Betty's blog

I used to read a lot when I was a child/teenager. We'd go to the town library, I'd check out the full allowance of books (which I think was 8, but may have increased to 12 later on) and by the next time we went back to the library (probably the following week), I'd have read them all. Now that I have to do things like go to work, feed myself, wash clothes etc etc, I probably don't read that many books in a year. (Although I do read the newspaper on my Kindle most days).  This may also be influenced by the fact that if I really get in to a book I find it hard to tear myself away from it to do anything else, such as sleep, and end up knackered and living in a bit of a mess. (Moderation...what's that?! So rather than watching stuff on BBC iPlayer at bedtime, I am going to start reading, but limit myself to 10.30pm lights out to try and impose this 'moderation' thing on myself. (If I am really tired or it is a boring book, I may fall asleep with book on face, a

I thought that I didn't have many clothes (3/4 of a wardrobe and two small drawers), and so when one of my friends started this blog earlier this year about her wardrobe and clothes buying habits, I smugly thought to myself 'I'll count my clothes, I bet I have about fifty items.' I was SO wrong. I had 118 clothes/bags/pairs of shoes etc, 80 of which were clothing, 11 bags and 27 pairs of shoes. I may have forgotten to count dressing gown and coats. I've got rid of some stuff and added some stuff since then, but it's probably a pretty good estimate. Anyway, lest this descends into a weird counting game (which, as this this blog post points out, is a somewhat pointless obsession in some parts of the internet), I'm going to move on from the numbers...to, err, percentages. Apparently, 80% of effects come from 20% of causes (the Pareto principle ). This has been applied to many things, not least clothes- you will wear 20% of your clothes 80% of the time. You

I really don't understand economics. If I try and think about it for any length of time my brain starts to hurt. (Despite watching Stephanie Flanders' series on Marx, Keynes and...erm...the other one). But what I really, really don't get is why everyone seems to expect growth to continue forever. Given that we live in a finite world with finite resources (other than the sun's energy, which whilst technically finite, is probably beyond the power of humans to use up. Probably.) it doens't make sense that everything can continue upward, if growth relies on us consumers consuming more. Apparently, we are already using 1.5 Earths worth of resources- using resources faster than they can be  replaced. ( http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/world_footprint/   )How is this sustainable?! And 'the news' tells me that people might have a to face the fact that their standard of living is not better than the standard of living of their parents. I'

On a whim I'm jumping on the blogging bandwagon...so this may be the only post that ever gets written. I have no plan and no theme...so this may degenerate into photos of the menagerie doing 'cute stuff'. Anyhow, I was watching Sky News paper review this morning, and one of the guests (whose name I  can't remember) picked this story to talk about:  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2225987/Angela-Epsteins-furious-attack-Government-My-family-losing-child-benefit-just-earning-100k.html  The guest was very unsympathetic to the view in this article- which I am too. Not so much because as a non-child owning person I resent paying for other people's children (which was the view of lady on t'telly) but because I am flabbergasted that you could perceive that you need an extra £1,700 per year when you earn £100K. I'm not sure I could manage to spend £100,000 per year! (Ok, that is a lie- I would have a horse and a great big shiny horse box). If we acce