You Are Being Unreasonable - 077 - In which all skeletons are pretty much the same size

Episode Date: June 25, 2020

"Why can't you use a child's Doc Marten in lieu of a tampon?" This episode is, for some reason, for the dads out there. But please do feel free to listen if you're not a dad. This week, we talk about how we've all been let down by the UK education system w/r/t skeleton studies, teaching cursive handwriting to infants, the animal rights issues raised by Peppa Pig visiting a zoo, the VAT implications of having a child's frame, and interpersonal conflict on eBay over high-street brand clothing at low low prices.

Hello, driving on drugs feels better when their prescription. All I know, the world looks beautiful, the world looks so damn beautiful. I feel fantastic, and I never felt as good as how I do right now, except for maybe when I think about I felt that day, when I felt the way that I do right now, right now. I feel fantastic, and I never felt as good as how I do right now, except for maybe when I think about I felt that day when I felt no way. Hello, hello, welcome to your being unreasonable.

The podcast about people being unreasonable on mumsnet.com with me, Hells. And me, Simon, summer solstice, midsumar. Midsumar. Midsumar. Like that terrible film? I loved midsumar. Wasn't for me. I loved it so much that it stopped me in my tracks as I was about to go out.

I just stood in the doorway and watched like 40 minutes of it from the doorway before accepting that maybe I was watching the film. Yeah, on the way out the door. Hey, hold on, what's Florence Pugh up to over there? Yeah. Is you looking sad? She is looking sad. Oh, this is getting weird.

well I'll be off that went on for three hours later yeah I thought it was great anyway it's a summer solstice so it's going to get cooler from here and out that's not necessarily how it works it's very rarely how it works it's not winter's coming I can like in Game of Thrones like taking the knee that's something a British politician said not me I only acknowledge that winter is coming for the Queen and The missus. That makes it sound like winter is coming for the queen. Yeah, the miss's name is winter.

Dirty. Terrible. Very terrible. That one's for the dads. Bit of blue for the dads. It's also Father's Day. Yeah, that one's for the dads. What if the dad's done to deserve this?

Should we do a speed round? Yeah. Am I being unreasonable to escape to the country? No. Go on that show. Escape. But also, if you're going right now, then yes, you are being unreasonable.

Flea. Drive to Barnard Castle. They can't stop all of us. Am I being unreasonable? Girls name, Florence, Vera Lynn or Hope? All good options, especially Vera Lynn. Vera Lin is a bold choice for a name, isn't it? Quite different from Florence and Hope, which strike me as quite contemporary names.

But until maybe five years ago, I think I would have placed them both as being quite old names. It's just the way that names are cyclical. You want to be ahead of that curve, don't you? If you're ahead of the curve where Vera Lynn's about to become a big name five years from now, you've given your daughter the gift of youth. People will think she's younger than she is. Every kid born last Thursday will probably be called Vera Lynn.

Yeah, sure. Because of what happened to the older Vera Lynn. She died. Yeah. She died of being 103. Am I being unreasonable to tell you why live teaching isn't the be all? No, please. Please.

I work in the education sector. I'd love to know. One more for this speed round. Am I being unreasonable? anonymous note about cock crulls. Anonymous note about cock crulls. Someone slid an anonymous note under your door. We're a big drawing of a cockcruel on it.

A bit more blue for the dads. It's a blue episode. I didn't think our core demographic was dads. I still don't think our core demographic is dads, but if you keep doing a bit of blue for the dads, we might lose all the non-dads, and then we only have dads left, and that will really cut our numbers down.

ostensibly we're a podcast for mums I don't think we've ever claimed to be a podcast for mums I don't think we're a podcast for parents particularly any more than we're a podcast for anyone else Who is this for? Us. It's just for us, it's narcissism. Let's do a thread, shall we? Am I being unreasonable?

