Interesting Links for 18-01-2023

[andrewducker]

1. The Parliamentary Inquiry into English Childcare is looking for feedback. If you're in England then have your say on the state of childcare

(tags:children UK childcare )

2. Brexit has created shortage of 330,000 workers in UK

(tags:UK work migration Doom Europe )

3. What was life like for a poor family in London in 1900?

(tags:life history family poverty uk )

4. Edinburgh council starts taking work back from private contractors to improve quality of service and conditions for staff

(tags:edinburgh work outsourcing )

5. Artists file class-action lawsuit against AI image generator companies

(tags:ai images copyright )

6. What measurement system does the UK use? (ALL OF THEM!)

(tags:measurement UK funny video )

7. How MPs voted on blocking Scotland's gender reform bill (Labour whipped to abstain)

(tags:UK voting )

8. A look at the arguments the UK government has put forward for blocking Scotland's gender reform act

(tags:Scotland UK law LGBT transgender viaDanielDWilliam )

9. What if you could be nudged to do the right thing? (Read on beyond the fake research writeup to the short story)

(tags:scifi behaviour psychology happiness augmentedreality )

Comments

[danieldwilliam]

The UK government's arguements were much less sophisticated than I thought they would be. I feel bad for them.

[andrewducker]

I'd feel rather better for them if they weren't awful people.

[conuly]

3:

It seemed, after further patient waiting on the part of the visitors, that the husbands and children[58] could not abide porridge—to use the expressive language of the district, “they ’eaved at it.”

So much for "poor children are just happy to get food, they'll eat whatever you put in front of them", huh.

But what's all that at the start of the link, with hearthstone and red ochre and doorsteps?

[movingfinger]

Hearthstone from the reference is a grade of stone used for doorsteps, I'd guess it to be a granite.

It's important to keep up appearances in the community. Throughout Europe, at least the northern parts (IDK about Scandinavia), having the front step be spotless was a sign of a respectable household. In richer households, the maid does it; there's a terrific painting by Edward Penny of a maid smirking as she soaks an obvious pest by spinning her mop to wet him. In other households, if your status mattered, if respectability mattered, if being perceived as middle-class mattered, the mistress of the house cleaned it herself. If you think of the condition of the streets at that time, having a clean doorstep was a big signal about the cleanliness of the house inside: that someone cared and had the time to keep it up.

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/51783000/jpg/_51783170_1.jpg

The ochre would be pretty, and it's an additional layer of labor and aspiration or conformity (the note about her home village indicating that it was just Done That Way there), but ochre would be tracked in, making More Work for Mother. That would be done fresh every day.

[channelpenguin]

I grew up (in Scotland).on porridge (made with water and salt) and still love it. Comfort food. But historically, I think in England, oats were seen as fit only for horses!

[cmcmck]

Funny thing though is that I'm English and love it while the other half is a Scot and hates it.

[channelpenguin]

Lol. Well, taste is very individual

[conuly]

One of the things the author takes pains to point out is that when you're as overworked as these women, the porridge is likely to be burned, and it's really asking a lot to demand that poor people feed their families burnt porridge every day, with definitely nothing like butter or milk.

Bread comes to the house ready-made, so it's already palatable and less work.