Nobbut Laiking, by Ross Brewster
If you were off work for last Monday’s bank holiday then you should give thanks to a British eccentric who tried to teach his poodle to read.
Sir John Lubbock, first Baron of Avebury, was his name and when he was not dabbling in politics and banking he wrote scientific papers. He was what we loosely term “a bit of a character”.
With all due respect to Sir John and his poodle, bank holidays are now something of an anachronism. Isn’t it high time we scrapped them in their present form and created a system more in step with modern life where most banks are closed not just for one day in August, but for good.
I rather think in 1871, when Sir John steered through the Act of Parliament governing bank holidays, there was none of this working from home nonsense.
Now every day is a bank holiday of sorts. Since Covid ravaged the land people have got used to, nay demand, shorter working weeks and the right to work from home.
Every Monday is a day off. You can spot ’em. The blokes taking the kids to school, meeting their mates for a bike ride, nipping off up the fells on rare fine days. Maybe tapping the computer keys for an hour or so to justify their WFH status. Getting rid of the “culture of presenteeism”, as Sir Keir Starmer calls it.
If you have tried ringing a business or financial institution on a Monday or Friday and got the inevitable recorded message telling you to look at the website you’ll know what I’m getting at here.
I am not suggesting we rob workers of their bank holiday days off. But the way they are configured makes no sense at all. We have loads of them together in the chilly months of the year and then this big gap between August and Christmas.
Why not work out the equivalent of the bank holidays and give people the choice of taking them when it suits themselves and their employers.
Before Sir John Lubbock’s effort to improve the lot of workers, the bosses of banks and public offices took up to 40 days off to mark royal events, Christian festivals and the like. In his day banks were scared of closing in case they went bankrupt. Now they are scared they might have to actually meet their own customers face to face.
Last weekend’s bank holiday was frankly a disaster. Some of the biggest and best events of the summer fell foul of the weather, Keswick Show and Patterdale dog day for example.
It rains. It’s a bank holiday tradition. But if we didn’t have this fixation with the entire population coming together on one day it could spread out the tourist pressures on places like the Lake District and organisers might be tempted to try other dates when there won’t be a hurricane in the forecast.
Meanwhile the herd mentality remains. I wonder what Sir John’s poodle, when not studying Dickens or the complete works of Shakespeare, would have made of it.
The injustice of parking fines
An unpleasant document dropped through my letterbox this week. A parking fine.
Over the past five years companies who run car park rackets have imposed fines of nearly £5 billion.
What do we do? We are motorists so everybody hates us. No point in expecting support from the courts or the politicians.
I have submitted an appeal online. It’s the only way you can do it, and then you have to make your way through a series of forms that go in a circle back to where you started.
I am not supporting selfish drivers who exceed their time when other people need the spaces. But all too often people turn up at hospitals for example to find machines that refuse their cards.
My sin was to stay a night at a hotel, car registered on their computer, arriving at 6-30pm and departing at 9-40am the next day, which allegedly constituted excessive hours.
We seethe. Our blood pressure boils. And then, most times, we pay despite the feeling of injustice. The parking companies know it. We know that we’re being ripped off and that’s what makes it worse.
Olympic withdrawal symptoms
Are we suffering from Olympic Games deprivation syndrome?
The Paralympics are excellent, but there’s nothing like the Olympics for spending hours on the couch admiring such athletic prowess between snacks and snoozing.
I confess, even though the football is back once a day and three times on Sundays, I am missing the Olympics, even the less traditional stuff like skateboarding, BMX and break-dancing.
Normally, if Greco-Roman wrestling came on the box, I’d be desperate enough to switch over to Emmerdale. But it’s good these less publicised sports get their day in the spotlight, even if it will be four years before they emerge again.
There’s a definite move towards events that appeal to younger people. Even the Olympics must move with the times.
However I still can’t get away with the Winter Olympics when they come round. All that artificial snow and ice. Too cold for me.