O-M-G, people on eBay. Shocked at the message I have woken up to on eBay this morning. Are you having a laugh? You're asking for what you paid for it. Plus, you bought it in last year's sale. You should be ashamed of yourself. Like, WTF. What is wrong with people?

Am I being unreasonable with my reply? Actually, I bought it this year from next for £16. So let me break it down for you. Someone pays £15, £15, take off postage, $295, and then PayPal fees, 74p, and £1 fee to eBay, and I end up with £10 £41. And that's without the fuel to go and post it. So why don't you get your facts right before you start messaging people?

I'm sick of giving stuff away for a few quid because people think they're owed something on here. I don't pay out my harder money to then give clothes away to free for people on eBay. If you want to pay the price for High Street brands, go to Primark. Let's do some textual analysis. Let's break this one down. This needs a lot of breaking down. This is one of those inscrutable messages where you need some kind of key, some Rosetta Stone to decode it and get into what's actually going on.

This is where you need the cork board with the screenshot from eBay. You need the sale prices from Next. You need all the bits of string. And in the middle, you just need one woman shouting into the void. Yeah, because they didn't start with, as you might expect, I have put this item on eBay for X pounds. I bought it for X pounds from... It's like a comprehension test from the primary school SATs.

Maybe not year two comprehension, but maybe year six comprehension. You have to pick out the pertinent details. Yeah, they've took a chunk out of the middle of a story and said, can you figure out what's going on? Who are the primary characters? Yeah. Who are the secondary characters? Yeah.

So the primary characters here are the seller and the buyer. Well, not the buyer, the commenter. Yeah, I wouldn't call them a buyer. I don't think they're in the market for this 15 pound 10 thing bought from the next sale this year. Their loss. Am I right? Good luck going to the next sale now. Imagine being so bored right now that you're just going on eBay, trolling people for

charging more than you're happy with it. Yeah. Oh, what are you doing today, love? I'm just messaging people on eBay. You should be ashamed. Okay. So this person has bought this thing for 16 pounds from next. Yeah? Let's say a hoop skirt. Okay. Bought this hoop skirt for 16 pounds. Sure. And now they're selling it for 15 pounds 10. That one pays 15 pounds 10. Yeah. And there's a certain breakdown of that. So they end up with 10 pound 41 in their pocket. Yes. So a net loss, but it gets the item out of their lives. Yes. And that way, they still make some money because they're sick of giving stuff away for free.

Yeah, as we all are. You also, they have to factor in the fuel for them to go and post it. And I would say, that's on you for choosing to live somewhere so remote that you have to drive to post your hoops skirt. That seems like nonsense. Even the smallest of villages tend to have a post office. Yeah, post offices are ubiquitous. No one made you live in a cave filled with hoops skirts. You made that choice.

You chose to do it. You chose to buy up next stock and then sell it at a loss of 90p to yourself but every hoops go. No, the loss to the OPs. No way you're making a profit. The loss to them is £5.59 before petrol. Oh yeah, because of all the PayPal fees and whatnot.

Because of the hidden fees. I'd also just like to say I don't want to be doing the whole like, you know, punching down, checking my literacy privilege. but absolutely wild that this person has said people think they are owed something and they have spelled O'd, O-H, apostrophe, D. Like when Homer says, dole.

Yeah, or like when someone says, oh, in a very judgy way. Ode. You think you're owed something. You just got owed. So it would be like if this was a face-to-face interaction and the O-P said, that'll be 15 pounds 10. And then this person said,

you should be ashamed of yourself. Oh, I think I'm owed something. If you don't want to pay the price tag for Hyatt Street brands, go to Primark. So £16 doesn't seem like a lot to me. No. Nor does Next seem like a particularly high-end brand? No, I wouldn't say next is much more high-end than Primark. Yeah.

It's more expensive. It seems like the sort of thing that the sad middle classes will tell themselves is better quality. But it probably isn't. It's probably made in the same Bangladeshi sweatshop where people have no human rights. Yeah, someone stitched some kind of message into the hoop skirt asking for help. Yeah. If that was in Primark, though, they wouldn't have to stitch it in quietly. They'd just stitch it across the ass and it would be a style feature, a hoop skirt with help, written on the bum.

