Road Map for Life

You hear a lot these days
About a ‘Road Map’

Apparently it is a plan or strategy
Intended to achieve
A particular goal
 

So we may have ………

A road map out of lockdown
A road map for your career
A road map for peace
A road map towards independence
A road map towards buying your own home
A road map towards health and wealth

And so it goes on.  Especially ON
As the road moves onwards
So must we!

I don’t know if we can call the AA?
As we used to do when things went
Wrong on the road
But at least we will have
That Map to tell us where to go

Perhaps politicians
like road Maps
Because they suggest that
We are going somewhere
Even if we never quite arrive

Evangelists might hold up
A road map to heaven
The road may be long
But the prize is sublime

Financial advisers
Might dupe you with their road map
Using your money to bring about
Untold riches and ever increasing wealth
For whom? We might ask

Fitness instructors
Will draw up a road map
To bring us back to renewed
Health and energy

Some of these have echoes of the Funeral Plans
Tastefully marketed by the local undertaker!

You get the drift?
In every sphere of human endeavour

But now even the map has been superseded
By the GPS system that not only shows us the way
But tracks our progress every inch

Don’t you long for a world
Where maps can be ignored
Where you simply wander at will
And let the future take care of itself?

And as for all the grandiose plans
Of politicians, planners and pundits
Consign them to the file called ‘fiction’
Which contains all the flights of fancy

Ken Fisher

BoMaD – Bank of Mum and Dad [Revisited]

Four years ago I penned the verses below
And I thought that by now the challenge might go
But Covid-19 has just made things more acute
On that property ladder to place the first foot

The problem it seems, jobs are no longer secure
That their earning power they cannot ensure
But to get enough mortgage to secure a first home
How on earth can these buyers take on a large loan?

On top of all this, family homes are overcrowded
Parents, by adult offspring, are once again surrounded
The plea we can hear, how can I break free!
Who will help me, this cramped refuge to flee?

…………………………………………

It would appear from press reports that if you’re short of cash
And trying to buy a house without the necessary stash
If you’re getting nowhere with the usual high street lenders
And chances of scaling the property ladder are getting ever slender

Then the best prospect for those who hold such aspirations
Is to maintain accord with your very close relations
Because it seems you will need to bring out that begging bowl
And ask your Mum and Dad if they will kindly you bankroll?

Costs of fleeing the nest seem to forever spiral
House price inflation having gone completely viral
So ‘baby boomer’ parents find that in this world gone mad
The desirable new brand is simply called BOMAD*

And offspring for sure are rarely being coy
As they latch on to this money-seeking ploy
As their elders have gained by rises o’er the years
And their bricks became a goldmine in common with their peers

So watch out all parents if you thought your wealth secure
You can’t ignore the pleadings of your kids who’re oh so poor
Cancel world cruises or a room in that care home
You’ll need to give your progeny more than chromosomes!

Ken Fisher

*BoMaD = Bank of Mum & Dad

Emblem: M&D from Shelter

Original version posted 3 May 2016