots and stewardesses, dressed in tailored uniforms, offering first-class service to well-dressed, well-mannered passengers, who enjoyed being pampered while flying at 35,000ft. Not any more, Baby Boomers. Today's airports and airlines seem hell bent on treated their customers like cattle, and as for customer service, that went out with melba toast and package holidays.

What happened to Reverend John Mirk's 600 year old saying 'children should be seen, not heard'? In my day, we little ones were made to learn our place in the pecking order and our adults demanded silence and respect from their offspring. Not anymore. Today's kids have rights and exercise them with annoying regularity, often at 90 decibels, and woe betide you if you complain!!!

How are we Boomers supposed to grow old disgracefully if the younger generation and the insurance industry consider that we are past our sell-by date and should be put out to grass.

Why are we paying ridiculously high insurance premiums, or worse still, being rejected, to drive, travel and enjoy life to the full because we're seen to be an insurance risk.

We have no objection to proving that we're healthy for our age, if that's what is required. Many of us are very active well past our 80's and still have all our marbles, so isn't it time age discrimination included our octogenarian cohort?

Damn right it is . . .

Why are most UK motorway service stations the pits? They resemble a cross between cheap shopping malls and amusement arcades instead of places of respite from the vagaries of motorway driving.

And what happened to waitress service or petrol forecourt attendants? They've vanished, replaced by Gen Z Baristas and 'do-it-yourself' customer service. If this is progress take me back to the 'Little Chef '. . .

If you want to use a car park these days, you need a degree in digital technology. If you don't own a smartphone, can't use Apps and have difficulty walking more than 50 yards with or without a Zimmer frame, you'd be better off staying at home or using your pensioner's bus pass.

Fings 'aint what they used to be, Baby Boomer . . .

This podcast deals with my one woman mission to get rid of that pesky customer greeting of ‘GUYS’, as in,

“Morning guys, what can I get you.”

We female Baby Boomers are not Guys! Whatever happened to the good old respectful greeting of SIR or MADAM in pubs, bars, restaurants, hotels and shops?

Enjoy my lighthearted podcast whinge from one of the ‘over the hiller’s’ generation . . .