Couture. Juicy Couture. Just, yeah. Help Couture. Who is going on eBay to look for second-hand clothes from next? It just seems... Surely that's what the next website is for. It just seems so odd that you would be looking for something.

something that was available in next a few months ago. So surely if it was bought this year, then it'll be the wrong season. Nothing about this seems like an attractive prospect to be trying to sell on eBay. Yeah. A winter hoop skirt in the summer. Yeah. When it says like, Happy New Year 2020, of course it. It's dated.

It's dated. And you're going to pay £16 for it? So $15, £10? Yeah. Beyond me. Yeah, you're saving that EP, but... But I don't understand if fuel is a problem and all these fees are. a problem. Why didn't they put it on a local buy and sell group for a tenor? And then there

wouldn't be any of the associated fees. And on a local buy and sell group, I think you are more likely to find people who just want regular bits and pieces at a bit of a cheaper price. Whatever, fine. Help your local community. Yeah. Not this dickhead in, I don't know, New Zealand. They must be trolling. Surely they don't genuinely believe the OPE should be ashamed of themselves. You should be ashamed of yourself. Price gouging. Actually, I'm losing 90P. More than that. Yeah, we've been over this.

Losing £5.59. I must say, if you only bought it this year, maybe you should be more of a savvy shopper and not just buy any old shit in the sale, and at least have to try and sell it a little bit later. Should do what I do with video games and buy them with the intent of taking them to trade in once you've finished it,

but then decide to hang on to it for a little bit until all the value is lost. Yeah, I mean, that seems like what has happened. Have you opened from the thread? Yeah. To get £10 for a second to hand, a item you bought a year ago for £16, it's not that bad. It wasn't a year ago.

they bought it this year. To be fair, I wouldn't pay 15 pound 10 on eBay for something I could buy new for 16 pound from a local shop, but I wouldn't message anyone about it. That is the key thing, isn't it? The shops are closed. Well, not any, now they're opening again, but... We don't know where the OP is. Yeah.

If the AP's in Wales, the shops are closed. Scotland, the shops are still closed. Northern Ireland. No, they opened up before England. They opened up. If the AP's in Northern Ireland, they've really screwed the pooch on this. They've had shops open for a week. Shops were already open when they put the listing up.

shouldn't have bothered. You can get some taters. They're not the real tatos. A bad tatas. Oh, the Ops come back. It's a children's two-piece outfit from River Island that sold out as soon as it came online. I don't expect people to pay £15, 10.

They can collect it from me for £12. It's the postage that makes it more. It's a simple children's sailor outfit from River Island. Why did you say it was from Next? Next didn't the same as River Island. It's rare that you get River Island items on eBay below the price tag. I think this person's got a very strange idea. about what a high-end shop is, it's very rare to get a River Island item below price tag. River

Island is just a shop. They're all just shops. These aren't fancy. That still seems cheap for a two-piece outfit, a two-piece sailor suit. Children's clothes are a lot cheaper. They don't have VAT on them. Wow. Yeah. That's why all my shoes are so cheap, but also so silly, because I've got small enough feet to buy kids' shoes. Nice. Yeah. People say, wow, I love your shoes. They're so cool. They're glittery. And I say, thanks. I'm only a size five. They're from the kids department. And then they say, okay insufferable and then I say there's no that on them because they're from the kids department and then they start walking away I chase after them in my glittery shoes to tell them all about the tax benefits of having small feet well there's still that on tampons for some

reason wait come back why can't you use a child stock martin in lieu of a tampon horrifying yeah and then people are saying sell it for whatever you want but people will just buy it for whatever they're comfortable with and then they've said yes you can buy many different brands on the next website, such as River Island, Jules, Nike, and even Tesco clothing. Okay, well, Heather J. 96, you seem extremely dull. You seem more boring than the person who took time out of their day to send a message saying that you should be ashamed of yourself. I think the pair of you deserve each other.

