It’s cold, it’s grey and it’s the 290th day of the year (leaving 75 days until the forced jollity of yet another New Years Day).

It is Spreadsheet Day, Hagfish Day, Global Dignity Day, International Day for the Eradication of Poverty Day, Take Your Parents to Lunch Day, Wear Something Gaudy Day, Mulligan Day, Playing Card Collection Day and Forgive an Ex Day.

From our time running the Quercus group I knew there were lots of special days, but I didn’t know there were this many.

I’ll take a quick run through them.

Spreadsheet Day – don’t use them. If I’ve managed without them for 60 years I can’t see that they are a lot of use.

Hagfish Day – never seen it on a menu so I think we can safely ignore it.

Global Dignity Day – sounds like someone, somewhere got a grant and is busily building a career based on bullshit.

International Day for the Eradication of Poverty – each year people gather “to renew their resolve to combat poverty”. I’m sure all the poor people are suitably impressed.

Take Your Parents to Lunch Day – I can’t help thinking that this would be better on a Sunday when the kids aren’t working or at school.

Wear Something Gaudy Day – in our house, I thought, every day is Wear Something Gaudy Day.  However, when you read the information it seems the bar is set considerably higher by the enthusiasts.

Mulligan Day – American slang about second chances. We already have enough American slang thank you, so I’ll take a rain check on that one.

Playing Card Collection Day –  got to be good. Days about collecting should be encouraged. I just went looking for the correct name for a playing card collector. I didn’t find it but I did find the material for a whole new post.

Forgive an Ex Day – Why? They’re an Ex for a reason. We were discussing a new gift shop idea the other day when we got fed up with eBay – wondering if there would be a market for insulting gifts. This would be a good day to try it out – sending a bunch of dead flowers and Turkish Delight flavoured with rosewater and the bitter tears of regret.

That is probably enough now. It was meant to be a post detailing my progress in my 1,000 Haiku Challenge but it seems to have been diverted.

The next post might be about Haiku but as it’s Pizza Month I may just carry on with more random discussion of the vagaries of modern life.