Clothing allowance

I've been getting increasingly angry at little things recently.  Partly because I'm beginning to move out of the fog of, "Oh Jesus Christ, I've got a baby" and am actually able to look at other things in the world.  Partly, I think, I get angry at the little things because these days, that's what my life is made of.  So whilst in the past I might have to deal with a knob-badger at work, nowadays my ire is reserved for Postman Pat or - in this case a report on the BBC.

The article itself is very interesting, and is here if you wish to read it.  Essentially it's about how difficult it is to get by on benefits.  The Joseph Rowntree Foundation (known for work on poverty) has done a survey, and listed the necessary clothes every man and woman needs to own as a bare minimum.  The below is taken directly from the article.  Italics are mine.

"items its panel considered necessary for the average man were 10 pairs of boxer shorts, 10 pairs of socks, five pairs of jeans, two pairs of trousers, two suits, 26 shirts of various types, two pairs of smart shoes and two pairs of trainers.

"For women, the list includes 10 pairs of knickers, three bras, four pairs of tights, 10 T-shirts, two jumpers, two pairs of jeans, four pairs of trousers, four skirts, two formal dresses, two summer dresses, and two pairs of heels, one of flats and one of trainers."

Two things rub me up the wrong way here.  Firstly, why do men get socks and women don't?  What the hell are we supposed to wear with our trainers?  Oh, thank you Male Rulers for allowing us trainers, by the way.  I should probably thank you for allowing us trousers while we're at it.  Seriously?  No socks for women?

The main thing that irritates me though, is whilst a woman has to get by wearing four pairs of trousers (without socks) and some t-shirts, men get 26 shirts.  TWENTY-SIX!  And women get a few t-shirts and a couple of jumpers?  No shirts for women?  Or blouses?  Or even tops?  Just t-shirts and two jumpers.  Well, I'm going to be honest, I'm not going to manage to get a job very easily turning up for interview in my summer dress and / or t-shirt, and no socks.  No wonder these people are in poverty!

And is it me, or is 26 shirts actually a bit excessive?  Let's assume said man needs shirts for work (because I think we've seen it's already implied that the little lady stays at home in one of her two pairs of heels and cooks dinner).  There are five days in a week.  I reckon the absolute most work shirts a man is going to need is seven.  Ten at a push.  And OK, let's say a choice of five casual shirts for the weekend.  Which I think is generous, seeing as we're talking about poverty here.  That's a generous total of 15 shirts.  Where on earth did 26 come from?  I don't think TheBloke (TM) and I have that many shirts between us.  Plus most of ours are covered in baby vom.

Clearly we are a striking example of poverty.  Please send cash.  Usual address.

Post-traumatic stress

DO NOT get me started about the latest episode of Postman Pat.

Yes, I know I've already done one post entirely dedicated to our friend at the Royal Mail, but really he's taking the biscuit this time.

Some kindly soul at Greendale Station commissioned quite an expensive-looking stained glass window for the platform.  A "famous artist" duly produced something quite modern called "Study in Motion" or something similar.  Pat (and Ben, whom I'm going off big-time, I can tell you), clearly thought it was arty wank.

So, long story short, Pat takes the stained glass window to the station, where Ajay (the station master) and he try and fit it.  Hang on a second.  Hang on.  Pat is now trying to install a stained glass window?  Literally two days after the church bell fiasco?  Have you ever, ever ordered flatpack furniture and had the courier offer to put it together for you?  No.  Let alone a fucking WINDOW.  Leave it alone, Pat, it's NOT YOUR JOB.  Besides which, I always thought "Ajay" was pronounced "Ay-jay", but according to Pat, it's "Ad-jay".  I'm not sure, but I think this could be Pat's covert racism coming out.  "Oh, I can't pronounce your funny name, so I'm just going to say it the way that sounds right to me."

Anyway, someone's fucked up because the window doesn't fit and it's too heavy for Pat and Ajay to lift by themselves.  The right response from Pat at this time would be, "Fuck it, I've delivered your sodding window and I've done my job."  And he and Jess the cat would leave the window with Ajay, after making him sign on one of those ridiculous pads with the plastic pencil, and go home for a cup of tea and a wank.

But no, not meddling Pat.  He knows someone who knows someone.  In this case, it's poor Ted again, who is asked to cut the window to size.  Wait a minute.  Someone (not Pat) has paid an artist to produce this, and Pat has decided unilaterally to let the local odd-job man loose on it with a bolt-cutter.  Surprise, surprise, Ted fucks it up and cracks the window.  Not before - I hasten to add - Pat breaks out the helicopter again to try and install it - crack and all - into the platform window.

At this point, Pat - again on whose authority I don't know - decides that it would be nicer to use the local school's crappy picture of a village than the artist's commissioned piece.  Cockweasel.  Luckily, it happens to be exactly the right size!  What a coincidence! So Ted (who's a bit shit but I think Pat is secretly a bit in love with him) makes some special glass and puts up the children's collage instead of a window.

No-one mentions who paid for the window in the first place, or the artist's disappointment at having their Study in Motion replaced by some cock-twaddle from 10 year-olds entitled "Our Village".  Cunts.

Pat-chy

In the last couple of weeks or so, the baby has become much more aware of the television.  Previously I might have it on in the background, half-watching repeats of ER or the news.  Not repeats of the news.  That would be pointless.  You know what I mean.  But recently, the baby has definitely been noticing and responding more to the television.  Which means, during the 30 minutes each day I'm clearing the kitchen or putting laundry on, I do occasionally plonk her in front of CBeebies.