I hope that you get into a row, and then the row is just you're realizing that there's some sort of chemistry between you and your next post you've got together with this person. That would be great, and that would be a happy ending. Yeah, it would. It would be a real happy ending. share all of their brand new with tags, clothes that are from River Island but sold by necks, but they're 15 pounds. Yeah, both wearing little kids matching outfits, despite being adults.

Am I being unreasonable? Settle a debate with D.H. on skeletons and body size. D.H. says everyone's skeleton is pretty much the same size. I said, but everyone has different frames. It started because I was saying that even when I'm at my slimmest, my waist doesn't get smaller than 30 inches. my body frame isn't that small. I'm also quite wide on the shoulders.

Think swimmer type frame. D.H. said it's to do with muscle mass, not bone size, and if you had three men skeletons in a row of the same height, they wouldn't really differ from each other in any real life way if they were all different frames. Thoughts? I know this is probably something I should know by now, so don't flame me down.

Don't flame me down. I mean, I want to say, why does the person posting this thing they're going to get flamed? but someone on the last thread got flamed for selling on eBay. Yeah. No, you know this. We did maths, English, skeletons.

And what was that kid's TV show with the family of skeletons? They were all different sized skeletons. Oh yeah, what was that? The lovely bones? No, the lovely bones is a book. Bone men. I need to... In a dark, dark house, in a dark, dark street, in a dark dark home,

there lived some skeletons. Funny bones. Funny bones. There was only one season of funny bones And it came out when I was too young To have any memory of this This is all UK Kids TV Where you're looking up

It's had a huge impact on you A disproportionate impact It was on every afternoon for years And you like out later There's only like six episodes And only five of the mad So they've lost one Because the BBC taped over it

God being a parent Must be absolutely dreadful because the adults at that time would have known that it was just the same five episodes on a constant loop. Yeah, look up the Demon Headmaster, and there's only like six. No. Even though the Demon Headmaster became like Prime Minister

and took over the world. No, the Demon Headmaster was multiple books, so it must have three seasons of the Demon Headmaster. That's still not as many as I would have thought. Do you think the Demon Headmaster's skeleton is bigger or smaller than your skeleton? You're both adult men. I think all skeletons are the same side.

I think all skeletons are the same size I've been in a Halloween shop You're not fooling me I've seen the skeletons My own eyes I'm wise to their game I've been in a Halloween shop All skeletons are the same size

So it's just muscle mass Mm-hmm Okay But that doesn't explain why some people's shoulders are broader than others Because most people don't have particularly muscular It's all skin It's all flesh

The actual skeleton It's the same size for everyone okay but like what about skulls because you see people with really big face like huge faces

and I assume they've just got big skulls they've got big flesh well so if you touched it you'd be able to just put your hand right in there like a big soft duvet standard

standard bone size I'm not advocating that you should start touching people's faces like don't pull the weird Lionel Richie hello thing like this is how I see you hello

I'm a skeleton in here So you, the Demon Headmaster and Lionel Richie, all have identical skeletons. Is that what you believe? Let's go further. Susan Boyle, the queen. No, because the hips. Peter Dinklage. All skeletons are the same size.

Hang on, you haven't even now said all human skeletons. So let's go further still. A mouse. John Merrick, the elephant man. No, this is absolute nonsense. What you're saying is nonsense It is, it is I was doing something of a reductive

I had absurdum of this husband's argument Yeah Because all the wife had to do Was say, look at our teeth The exposed part of our skeletons And you'll see that they are different But he would probably just argue That's gum mass

That makes them look different Don't the teeths are different Look at the teaves That's simple gum mass Look at these bones in my mouth Like I was going to say hands, there's not a huge amount of flesh on hands. You can see that people's fingers are different lengths. Like, you can see where the joints are between fingers and then where the fingers end. You know

that that's bone. Yeah, I think if you were to kill and dissolve in acid, Michael Jordan and Peter Dinklage, you'd end up with two very different skeletons. You'd better hope nothing goes down between now and Thursday and you put this out and then you get arrested from thrown in jail. Shocking news today is Michael Jordan and Peter Dinklage were found dissolved in acid. In a South London flat. Their skeletons lined up next to each other on the floor. And there's two pictures of the same size of the skeleton. Why would the news show that?

