Dot writes:
In these times of austerity it is fitting that all forms of funding be reviewed and scrutinized to ensure that they deliver value for money to the taxpayer. Under the proposed model, child benefit is no longer to be linked simply to outputs (children), but to the impact of those outputs. We seek to acknowledge and reward the considerable impact a carefully planned and effectively deployed toddler can have in the areas of work creation and generation of activity. In future, your child benefit will be assessed on the basis of your responses to the following simple questionnaire, which will take no more than twelve hours of your time to complete. Rather than confining the assessment to the ‘ivory tower’ or ‘metal stair-guard’ realm of the ‘nuclear family’, this questionnaire is designed to take into account the contribution toddlers make to the real economy, indexing funding for toddlers to their impact on things we consider important, such as business. So,
1. Has your toddler destroyed any shops lately?
2. How widely disseminated is your toddler? Tick all that apply:
– Tescos
– playgroup
– book-group
– Russell Group
– plane cockpit
– Athenaeum Club
3. Indicate your toddler’s chief areas of impact e.g. walls, floor, cupboards, decibel count, mental functioning.
4. Assess the degree of your toddler’s impact on a scale of 1-7 where 1=sits still, sucks thumb and 7=Hurricane Katrina.
5. Detail your toddler’s business connections. Where does your toddler do his/her business? Does s/he show a keen interest in that business?
6. Does your toddler smile at old ladies? Does that make them happy enough to go and buy things?
Ken and Dot's Allsorts 
I love it!
Not the Athenaeum, but many times in the National Library.
Actually I am using this reply to pay tribute – decades too late – to the lady attendants in the ladies restroom in the National Library – probably long gone to that great powder room in the sky. It was the only place in Dublin where you could successfully change a toddler in full winter gear without losing your mind and your no-claims bonus. It was built to accommodate women wearing stays and at least four petticoats so there was space. It was staffed by classic Dublin mams who could soothe a fractious child and a near hysterical young mother in the time it took to pull a biscuit out of the tin. God bless them. They probably don’t need our prayers, but we could use theirs.