(no subject)

[naath]

So I've seen a lot of people complaining about some stupid thing about lazy benefits-scroungers with closed curtains and aren't they lazy. People have made many points about, eg, disabled people who need a lot more sleep because of their disability and shift workers who are not benefit claimants but who might be asleep at noon because they were working all night.

But also...

I got up at 0800 this morning and although it was daylight out the daylight was insufficiently good at penetrating the house, so I needed to put the lights on. I don't like having lights on and curtains open (it makes looking in very easy)... so I didn't open the curtains.

So lets say it's a work-day morning and I get up at 0700 (LOL, but lots of people do); it is dark out so I put on a light, scarf down breakfast, pull on clothes, grab bag and head out (turning off the light). Now my curtains are all shut - so I'm still snoozing? no! I'm at work 60 miles away (only reason I can think of for being up at ungodly hour).

In fact I venture to suggest that people with *open* curtains in their houses are the ones who are lazy snoozers-in; like me - I don't actually get up until 0830 on a work day by which time opening the curtains is sufficient to give me the light I need so I open them.

So if I were job-hunting I could get up at 0800 and go out to do job-hunting things; leaving my curtains closed because opening them would be useless... or I could snooze in to 0900 and then get up and open my curtains, and sit around in my living room playing PS2 games.

Also I think that victim-blaming police types think we should keep our lounge curtains closed so thieving types can't see our Valuable Lounge Stuff through the window! And I think closed curtains probably keep the heat in better too (especially when sun isn't shining on the window; which most of the day it is not on ours).

I DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE LOGIC of this "your curtains are closed at 1100 so I will shame you" nonsense. Even if it has slipped your mind that some people work shifts or that many people who are unable to worth through disability are also unable to get up and out in the morning for non-work tasks... Which of course you should not forget! HORRIBLE PEOPLE.

Comments

[beckyc.livejournal.com]

I don't believe in shaming people for that sort of thing anyway, but I'd assume if someone had their curtains shut in this day and age* that maybe they were making the room a better temperature, or they find soft light more comfortable/aesthetic. Or they wanted privacy. Or they had a cold and were in bed.

Or any number of things that had nothing to do with laziness (seriously wtf?!) or being on benefits** (huh?).

*I got taught when I was little that it was bad because it looks like someone died but I am not sure if that's regional (and is probably really dated!)

**I don't remember any benefits rule saying curtains had to be shut! Is that a new condemnation rule? I'm sure things changed since I was a lazy scrounger on benefits between degrees.

[alitalf.livejournal.com]

I completely agree.

[hairyears.livejournal.com]

Effective propaganda needs a tag-line, a simple memorable phrase or image: witches with warts, wankers with hairy hands, closed curtains for shifty scroungers.

The propaganda is working. Decades in the future, slack-jawed bigots will look up from the boob shots on Fox BBC News and cross themselves because they've left the curtains closed in daylight and it makes you WICKED.

[naath.livejournal.com]

I think the lazy/benefits connection is supposedly that if your curtains are shut when "normal" people are at werk it is because you are a lazy snooze-beast who is still in bed; but "virtuous" JSA claiming people would be Up and Busy Job Seeking. or something. I don't quite get it.

[naath.livejournal.com]

That's probably it :(

[bugshaw.livejournal.com]

Or you could be keeping the drapes closed so as to avoid sun damage to your antique furniture. Lazy rich curtain-drawing scoundrels!

[pavanne.livejournal.com]

Indeed. We leave the curtains (well, the shutters, we don't have curtains yet) closed when we're not in because any insulation helps.

[gerald_duck]

Boggle. Do you have any examples of people saying this kind of thing? I'd not encountered it (possibly by not reading the right — wrong — kind of newspaper) and it doesn't make much sense to me.

My own curtains were closed this morning because I'd spent the night away from home for the company Christmas bash and having the curtains closed in the daytime is a better security compromise than having them open at night. Clearly going to a corporate event held by one's employer is precisely the typical behaviour of an unemployed benefits scrounger. (-8

[bugshaw.livejournal.com]

George Osborne, right down at the bottom.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/oct/08/george-osborne-austerity-2018

[naath.livejournal.com]

Er, actually I've only seen people moaning about it.

Guardian reports that George Osborne said it:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/oct/08/george-osborne-austerity-2018

[naath.livejournal.com]

Heh, that's what I get for reading comments-to-entry before comments-to-comments in my email (I posted that exact same link down there V)

[gerald_duck]

Hmm. That reads to me as mainly metaphorical: "the blinds are down" as a short-hand for "they've not got up yet". And "they've not got up yet" as a short-hand for "they're shiftless and lazy".

Clearly, there are unemployed people who have very good reasons for needing a lot of sleep. But equally there are people who lack the discipline required to hold down a job.

Whose fault it is that they lack such discipline and what to do about it is a matter for contentious debate, but I certainly don't read George Osborne as saying literally that having blinds down in the early morning is inherently a moral failing!

[naath.livejournal.com]

Well, I lack the self discipline to get my arse out of bed if I don't have something I've promised to do! If I were unemployed I'm sure I'd do sod all in the mornings :-p

[gerald_duck]

Mmm. But what if you got into the habit of not having anything to do? Remember the end of school holidays? (-8

More problematically, what if you'd never felt the need to meet any early-morning commitment in your entire life? If nobody successfully instilled in you the notion that school was worthwhile or in any sense not optional, and if you'd never held down a steady job?

Whether one favours the carrot or the stick, whether one blames the individual, the parents or society, I suspect most people agree that nobody should be falling into that trap.

[yrieithydd.livejournal.com]

My reasons for my blinds rarely being open is a combination of this and not opening them before work. I don't always make it into the front room as front door is actually at the back. Most likely to open on my days off

[bugshaw.livejournal.com]

He is pretty explicitly sending out a bit of hate-thy-neighbour and police-thy-neighbour-for-they-are-SPONGEING-BENEFIT-FRAUDULENT-SCUM.

[gerald_duck]

Oh yes — I agree he's doing that.

But I'm far from convinced that what he said in the process about blinds being down was intended to be taken literally.

[naath.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think that collectively we should be giving people reasons to get out of bed in the morning.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Don't forget people who work a night shift. By the same logic, they would be especially despicable!

[jane-somebody.livejournal.com]

I've late to this as usual, but I completely agree with you on every point. When I have to wake the boys up for school, I open their curtains so the daylight (such as it is at the moment!) helps them wake up. But when they wake themselves up, they come out of their rooms themselves leaving their curtains closed and in the rush to get off to school in time I don't see a good reason to take the time to go and open them. So even for my primary-age children open curtains is a sign of greater laziness, and closed curtains a good sign that we'll get to school nice and promptly.

That aside, I often keep curtains shut when I am not in the rooms (especially bedroom) in the winter to keep the warmth in and the summer to keep the sun/heat out. *And* most days I have to have a nap at some point while the boys are at school because my ME/CFS dictates it if I am to decently perform my job of being a good mother the rest of the time, which of course does not respect standard office-work hours. (Of course, these are the sort of people who both look down on sahms as scroungers who should be doing a 'proper job' *and* at the same time bewail the death of the 'traditional family' and probably think a woman's place is in the kitchen, but that a whole 'nother rant.) So, yeah :-(