Gituitous. Oh, I was listening to this podcast that I don't especially like the other day. But one of them's got a really good ASMR voice, so I listen to it to go to sleep. And they were talking about this extremely, like, gory crime. I listened to this, go to sleep. I'm one of those people. And they're like, oh yeah, obviously we're not going to link you to the crime scene photos, but it's very easy to search for them if you put in these search terms into Reddit.

Like, you might as well have just put the link up then. Why have you told us exactly where to... Yeah, it sounds like you're having your cake and eating it a bit with that. Entirely. Like, so much. Like, we're going to take them all high ground and not show you the details of this crime, but we are going to talk about it for 60 minutes. We're going to tell you exactly where you can find the crime scene photos of the near decapitated head.

If somebody had huge hips diets to a skeletal size their hips no longer look big, do they? What? But if somebody with huge hips diets to a skeletal size, their hips no longer look big, do they? But I know people who are very thin,

who have very wide hips. If someone have huge hips diets to a skeletal size, they have dieted too much. They have dieted to the point where they have died, being buried. Hundreds of years have passed. They have been exhumed by an archaeologist. If you have been exhumed,

If you have dieted so much that you're being exhumed by archaeologists, you have dieted too much, and I'm not normally here to comment on people's dietary choices, but... If you have dieted to the point of becoming bones, and then your bones get crushed under pressure into oil, and you get turned into petroleum, you have dieted too much. Exactly. Someone said, I don't think he's talking about height, he's talking about bone density. But no, he's not talking about bone density at all. He's talking about the actual amount of space the bones take up. That's not about bone density. Someone said I had the same exact discussion with a friend of mine. She said there are no bigger bones and everyone's skeleton is the same. But what does matter as women especially is how the hips develop and that's down to genes.

Why are we all talking about hips? Hips don't lie. What? Is the pelvis a major bone for this? I want to nap, but my hips don't lie. I had a really, truly awful ex-boyfriend as a student who told me that men don't have pelvices and he like genuinely believes that men didn't have pelvices. Okay, what I'm getting here is that.

Skeleton knowledge is woefully inadequate. The education system in this country has let us down with regards to skeletons. Can you imagine being 22 years old and honestly believing that you were just walking around with no pelvis? Nonsense. It's very wobbly in the middle. Now you've got a pelvis, my friend. Jeez, Louise. What do you think your legs are attached to?

Your spine like a child's drawing? I'm being unreasonable to find it disturbing that Pepper Pig visits a zoo. Who decides who gets put there? Are they criminals? Is it just a prison? What have the animals done to be put there? Do they shout for help and bang their cups on the bars as the three animals walk by? Do they get let out if they behave? Or do they finish their sentence? Do they only imprison four of each animal at a time? Is lockdown driving me to ask questions no adults should care about? This person's right. This person's right to interrogate this. Because why would pepper pig visit a zoo? Does that imply that there's petting zoos? With pigs?

I'd like to clarify that, as a rule, pigs are more of a farm animal than a zoo animal. Pigs are very intelligent, like, people. So, no one thinks it's weird that people visit zoos. I mean, I say no one thinks it's weird. Lots of people think it's weird and bad that people visit zoos. That is definitely a thing that exists. That's a thing. But farm animals and zoo animals are different types of animals.

So in this work, in the Pepper Pig universe, the Pepper Pig cinematic universe. Okay, yeah. That farm animals are sort of free and zoo animals are to be, can find for people's entertainment. Not people's entertainment, for the farm animals entertainment. Or is it just pigs? Because I've never seen Pepper Pig. I don't know.

