Children n Greed

The eye patch bear has been out this evening rattling his bucket in the hope of yet again raising a few bob for children who need help. And yes the T.V, for those who own one, will be boring and you will keep having updates from all over the country of how various weirdos desperate to get on tele do something stupid to raise money. Good luck to them! Last year 'Children in Need' raised £39 million and have doen some amazing work with that money.

Like in Pentrebach where Darian, aged 15, lives with cerebral palsy and experiences learning difficulties. At Bridging The Gap he is always helping out and making snacks for the other young people. He enjoys it so much he would like to work there one day! Project manager Christine explains: "We are hoping to train him in food hygiene, first aid etc, thus preparing him for his transition into adulthood."

Or in Warrington where Jacob's Unique Memory Pot (J.U.M.P.) work to capture moments in the lives of children with life-limiting illnesses to provide happy memories for them and their families. James, aged nine, is living with a rare blood disorder and growth problems. J.U.M.P. recorded Jame's baptism and his mum says that he always asks to watch the DVD as it "brings the biggest smile to Jame's face".

This is just a tiny sample of the kind of projects they have been involved in funding.

Today also saw 'Switch', the people behind the technology of your debit card, announce projections of £10,000,000,000 to be spent by the British public on Christmas. That's just switch, that figure is not the total combined cost of Christmas that's just those people using switch. Who knows what the eventual cost will be by the time the turkey has been curried. To put some kind of perspective on that figure, which is in itself quite difficult as we generally don't measure things in billions, the budget cut backs that every single newspaper and media outlet has passed comment after comment on since they where announced in October will amount to a saving of £6 billion over the next twelve months. 

So we all moaned like hell at the thought of having to pay more on VAT in the new year. All the benefit claimants, some of whom I'm sure are completely justified, even though I've never had the pleasure to meet one, pondered how they would try to fraudulently justify keeping the 5 bedroom council house they live in now that the three kids have moved out to council flat when they all fell pregnant. Poor old plod would have to take cuts too, except when they had the chance to get rid of one lousy copper who dragged a 50 year old woman across an arrest suite by her hair they let him off. We all fear the impending doom of the budget deficit and what it will mean to us, the normal working people............

Well we could always bin Christmas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

O.k, o.k, keep your hair on, let me finish.

We'd save, to quote Harry Enfield in the eighties, loads of money. At least £10 billion.

"Ah yes Rob but the economy relys on all that spending so by not spending it we'd make the situation worse!"

We could give it to the one eyed yellow bear and he could spend it on all the same stuff just for people who really needed it, in fact if we just gave him the £10 billion he'd have more money this year than all the years put together since him and the boy Wogan started the whole thing on the radio back in '78. Think how much good that could do!

You will still have a good Christmas, you could still eat so much that that old hernia scar starts to feel tight, or is that just me? You might, god forbid actually spend some time doing nice things with the people you love. Enjoying playing the games they kids still haven't opened from last Christmas or going and visiting those friends you haven't had the time to see since the summer because you spent every weekend clogging up the aisles in Waitrose crying in case they run out of goose fat. We've all had pointless presents over the years and yes the sentiment is always nice but surely the time has come that a wasted present represents so much more than what we think. We spend time and money making it,shipping it from China (Let's be fair it's coming from China!), buying it, wrapping it, sending it in some cases, to then open the thing and go "Wow a Homer Simpson bottle opener than says 'mmmm Duff' when you use it. It's just what I've always wanted". Then promptly place it in the pile of other presents you don't want before sorting it into three categories. 

1) Stuff that you can re gift to some other sucker as long as they don't know the original gifter.
2) Stuff that you would be embarrassed to re gift so you'll send to the charity shop and feel warm inside that you've done your bit for poor people.
3) Stuff that has been bought from the innovations catalogue and it has your name printed/stitched/etched on it. This has to go straight in the bin.

There is a fourth category for really greedy people and that is the "they'll buy any old shit on Ebay" category.

So even the crap we don't want is creating polution, a huge carbon footprint, wasting time and disappointing everyone so let's just all collectively decide that this Christmas we will buy ourselves something we really want for ourselves, we would be happy with it, and then give the rest to the yellow bear. Most of us would just sort the kids and the bear and be happy with that.