And, my, haven't things changed since my day?  I'm not even going to write about In The Night Garden, her favourite, at the moment, as it's so intense, I think it will take at least one whole post.  There are all sorts of CGI programmes, including a really disturbing thing called dirtgirlworld which I think is to do with caterpillars or some shit.  Basically nine out of 10 children's programmes are to do with ecology, gardening, farming, that sort of thing.  The sort of stuff that's really useful growing up in the suburbs of London.

So I was delighted to see a relic from my childhood has still made it to television.  Good old Postman Pat is still going strong.  And he's even got a new series called Postman Pat - Special Delivery Service.  As far as I can tell, this is exactly the same as regular Postman Pat, except a quite good looking guy called Ben (is it wrong to fancy a stop-motion model?) phones Pat on his mobile (I know!), tells him it's special delivery, and Pat puts on a badge.

But whilst I may remember Pat fondly from my youth, there have been some significant changes in his life, and not just the acquisition of a mobile phone.

Firstly, Pat is married!  The line in the song, "Pat thinks he's a really happy man" always bothered me.  It was the "thinks", I reckon.  As if he wasn't a really happy man, but he's convinced himself he is.  Still, now he has a wife, and a child, so has clearly got some.  Which might go some way to increase his happiness.  He also still has Jess the cat.  This seems somewhat unlikely as his child is at least 10 and even if Jess was a kitten in 1981, she'd be 32 by now.  Which is middle-aged in human years.  I suspect there may have been more than one "Jess", after the first Jess "went to live on a farm".  Or indeed, as the rhyme from my childhood went, "Postman Pat, Postman Pat, Postman Pat ran over his cat".

Secondly, Pat only flies a fucking HELICOPTER.  In addition to his Range Rover, regular van, forklift truck and motorbike.  Pat must have spent the last thirty years taking tests and applying for licences.  More worrying is that Jess sits at the front of the helicopter wearing goggles.  I don't think this is safe.

Thirdly, Greendale remains the centre for localised natural disasters.  As far as I can tell, it's the only place in the world that regularly suffers from hurricanes, flooding, severe snow storms and OH MY GOD, Mrs Goggins is still alive.

Fourthly, I'm not sure Pat is using his new responsibilities correctly.  Case in point; the church needed a new bell delivering.  The Hindu family in Greendale seemed disproportionately politically-correctly excited about this.  A tree blew down (hurricane) and blocked Pat's special delivery from getting there.  Good old Ted used his farm vehicle to help Pat out (why Pat didn't take the aforementioned Range Rover in the first place, I don't know).

So the bell gets to the church safely and on time (no thanks to Pat and his piss-poor planning), but - SHOCK - the crane can't get there because of the tree that's blocking the road.  Did the vicar really think it would be a good idea to actually install the bell at the opening ceremony?  Surely that could have been taken care of ahead of time.  Who wants to watch a bell being installed?  No-one.  Not even the politically-correct Hindus.

Anyway, Pat to the rescue again, and Ted takes him back to HQ where he picks up the helicopter (yes the HELICOPTER) and uses it to fit the church bell.  Firstly, is Pat trained in campanology (it wouldn't surprise me with all the other shit he's been up to recently)?  But more importantly, a helicopter, Pat?  Really?  Ignoring the fact that you're not getting paid for this little excursion and each helicopter flight costs a few hundred pounds (who's going to pay for that, Pat?  The taxpayer?), the main reason the crane couldn't get there was the hurricane.  Do you remember the hurricane, Pat?  It happened three minutes ago.  And now you're flying a helicopter dangerously close to a building.  This could be Greendale's 9/11.

Theme tune's still catchy though.  Om pom pom, Om pom pom etc. etc.

Resolution revolution

As a pre-parent, there are numerous things you decide you will or won't do once you've got the actual sprog.

These include:

Planned

- Weekly visits to the library, where ideally a kind-faced librarian will read stories engagingly to your offspring.

Actual

- Went to the library once; waited 40 minutes for a stressed librarian to tell me that she was just too busy to register the baby for a library card.  Pointed us towards children's library.  Hatchet-faced children's librarian didn't speak any English.  Baby did a massive stinky poo as we went past Biographies.  Asked about story time, and was told that only "at risk" children referred by Social Services were welcome to hear about just how hungry that caterpillar was.


Planned

- Cooking together in the kitchen to prepare a sumptuous feast for the whole family.

Actual

- Baby can't actually contribute to cooking process.  This is because she is stubborn.  And six months old.  Baby bangs wooden spoon up and down on highchair and does a massive stinky poo whilst I swear at the rice which is now sticking blackly to the bottom of the pan.  We order Dominos.  Again.


Planned

- No dummies.  Baby will learn to self-sooth.

Actual

- Baby given dummy on day two at the hospital.  Coincidentally the same day as the drugs which had made her sleepy started to wear off.  To give us some credit, we did take it away again.  Four months later.


Planned

- No thumb-sucking.

Actual

- Extreme gratitude that baby has started thumb-sucking; it's the only thing that stops her crying now that we've taken the dummy away.


Planned

- Quality time interaction for every moment she is awake.

Actual

- Three minutes of quality time nursery rhymes before she starts screaming.  And does a massive stinky poo.


Planned

- No television.  Or, perhaps some carefully selected documentaries about environmental impact on tribes in South America.

Actual

- Thank God for CBeebies.  More to follow.