I've never seen Pepper Pig. Is it like Planet the Apes where the pigs are now in charge? What I was going to say was I've never seen Pepper Pig, but I have red animal farm. And so it makes perfect sense that Pepper Pig would go to the zoo. And Pepper Pig looked at Papa Pig, and you couldn't tell the difference between them. I'm just saying that Pepper Pig might be more equal with others. I do enjoy the franticness. of this, like there's not a single part of this OP that's not a question. Imagine someone

getting really just wound up. Yeah, it's true. Like, the same thing applies to Animal Crossing. Like, a lot of these animals are your fellow villagers and your friends. Yeah. Like, a duck, a sad rhino, a cheeky raccoon. If your rhino is sad, you need to go and talk to him. He's not sad, he's lazy. If you've let him become sad, then I'll go and sort it out because I love hornsby. It's got very personal. But my point is, this is like, you can catch frogs. You can catch frogs in the pond. Yeah. And they're, you know, you can sell them.

What's the difference between the frog and the rhino or the duck? Well, I mean, what's the difference between a human and a chicken in real life? Yeah, fair. All these things. They're just arbitrary. This sounds like I'm doing some sort of Peter propaganda. I'm not doing some Peter propaganda. So what does pepper pig do at the zoo?

Does pepper pig throw blood on the zookeeper? What does anyone do at the zoo? You just sort of walk around and look at animals, don't you? That's true. Elephants. Not a lot you can do at the zoo. then look at the animals. And then once you've looked at the animals, you can go home or you can buy some very expensive chips. It's really up to you. Are they criminals? Is it a prison? It would be weird for

Pepper Pig to go on a tour of a prison. I hope it's a zoo and it's just that Pepper Pig is in an animal farm way superior to the other animals. If it's a prison, then the prison industrial complex works very differently in Pepper Pig's universe. You know that if you could do tours of prisons in the same way you can do a trip to the zoo, there are people, probably the same people that enjoy the podcast I was just ragging on. You can go to Alcatraz. You can do a tour of Alcatraz. There aren't prisoners in Alcatraz.

No. No, that would be like going on a tour of Rikas, I think is what I'm picturing. There are people that would do it. It's disgusting, but there are people who would go for it. Yeah, and currently only Louis Faruys are Adelaide to do that. Yeah, and then we just watch it on the telly. Yeah. So, I better get off my high horse.

Is my horse in the zoo? We don't know. Why is this horse so high? Oh, it's bones bigger than other horses? They're all skeletons are the same. The horse skeleton is the same size as the cat skeleton. A horse is just 60 cats taped together. Should you open a thread?

Yeah. I get a bit WTF when I see children's TV programs with animal characters and they're seen walking their pet dog on a lead or they have a hamster in a cage. So you get a bear or a pig or something as a character, keeping another animal as a pet. Bonday slavery, surely. Very minimising of what slavery was.

Very, very minimising of what slavery was. But yeah, it's just normalising captivity, the idea of animal captivity. But the same thing with hamsters in animal cropping. You can get hamsters as items to live in your home. Or you can get hamsters. Objay. Or you can get hamsters as villagers. So you can leave a hamster object outside a hamster village's house.

That's a hate crime. If I opened our front door and there was a tiny human, in a little wheel in a cage. Like, I would be traumatised forever. Things would never be the same again. Yeah, people hated this hamster in the game. I forget what his name is. Gilbert, George, something like that, Gordon.

Okay. So people left, like, little hamsters outside his door. A hate crime. Didn't someone also turn their Animal Crossing Island into a zoo, though? Like, they dug out moats around all their village's houses so they couldn't get out. Yeah, put up iron bars. Yeah, they invited people to come and talk.