The religious part of Christmas has been lost so lets replace that with a celebration of giving, but giving to people who actually need it.

What's next. What about giving Geldof the Chocolate eggs? Share the love, No?

P.S - We just gave the Irish goverment £7 billion becase they've ballsed their economy worse than we have so Terry if you have any left could you spare some for your brothers.

School's out!

I'm back now people and yes it has been a while but I feel my common sense bladder is fit to burst.

I've had a Charlie Croker moment and had a great idea.

Why don't we have schools open all year round?

Don't get me wrong we would still have school holidays but we wouldn't have the huge 6 week break in the middle of the year. My reasons are this, if we spread the terms out the country's children would have a better grasp on what working life is all about. There aren't many people who have enjoyed the luxury of a 6 week holiday in the height of summer, apart from wife beaters footballers and even they have to go to a world cup every four years, unless they're welsh. The reason I have been given for the long summer holiday is that the children used to help with working the land through the summer to help the family. The last time I checked there really isn't that many farmers left now that we will fly lettuce from Italy or Spain so that our school children can avoid eating the stuff, but child obesity is another blog altogether.

So if we don't need the children to help on the farm anymore lets not give them the time off. The positives are that by spreading the holidays out over the year we would stop this monopoly on foreign holidays during school summer holidays, It's not fair that a week in one of the piss poor, scally resorts of where we buy Lettuce from is three times more expensive at the end of July than at the beginning.

As good as the NAS are they are not likely to give me a 6 week break in the middle of the year. After a really busy June I would not come in until the last day of 'Work Term' where I would bring my favourite toy (Hungry Hippos) and play happily with all my colleagues. I would then spend the next six weeks forgetting how to write, falling in the brook, building dens, playing football and eventually being bored and wanting to return to work. Then first week of September I would be back, ready to go and fighting fit. I'd spend the first week covering my work laptop with wallpaper, sharpening pencils and claiming I was lost when and couldn't find the room when being late for meetings. BRILLIANT!

I'm going to go out on a limb here but I think we should also scrap homework, yeah I said it. A police officer doesn't fill in unnecessary paperwork at home. A soldier doesn't kill people at home, unless he's suffering PTSD and suffering vivid flashbacks from his time in NAM or perhaps struggling to settle back into civilian life. Doctors aren't overworked at home. Politicians don't bollocks up the economy from their expenses claimed homes/moats/duck islands so why do we expect our children to work from home. The slaves that picked the cotton didn't do it at home. The weavers of Manchester in the 1800's didn't lug a power loom through the cobbled streets home to work on their weave project. Even Richard Crawshay didn't expect his workers to finish up a day's work in the blast furnace and then say "Right everyone I need you all to smelt another tonne for me at home tonight because we have an OFSTED inspection next week we would like to display this in the hall". All homework proves is not how applied you are or how intelligent you are but how good are your parents at making you do things you don't want to do.

If it was done in school more work would actually get done in an environment that is hopefully conducive to learning. Children can't concentrate these days at home because children have too much stuff that is much more fun than the average rainfall in East Anglia. Xbox is better than maths, I'm sorry but that's a fact. Hungry Hippos is much more fun than homework so lets leave the school work in school and leave Hungry Hippos at home, where it belongs.We can't unwish the invention of Xbox but what we can do is change and adapt to real life.

It would be safer for the children as we could use some of the time we have saved in the summer by having time off in the winter saving on unnecessary journeys at the most dangerous time of the year. The schools could save money on heating the building at the coldest time of the year. The best thing would be that kids could actually spend some time enjoying their Christmas presents before returning to school in the freezing cold first week of January. The last few years the schools have been off in January due to snow and this way they would be off anyway instead of wasting valuable school time.

Childhood violence would also reduce as you wouldn't have to fight the kids from other schools that attended the same 'Play Schme' as you. It's a win-win from every angle as far as I can tell.

I shall make this a manifesto pledge, if I come to power this will be policy, or I might dump it if I need to form some kind of coalition, who knows what the future holds for me.

Be well, sleep tight and kids..................go to school.