Pyjama News

Most of us only wear our pyjamas in bed, however a few people have got into the news this year by wearing their pyjamas out of the house. US congressman Pete Hoekstra, a Republican from Michigan, used his pyjamas to show that for 18 years he has saved  public money by not renting a flat in washington. He was photographed in his pyjamas for a series of adverts. "I didn't go to Washington to get comfortable," he says. A number of other Republican congressmen sleep in their offices, using inflatable mattresses or camp beds and fold-away sofas and taking their washing home at the weekends.

In Britain, pyjamas were in the news with concerns about etiquette and slovenly dress. A supermarket has asked customers not to shop in their pyjamas or barefoot. Signs have been put up in a Tesco’s supermarket in Cardiff saying: "Footwear must be worn at all times and no nightwear is permitted." A spokesman said that they did not have a strict dress code but it was worried that people shopping in their nightwear may offend other customers. One customer Elaine Carmody, 24, a full-time mother was turned away from the supermarket for being inappropriately dressed. She said she had regularly gone shopping at the store in her pyjamas until about a week ago when she was turned away when she went to buy cigarettes.

The problem of people going out in their pyjamas or nightshirts has led to schools taking a stand against parents who turn up at the school gates in their pyjamas. One headmaster has written to parents at his school warning them that their failure to get dressed for the school run is 'slovenly and rude'. Some parents are dropping their children off - and collecting them in the afternoon - without first changing out of their pyjamas and slippers. Head teacher Joe McGuinness of St Matthew's Primary in Belfast, became so fed up with PJs-clad mothers turning up at his primary school he sent a special bulletin home with the children. He took action after up to 50 mothers a day began arriving in the mornings wearing pyjamas and slippers. Wearing pyjamas and slippers when dropping off their children at school was 'slovenly and rude', he said.