So, someone said, Pepper's family are upper middle. class, Daddy is an architect and mummy farts around writing children's books and booking trips to the Italian villa. So my theory is the zoos are full of the poorer animals. Ooh, big, big classic divisions in Pepper Pigs world. I didn't realise that Pepper Pig was a raging posho. Apparently. Well, now we know. That's why I prefer the working class Paw Patrol.

Great, should we move on? Apart from the cop, poor patroller. I thought all of Poor Patrol were cops. That's why they're a patrol. No, there's like firefighter poor patrol, recycling dog poor patrol, builder poor patrol. I think only one is a cop. Oh, like the village people. Exactly like the village people. Great.

Let's do one more thread, shall we? Am I being unreasonable to think cursive handwriting in reception is a good idea? You are not being unreasonable if you agree. Personally, I think it's hard for them to start with, but better in the long run. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Let's slam on the brakes here. You can't say in your post what is and is not reasonable. Yeah, this isn't...

You're here to ask, am I being unreasonable? That's the name of it. the fore. Yeah, this isn't that this is being reasonable, boss. That would be a very different place. You are not being unreasonable if you agree. Well, I'll, I'll decide that. Me and Hells will decide that. We've done it for 77 episodes. Yeah, we're the experts here. Get back on your box, lard, lizard. Yeah, the people on the thread will decide. We'll decide your fate. This is a democracy. Yeah, this is a subversion of democracy. No, terrible. I think they're actually just explaining how to use the voting function. They're trying to support democracy. They don't

want to set up an unclear referendum. Yeah. I think cursive handwriting and reception is a good idea. Personally, I think it's hard for them to start with, but better in the long run. Why? So that by the time they finish reception, they can be writing long correspondence to their acquaintances. No, unnecessary. Like, what do you need cursive for, really? Like you're saying, writing letters. You need cursive so that you can write a nice card to an elderly person that makes them think, oh, oh, that's lovely. That's the only reason. Joined up. Yeah, we call it joined up letters. Yeah, we do call it joined up.

Joined up letters. You do you joined up letters? Yeah. It didn't seem that hard, like you just draw a line between each letter and the next one. Yeah, but... There's places where the lines should be. But also, you do need to learn how to form all of the letters to know to then draw a line between them. And in reception, not everyone is at the point where they can form all the letters. Surely it's better to make sure that children learn to write to write cursive. Yeah.

It's important that people know how to write. People need to start with the letters, the individual letters, because English is it logographic rather than pictographic? Yeah. So, you know, you're not making up words, you're making up combinations of letters. And that seems fundamental to learning the words. I just want to know what's happened in this person's life

that means they've come to the am I being unreasonable to talk about cursive handwriting and reception. If they got a really, like, poorly scripted note from a four-year-olds and they're just tutting out, like, ugh. Well, I think what with a lot of home teaching going on at the moment, they've probably only just discovered that their kids can't do cursing. They're trying to balance it all, they're trying to work from home, they're trying to home educate, and on top of all of it, their kid has got shit handwriting.

Yeah, so copy out the alphabet. Whoa, what are you doing? A, B, no, join them together. What? Why? Your little kid, this is so cute. Why? Why?

Why? Do you remember having to learn joined up handwriting? There's a big deal. They used to make us sit and practice our joined-up writing for like an hour at a time. Yeah. And then they'd give you a mark out of six. Oh, it's just dreadful. Six don't seem like very much.

It was always out of six. It's weird. Yeah, it was like, oh, well done. Your cursive handwriting got four and a half today. No, I should do it on the academic scale, where it's ostensibly between zero and a hundred, but really, you're going to fall within like 40 to 80. Well, I think it probably goes 35 to 80. I think there has to be some leeway for people to fail.

