IN case you’re one of those Old Age Pensioners like me who are so bewildered by today’s events that we have only a marginal grasp on what’s going on around us, I feel it is my duty to advise that you should go to the Welcome Centre (it’s in the Sea Terminal at Douglas to forestall any further confusion) and get a new bus pass.
Government, as represented by the Department of Community, Culture and Leisure, along with Isle of Man Transport, wants us to have new ones to replace our old Pink Pass.
I am assured that this was announced in the Examiner a short time ago. But as I read the paper only to ensure that they’ve spelt my name right, I missed it.
Why they want us to have new ones I don’t know. People of a suspicious nature might conclude that it is Big Brother on the march again in case there are subversive elements amongst us trying to foment public disorder.
The trouble is that at the first underground meeting we hold we will have forgotten what we’re there for.
I had to be told that I needed a new pass in a letter from Margaret Ellis, who is luckier than most of us in the Isle of Man in that she lives in a cottage at Glen Mooar. She also wonders about the reason.
She asked me: ‘Has it reached your ears that the reason for the brand new version of the pass is to crush the OAP Mafia who have been purchasing pink cards and producing counterfeit passes for their younger friends. On such stories are urban myths founded.’
I don’t know about that, Margaret.
What I do know is that we ancients are becoming far too numerous in the Isle of Man and this means we are threatening to drag it into an economic collapse worse than anything in the Eurozone.
My suspicion is that we are being secretly kettled by the Manx authorities in order that one day soon we can be rounded up and taken to the embattled Meat Plant to be humanely killed.
If that’s the case, Margaret, I will seize my new pass and use it to get on the bus to Kirk Michael and hide out with you.
I must say getting it was a painless process. Two young men were carrying it out at desks in the Welcome Centre. I took along my old pass dating back to 1996 with its mugshot looking to be that of someone I had never seen in my life before.
You have to have a new photo taken. When I was there a lady at the next desk told her young man: ‘Try to make me look better, there’s a dear.’
I had brought a copy of my own photo taken a short time ago for my new driving licence. This also looked like somebody I had never seen in my life before.
The pass itself is a fine piece of work. It is similar to a credit card. It’s in full colour with a map of the Isle of Man on it and drawings of a bus, a steam train and an MER tram.
There isn’t a horse tram. You still have to pay on those, even though I find it more and more difficult every summer to climb aboard one.
There is also essential information printed on the card. There is my name. There is my serial number. There is also: ‘Expiry date 12.06.2017.’
I didn’t really want to know that.
• BILL Jopson, describing himself as a silver oldie, sent me this cutting from the Examiner of December 19, 1896, found while researching his family history at the iMuseum:
‘Dr R.M.Mathieson, who has been engaged for about three months as locum tenens for several medical men in Douglas and other parts of the island has been the recipient of a very handsome testimonial consisting of several cases of surgical and other instruments. The present was subscribed for by a number who were intimate with him while he was house surgeon at Noble’s Hospital.’
• THE following heading was included in the district news on the Isle of Man Today website on a story saying that the annual Peel in Motion event had turned out to be a big success:
‘Rain fails to damp out Pee in Motion.’