Changing from a Grumpy Gardener to an Old Groaner

Graham the Grumpy Gardener has run its course and now I’m changing to become

an old groaner. From today I’ll still be found on Graham the Grumpy Gardener but,

instead, be known as Croak’s Progress.

Do you know the story of the Rake’s Progress? It traces, in a series of eight satirical

paintings by William Hogarth (1697-1764), one Tom Rakewell. He descends from

being a fairly decent fellow into the bad side of London life at that period.

I’m not going down that route! My progress is from today to the point where I croak.

My blogs, over this period, will highlight the unfairness and misery caused to mature

people in this country by the incessant march to an on-line society.

What drove me down this road was the Christmas Carol Service at our local parish

church. Now that we don’t have a local newspaper, I went online, entering the name

of our church and carol service times. What did I get? Oh no, not the service

times, just details of an App. Clearly God has gone digital – or at least where we

live.

It is symptomatic of the direction society is taking. In September last year our

landline stopped working. Then my wife got a plethora of messages from our

burglar alarm provider telling us that the telephone line to them was also not working.

That was September 2024. After hours and hours of trying to speak to a human at

the alarm company I eventually found a brilliant young man in January. He fixed the

problem that same day.

Not so with the telephone line. Earlier this month, out of sheer frustration of not

having a working telephone, I obtained the personal email for the chief executive of

BT and sent her a four pager detailing all the things that had happened over the

intervening six months. The phone was working within a short period of time.

The common denominator? – voice messages and emails don’t sort out problem –

people do.

So my Croak’s Progress is going to highlight the thousand and one challenges of on-

line mire and misery

So, whilst it is not farewell to Graham the Grumpy Gardener, I do hope you will join

me on my Croak’s Progress.

Keep moaning!