It’s good to have a back up. Better to have two. Even better to have…..tell you what, let’s just pretend you get the idea. I have a little list of things I could write about but the problem is I just don’t want to at the moment, so I’m falling back on an old favourite and giving you a guide to the kinds of things you could be celebrating this month; that’s right – it’s what to celebrate in August. Rather usefully Part 1 will just focus on the stuff you’ve already missed.
August 1. Yorkshire Day. Yes, it’s true, I’m sorry. You’ve only gone and missed the day that Yorkshire celebrates its own existence and brilliance, but don’t worry because you can relive the experience of Yorkshire celebrating its own existence and brilliance any day you bloody well please – simply grab the nearest person from Yorkshire and they’ll tell you all about it. You won’t need to ask them. They’ll just tell you all about the glory of being from ‘God’s Own Country’, though I’m not sure God was thinking straight when he invented celebrated shitholes like Wakefield and Redcar and Bradford and Huddersfield and oh how the list goes on. Presumably God also invented the indestructible self belief and arrogance of the ‘Yorkshireman’ and for that he must hang his head in shame.
August 1. International Beer Day. The day of the year in which pubs around the globe fill up with ‘beer twats’ and everyone gets legless and finishes festivities by wetting the bed or being sick in the fireplace. Behold the glory of beer etc. For some folk every day is International Beer Day.
August 1. Respect For Parents Day (USA) . Because only in America would you need a day off from telling your parents to “go fuck yourselves, I can’t believe you, you ruined my fucking life” shortly before stealing money from them to buy Oxycontin. Or perhaps some under-the-counter Vicodin.
August 2. National Coloring Book Day (they mean colouring) and National Ice Cream Sandwich Day (both USA). There must be a problem somewhere. There must a large void in a lot of people’s lives when something has to be invented just to cater for ‘coloring’ books and double fat ice cream treats. Surely most American parents must realise that ‘coloring’ books are just there to pacify their children until the spiral of heavy prescription sedatives kicks in in the late teens (see above). Either that or morbid obesity. Do such things need celebrating? No. No is the answer you seek, you young deluded rascals.
August 5 (USA). National Work Like A Dog Day. USA again because they can’t bear to not have the monopoly on almost all needlessly stupid things. I’m not sure quite where they’re going with this one because the USA’s unemployment rate is already pretty steep so I’m assuming it’s just a day when people wander round sniffing each others arseholes and licking their own genitals slightly more than they normally would.
August 6. National Fresh Breath Day (USA). Of course it’s the fucking USA. Pick a day, any day, when you would rather not have breath that smells like a skip full of used nappies in a heatwave.
August 9. International Day Of The Worlds Indigenous People. As declared by The United Nations. A noble and thoughtful gesture, I would say. A bit too little too late, I would say. Back in the USA it’s also National Rice Pudding Day, which tells you a great deal about a great deal.
August 10, 11, 12. USA Special. Includes National Shapewear; Lazy; Presidential Joke; Raspberry Bombe; Bowling; Garage Sale; Julienne Fries Day. Seriously. The 12th also marks the particularly cruel and niche National Middle Child Day. Presumably this can only be celebrated by families with an odd number of children (with the exception of various combinations involving twins and so on) and at a cost to the other children who for that 24 hours must feel ever so slightly undervalued.
August 13. International Lefthanders Day. Raise your hand if you knew this. No, the other hand. ‘The wife’ is a leftie and so is ‘big sister’ so it must be a superpower. Quite why we need a day to recognise it is a minor mystery, but I suppose if you were ‘trained’ (with the help of a cane) to write with your right by some bastard school teacher as a youth you may well feel more strongly. Does having a day help anyone involved? Does it arse.
That’s it for now. A bit half baked but then it is only half done.
G B Hewitt
On stupidity......and other causes for concern. 