moosifer jones's lair & grouch – online home & blog of Mags L Halliday

On Saturday we got around to watching Scott Pilgrim vrs the World. Towards the end, my enjoyment started to be tempered with uncertainty.

Spoilers follow, so here’s a cut…
(more…)

One of the more surprising things about the proposed cuts on Child Benefit is finding someone saying that, and I’ll paraphrase to save blushes, “we should stop paying girls to have kids that don’t contribute to society”.

Child Benefit, for your first child, works out as just under £1100 a year. So let’s see how much that ‘pays’, once you factor in the basic needs. I’ve used Argos for prices, picking the most basic option.

Somewhere to sleep: £124.96
Apparently, you can’t just let them sleep in a drawer any more, so…
A cot: £49.99
A cot mattress: £25
A set of cot sheets: £9.99
Two baby sleeping bags: £39.98

Transport: £99.98
Carseats are an issue. You need one before they let you leave hospital now. You can borrow one, obviously, or buy one second hand. Although all advice is against second hand as you don’t know what kind of damage it may already have gone through. But let’s assume our hypothetical mum borrows one and not include it in the costs. Still…
Stroller suitable from birth: £89.99
Sun parasol: £9.95

Clothes: £92.40
We’ve gone to Babies R Us for this, and are just doing the basics. Better hope this mum doesn’t want to dress the kid in anything other than white sleepsuits.
Pack of 7 white short-sleeved vests
0-3 months: £9.49, 3-6 months: £9.49, 6-9 months: £9.49, 9-12 months: £9.49
Pack of 3 white sleepsuits
0-3 months: £9.49, 3-6 months: £9.49, 6-9 months: £9.49, 9-12 months: £9.49
Pack of 2 white hats: £3.49
Snowsuit for winter: £12.99

Food: £480
Our mum breast fed for the first six months, but she buys baby food rather than mash everything herself now the brat is weaned.
High chair: £24.99
Sippy cup: £3.99
weaning bowl and spoon: £4.49
plate and bowl: £4.99
baby cutlery: £3.99
60 packets of baby porridge (6 months’ worth): £150
360 jars of baby food (lunch & dinner): £288

Keeping things clean: £319.96
Baby is bathed in the sink to start with, then the adult bath. And we’ll be harsh and use adult towels. Still…
baby toothbrush and teether set: £4.98
2 bottles baby bath soap: £0.98
2920 nappies (8 a day), own brand: £315

So that’s £1117.30. So Child Benefit of just under £1100 really provides an incentive to have kids. It ‘pays’ by, er, leaving you out of pocket.

Honestly, some people.

(Disclaimer: there are actually many, many variables e.g. using cloth nappies is cheaper, but having to use formula milk is more etc etc. I’ve probably forgotten something key, and this poor kid gets no toys or nice clothes. These prices are based on a rapid search of Argos, Babies R Us and Sainsburys – cheaper options may be available.)

Murdoch has vowed to stop people reading The Times for free.

The website (which I only use sometimes to read Giles Coren’s restaurant reviews) will vanish behind a paywall. Over my breakfast, I tweeted that – given the habit of News International to massage their ABCs through giveaways on First Great Western – I felt I would still manage to read the Times for free. Patrolucus then informed me that the bulk sales may be on the way out as well.

So, essentially, Murdoch wants a return of the C18th coffee house.

The only people who will still pay for the Times – in any meaningful sense – will be readers who can afford it (either online or hardcopy) and cafes who continue to buy it to let customers read it. If the readership dwindles, what of ad revenue? And if readership and ad revenue dwindles, the cover price increases. Leading to a vicious circle, until it’ll be cheaper to buy a double latte and skim the paper in Caffè Nero than it will to buy the paper.

I knew he was regressive, but taking The Times of London back to the C18th seems excessive.

