It’s that time of the year again. The period between Christmas and the New Year, when we take a break to digest the mountains of food and drink consumed over the last few days. The belt on the trousers has been discarded; no need for it now, the pants will stay up on its own.
Right now, furniture all over the country is being reinforced to support the weight of bodies stuffed to the gills with turkey, ham and all the trimmings.
We feel compelled to eat dinners on Christmas day and Stephen’s Day that would feed an average family for a week. Trying to be strategic is a waste of time. Saying, “I won’t have much now.” or “Just give me a little.” is guaranteed to fall on deaf ears. The plate will still be carried to the table by at least two people.
We do it justice though. When we can’t face another mouthful, we pack in some trifle or pudding and when there’s absolutely no room left, we top it off with drinks, tins of biscuits and chocolates. We pay for it later with bouts of heartburn, reflux and gout and while we complain a little, we must secretly enjoy it because we do the same thing every year.
It can be a stressful time for many too. If I have learned anything over the years, it’s that nothing is straight forward in this life. One miniute you can be having the time of your life and the next miniute you can be on the flat of your back looking up at the bright lights of an operating theatre. Or worse
My family has been in the wars in recent times. My daughter, her partner and the two boys (three now actually since a recent visit to the CUMH) should have a family room in the CUH with the amount of time they spent there this year. My wife and son took turns visiting the Mater and the Mercy University Hospital so I’m the fittest one in the family at the moment which is a poor lookout.
Situations can change in the blink of an eye so it’s important to be adaptable. It also helps to be optimistic. Life is short and the older you get the quicker time passes, so you need to make the most of it. I thought retirement would slow down the passage of time, but the opposite has happened so, every moment should be savoured and appreciated but some people are determined to make life difficult for us, like scammers and hackers.
Modern technology has had an impact on all our lives. We’d be lost without our mobile phones, laptops and access to the Internet, but unfortunately, these things also provide unsavoury characters with the means to part us from our hard-earned cash. They’re not going to disappear either, so we need to learn how to deal with them.
I got a phone call recently from a person claiming to be my broadband provider advising me that I was going to be cut off unless I provided them with my account details. The voice was that of a heavily accented female and I knew from the tone of the conversation, she wasn’t genuine. I had time to spare so I kept her on the line and asked lots of silly questions until she eventually grew tired of me and hung up.
I get silly messages by email from time to time too, usually written in pigeon-English with bad grammar, and making the same demand. They have evidence that I’ve been watching pornography on my computer, and they will publish the evidence unless I pay them. As soon as they get the money, they promise to destroy the evidence. (I really need to find out who’s tipping them off).
When the HSE was hacked, I got calls and text messages, threatening to publish my medical records unless I cooperated and coughed up. They were wasting their time taking that approach with me because if any scammer expects me to be concerned about releasing details of my prostate removal, they better have a plan B because I couldn’t care less. If someone really wants to know, I’ll happily bore them to death with a full account.
I get other emails too advising me that I have either inherited or won, large sums of money which will be released to me as soon as I provide my account details and passwords. These things are computer generated so they’re impossible to trace but somebody must be making money, or they wouldn’t keep doing it.
There’s no shortage of scammers out there but they aren’t a problem as long as you don’t give them anything. The best advice is to just ignore them but that’s becoming more difficult because they’re everywhere. They’ve even started attacking my phone now, plaguing me with text messages to contact delivery people about non-existent packages being shipped to my address. I’ve also been threatened with prosecution for tax evasion and various other offences. They’re a pure nuisance.
They’re after me on social media too. I’ve had my Facebook page cloned at least three times already this year and my contacts are being pestered with friend requests from a fake me. It’s harder to ignore these things because you have to change passwords and report fake pages which is all very tiresome.
It’s important that we don’t let them win though and the advice from An Garda Siochana is not to engage with these people. Ignore the emails and don’t click on any links. Don’t return dodgy phone calls, don’t follow the automated instructions and never transfer money. Never disclose personal or financial information, just hang up and end the call.
In the meantime, prepare for the next dinner.
Good advice Trevor.
Cheers Henry