April Fools

I didn’t have a busy day yesterday. My wife took our daughter off to see a friend and I had nothing to do. So I headed straight for the PC with a hot cross bun in my hand and stared through the poo-stained window. Since I had some time on my hands I thought I’d pay a few visits. I dropped in on Wife in the North, Rilly Super, Mutterings and Meanderings, Pig in the Kitchen, Drunk Mummy. It felt like an extended coffee morning or something, without actually having to stick in my unshaven face and scare people. There were a couple of other places I stumbled into and felt uncomfortable. Where it was like being a man at a hen night. But I will visit the others regularly, especially Drunk Mummy, who serves wine rather then coffee.

Later, I was reading the Evening Standard and the April Fool thing got to me again. Big Brother microphones on posts? Fulham manager’s car bugged by wife? New Generation Game with Brucie? Bob Geldof’s outfit? Surely they had all slipped through late. I had to sit down, suddenly my head was throbbing.

Then I saw it – “Too many hours in nursery ‘turns toddlers into yobs’” the headline yelled dumbly. The topic comes up frequently of course. This government funded study concluded that long hours in nursery (more than 35 per week) “had both positive and negative effects” on children. They were “more sociable”, but also “more antisocial”. Eh? Why on earth do they bother? Oh yes, to elicit feedback from the likes of Councillor Chris Cooke from Tamworth who emails in his advice that children need “whispered parental love and care” interspersed with “occasional play”. Oh yes, and I bet he’s done a whole heap of that. I think I’ll stick with Allyson from Wolverhampton and Debbie from Leicester who choose to send their children to nursery and pay the mortgage. I mean, really.