So….last week we had “Worse off Wednesday”….how did you mark the occasion?
Did you ceremonially cut up a credit card? Or pointedly refuse to buy a sandwich at lunch as a mark of austerity?
Or, like me, did you shake your fist at the TV and sound off loudly about the mentality of people who simply hijack days and label them for no good reason?
As the saying goes, there are only two certainties in life – death and taxes. So who decided that the start of this new tax year should get such a bad press? I seriously doubt that anyone who has lost a loved one, or just been diagnosed with a serious illness, would see a new tax year as being worse than the news they have already received.
It got me thinking though. What other days have been hijacked this year that we should be looking out for, and which ones should we avoid?
As a compulsive early riser who gets a ridiculously early train from Manningtree every day, I suppose it would be churlish not to enjoy International Dawn Chorus Day on May 1 – when we are urged to “celebrate the beauty of birdsong”.
But I will definitely not be partaking of International Talk Like a Pirate Day on September 19 – and no matter how tempting, I will not be “unleashing my inner buccaneer”.
Having worked in the media for longer than I care to remember, I know exactly how crazy ideas like this unfold.
In a PR agency somewhere in Soho, half a dozen eager beavers have a brainstorm to come up with ideas to keep their client – let’s call them Waldringfield Wellingtons – in the news.
Chantelle scores the first points with her idea for National Mud Day, and Rupert trumps that after a swift bit of Googling on his iPad and suggests Bank Holiday Monday on August 29 would be the best day as no-one else has claimed it yet.
Graduate trainee David gamely tries to point out that the ground will be rock hard and there will be no need for wellies that day, but the team are on a roll and before the mid-meeting pastries and fairtrade coffee are served, someone is on email to Downing Street, putting in a formal request for recognition…….
Try to keep that scene playing over in your mind as you fill in your kitchen calendar with the following key dates – real events coming up in the UK this year…
The first week in May is Compost Awareness Week – that is immediately followed by National Doughnut Week (any connection there I wonder??).
August 18-29 is Be Nice To Nettles Week, when, amongst other events, you can attend a Nettle Appreciation Weekend at Nowton Park in Bury St Edmunds and enjoy nettle cordial and nettle cheese!
On June 24 what do you think you might be asked to do on Wrong Trousers Day? Yes, that’s right, you’ll be going about your business as normal, but donating £1 to a children’s charity so no-one pesters you to go home and change.
There are some “events” that you really just have to wonder at what they are mean to achieve.
Looking back at the terrible scenes we saw on TV last month when the tsunami hit the Japanese coast with a 125 feet wall of water….what do the organisers of the International Day for Natural Disaster Reduction on October 12 think they are going to stop? Are they led by someone called Canute?
And how many bottles of wine were consumed during the PR brainstorm that came up with Tree Dressing Day at the beginning of December? Why on earth would anyone want to go out in the cold and put decorations on a tree “to show it how much you value it” according to the website…yes it really does have a website.
And if any total stranger comes up to me on World Hello Day on November 21 and asks me to be their friend, I might just lose my natural affability.
I was mildly intrigued by the thought of British Sandwich Week on May 15 – May 22, even though I am currently not eating bread in an attempt to feel less bloated. But the inner journalist in me winced when I read that it is being promoted by the team on International Sandwich and Snack News Magazine.
Of all of the days that will be promoted, advertised and hyped this year…there is one which I do heartily approve of – World Blood Donor Day on June 14.
After gaining my silver award for donating 25 pints, I suddenly took to fainting every time I donated and ended up on the floor under the tea table with half the village staring at me.
So I haven’t been for a couple of years now, but I might just roll my sleeve up again this year…and I urge everyone reading this to do the same….and it is one day in the year where it doesn’t matter what trousers you wear.