For most people, spending time with an elderly relative is something you do for love, not money. If, however, you really can't be bothered, there is a solution: pay a straight-A student from Oxbridge to do it instead.
It's sad, and it's true, but two young men have come up with a business based entirely on the model that an elderly person might want to pay £30 to be "entertained" by a student.
Eldertainment is the brainchild of Heneage and William Stevenson. They say it is a way for students to fund their way through university, do something for the social good and generate relationships between two of the most ignored groups of our society – students and the elderly.
So why does the whole thing seem so wrong?
For a start, it's completely elitist: the website offers the services of undergraduates and recent graduates from Russell Group universities. The type of student, if the sample CVs on the website are anything to go by, have an interest in Arab-Israeli foreign policy or have "compiled a policy report on hedge funding flows" during a summer job or spent several months in Tanzania with the Red Cross.
What's to stop these students simply droning on about their gap year? And will they be able to engage in a chat about Coronation Street as well as political debates?
David Sinclair, the head of policy for Help the Aged, found the concept "patronising". He said: "Why would an old person go for it? Shouldn't it be the other way round?"
A poor student who checked it out said: "This business completely undermines hundreds of charities that have been set up to specifically provide befriending schemes using volunteers. The idea that people should have to pay for this type of service is disappointing; how students can take the money, I do not know."
Indeed. Elderly people often give up their time to volunteer or work for a local charity, so why should they have to pay for this? And even if a student does fancy doing it to beef up their CV, as is suggested by the site, isn't their "elderly" companion or prospective employer going to see through their ulterior motive? What must elderly people think of the younger generation?
Unsurprisingly, the Stevenson boys don't come from the average family. Their father is Lord Stevenson, who was in parliament the other day being grilled on his job as former chairman of the troubled bank HBOS. He took £750,000 home in 2007, so he may not be calling on the services of Eldertainment just yet, but at least he knows they will look after him in his old age.
Eldertainment seems like a way of exploiting society's most lonely and desperate and giving money and experience to the most advantaged and educated of students. The principle behind the company is commendable, but the cost and the members' club mentality just feels a sad service for something we should do naturally.
