Spending money and time on stuff that really doesn't matter!

According to some statistics I saw today, families spend an average of £329 per child on school uniform each year. That means that some parents spend an awful lot more. i remain unconvinced by all the arguments about the usefulness of school uniform. As far as I can tell, the only really useful thing about uniform is that when you take the kids on an excursion some where it is easier to identify your lot if they go in uniform. Ironically enough, the school I went to did not insist on our wearing uniform if we went on a trip, just about the only time they didn't. But I suspect that the argument about uniform will run and run. The British are a bit obsessed by it. Even the nursery our tiniest grandchild goes to insists on a uniform.

Still, there are worse things to spend money on, I suppose. Reports are running around about French President Macron having spent €26,000 on make-up during his first three months in office. I know that in this age of equality men have just as much right as women to wear make-up. I know that he has to make public appearances, including on television and wants to look his best. I don't know how he has managed to spend so much in so short a time. Did he spend money on make-up in this extravagant manner before he decided to run for president? He must use really expensive brands of beauty products. I don't think I could spend so much in a lifetime. It's like when I used to find statistics on the thousands of pounds Princess Diana spent on knickers in one year and found myself wondering how many pairs of expensive knickers a girl needed.

It turns out that his predecessor spent even more on average, although his included hairdressing costs. And to think that they criticise female politicians for spending huge amounts of money on clothes. I shall have tonrethink my position on those £1000+ leather trousers Theresa May wore for a photo shoot!

I wonder how much time he wastes every morning sorting out his face. Here's something I found last week on that very subject: "How long did you spend in front of a mirror this morning? If you woke up in Zadie Smith’s house, it had better not have been more than 15 minutes. Speaking at the Edinburgh international book festival, Smith shared why she has given her seven-year-old daughter, Kit, the stringent quarter-of-an-hour limit: “I explained it to her in these terms: you are wasting time, your brother is not going to waste any time doing this. Every day of his life he will put a shirt on, he’s out the door and he doesn’t give a shit if you waste an hour and a half doing your makeup.”

Some might find it shocking for a seven-year-old to be aware of makeup at all, but in this brave new world of teenybopper YouTube strobing tutorials garnering views in the millions, it is often reality. As Smith remarked, “From what I can understand from this contouring business, that’s like an hour and a half, and that is too long.”

 According to a 2016 survey, the average British woman spends 38 minutes, putting on her face every day. Over the course of a week, that is just less than four and a half hours; in one year, that makes nearly 10 days (and nights). Over a makeup-wearing lifetime (say, 75 years), that is two years. Two whole years. Just think how many glass ceilings we might have smashed if we hadn’t been so busy with blusher."

The article ended with this comment: "Just think of the time it must take Trump to maintain his skin tone and signature coiffure – perhaps he is doing his bit for gender equality after all."