He also objects to the concept of fair use. I hope The Times is therefore planning to pay The Telegraph for all those stories they wrote off the back of the latter’s scoop on MPs’ expenses, and the Grauniad for covering Trafigura. To name but two stories broken by other papers.

***
Footnote: whilst searching the Times Online to find examples of stories where other papers’ journo’s had done the hard work, I was amused to notice the search URL includes ‘turnOffGoogleAds=false’ i.e. Times Online currently makes money from…er…GoogleAds.

Google have also responded to Murdoch, whilst I was off having my tea, with what amounts to “go ahead, see if we care”.

The Thames whale died last night, going into convulsions as the rescuers tried to reach the Thames estuary. Before every one forgets, and consigns the whale story to the subsection of the brain used for “hey, remember when…!” moments in the pub, read Greenpeace’s Save the Whale campaign. Much larger and rarer whales are killed by humans, risking the extinction of entire species. Norway will kill over a thousand Minke whales this year. The Japanese whaling fleet is also planning to kill a thousand for “scientific purposes”. ‘Save the Whale’ sounds terribly 80s, like Save the Seal* and MAD**, but whales are still endangered and the campaigns are still active. So whilst the Thames whale is still in the news, read up on the other whales who won’t have half of Britain hoping they’ll live.

–
Notes
*the seal “cull” continues in Canada each year. Last year’s “cull” killed at least 300,000 seals.
**translation for those of you born in the 80s: MAD = Mutually Assured Destruction (note the use of the phrase “winnable nuclear war” in that article – if it weren’t for the fact I still sometimes wake screaming from nuclear bomb nightmares, I’d laugh).

You are a
Social Liberal
(78% permissive)
and an…
Economic Liberal
(10% permissive)
You are best described as a:
Socialist

Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid

Anyone surprised? No, thought not…

Who Should You Vote For? has been updated and seems a bit more sensible (I really did wonder how a pro-European like myself could get a more positive vote for UKIP than for Labour). So I am now much happier to wave my results about:

Your expected outcome:Liberal Democrat
Your actual outcome:

	Labour 13
Conservative -40
	Liberal Democrat 85
UK Independence Party -17
	Green 63

You should vote: Liberal Democrat
The LibDems take a strong stand against tax cuts and a strong one in favour of public services: they would make long-term residential care for the elderly free across the UK, and scrap university tuition fees. They are in favour of a ban on smoking in public places, but would relax laws on cannabis. They propose to change vehicle taxation to be based on usage rather than ownership.
Take the test at Who Should You Vote For

Ironically, I have had election bumf from every party except the Lib Dems. Either they took my “will you please stop shoving leaflets through my door?” whinge seriously or they are going for a deliberate low profile as we’re a ‘safe Labour seat’ and they see no point fighting for us.

I have had bumf from The Liberal Party (anti-Europe, but check out the funky 70s logo) and an ‘Independent candidate for Reform’ (no website but, quelle surprise, anti-Europe). You have to be entertained by someone who has split from UKIP. Are UKIP the modern equivilent of the People’s Front of Judea, the Popular People’s Front and the People’s Popular Front? Only they appear to go about demanding freedom from an apparent opressor whilst accusing each other of being splitters. Frankly, anyone whose literature uses the phrase “Home Rule for Britain” is highly unlikely to get my vote (although he also calls for the disestablishment of the Church of England, which gives me a wonderful chance to test if I can still spell antidisestablishmentarianism. And I can, even though I’m not).

Gods, this election is dull, isn’t it? Je voudrais un botteil absinthe et une grande glace. Je ne regret pas ca je passe ci election en Paris. Le singe est sur l’arbe. *

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*I’m relearning French the Michel Thomas way, which involves no written work and so far, very little genderisation of words (i.e. no “but why is the table female, miss?”). The upside is I have learnt not to say ‘I am a hotel’: the downside is my written French is unlikely to improve. The sideways side is that this is apparently the guy Eddie Izzard learnt from, so I started giggling when he talked about going “en vacances” and his accent was identical.