That's fair. And this kid has failed at joined up. Sorry, kid. Failed out of your ear. Why does it matter? Do you think that your child's shitty little poem that they've written in lockdown about how they're saying thank you to the care workers is going to be discovered hundreds of years from now

alongside your all matching-sized skeletons and people will look at it and it will become a beautiful artifact for a museum but people say no this is not joined up and therefore it is of no value we will instead put it in the bin at that age just let them try and figure out the difference between curly cur and kicking ker

you know try and fathom what's going on with pepper pig let them figure out these worlds it's all very confusing look how magic pencil writes it magic pencil didn't bother joining stuff up magic pencil had no time for that fuckery no magic pencil famously did not have time for that fuckery magic pencil just got things done

Magic Pencil is very efficient. Yeah. Look how Magic Pencil writes it. The Magic Pencil is just like, no. Someone on the thread of says, I don't think it's a priority for me, in all honesty. Are you in reception? This child from reception has managed to get into mums there,

set up an account, post a reply, and it's not a priority for them to learn cursive because they're busy on the internet typing. Yeah. Did this person type their message in cursive? No. Maybe they've got it set up, so they're using one of the cursive fonts. Not even a serif font. Sans serif. Not even got the little flicks at the end.

The only, having said all of this, the only benefit I can see is that for some, some people with dyslexia, not all people with dyslexia, serif fonts are easier to follow because they make it clear where the letters join together so you can read the word more easily. There is an access thing around that. However, I don't think at five years old, they need to be producing the most accessible work for the wider population. They just need to be producing whatever they can muster. They're five and there's a pandemic happening. Yeah, this doesn't seem like a priority.

It worked well for my kids, pre-cursive in year R. Then by the end of year two, they had legible, quick cursive writing, invaluable for schoolwork now and exams in the future. Another thing, they've said this, invaluable for schoolwork now and exams in the future. If you're five today and you go on to go to university and sit your finals, which is the last time I had to do any major amount of handwritten anything. That'll be in 16, 17, 18 years time.

Do you really think that people will still be expected to write with a pen and paper in 18 years time in university finals? Yeah, I think you underestimate how pivotal the keyboard is going to be. Like, I mean, I don't know what pre-cursive is, but pre-cursive just sounds like not cursive. Just the same way that being almost on time means you weren't on time, or nearly winning means you lost. Pre-cursive is just not cursive. Yeah, it sounds like receptions are currently pre-cursive.

They're precursors to learning cursive. And then someone's come along and said, I loathe cursive. So many people with so many strong feelings, and I just never knew. Shall we do another speed round? Yeah. Am I being unreasonable to be relieved,

families probably won't be going abroad this summer? Yeah, more space for you. And we're being unreasonable to ask you, Re, St. Orlbans. Where is St. Albans? What is St. Albans? Am I being unreasonable? Are you still wiping groceries? No. No. No, we stopped doing that. Yeah, we ran out of death-old wipes and frankly buying more seemed pointless.

Bad for the environment. Am I being unreasonable? Are this government fit for office? No. No, thank you for listening. Thanks for listening. You can still vote for the Listeners Choice Award at the British Podcast Awards and you can vote for us. Yeah, where can you do that? If you go to British Podcastawards.com slash vote

And then there's a search box You can search for this podcast You are being unreasonable Search for us, vote for us Tell your friends to vote for us Rigg up a small device to vote for us multiple times Yeah, this all sounds worthwhile Yeah, sure, we'll do that

Anything else to plug? I have a new essay up on my medium Medium.com slash SimonXXX about watchmen And the representation of time And black trauma Cool I have a video stream show on the Buxton Fringe

in which I make cheese and answer people's questions about the future by doing fortune-telling using cheese. It's Tyromancey. It's the ancient art of Tyromancey. She's bringing it back. I am bringing it back. So if you want to see me in the kitchen with a YouTube stream open for an hour that you can dip in and out of while I dance around to songs about cheese

and make cheese and answer your questions, great. But if you don't want to see that, I mean fair. really what songs about cheese will there be you'll have to log in and find out oh oh oh oh well thank you for listening thank you bye bye fantastic and I never felt as good as how I do right now except for maybe when I think of how I felt that day when I felt the way that I do right now right now right now