All bank holidayed up and nowhere to go
May 22, 2003 ~ 3:10 p.m.
My fellow Americans�you may not know this, but we here in England have this coming Monday off as well. Only, as I remember so fondly, the holiday in America is called Memorial Day. People lay flowers at the headstones of veterans and there are parades in honor of military heroes and dedications to POWs/MIAs.
Over here, however, Monday will officially be known as Spring Bank Holiday. Break out the horns and paper cone hats, ladies and gents. Hear, hear for spring, when several things rise�the flowers, the temperature and the hands of the Iraqi Republican Guard (OK, I got that one from an editorial cartoon in The Conservative Chronicle, but it was so good, I just had to share it).
Yep, nothing like an English holiday to ponder the more philosophical aspects of life�such as the closing of the bank for a day. The C of E really doesn�t have much on the agenda other than Easter and Christmas to slow the pace of everyone�s hectic life, so that�s where the B of E comes in handy. What an endearingly goofy tradition. You�d think a nation as rich in history as this would be able to come up with better holidays�and more of them too! The U.S. is only 227 years old and yet we have ten national holidays to this country�s rather paltry seven.
Usually, the wife and I, sometimes with Jo in tow, take advantage of long weekends to shuttle off somewhere. That was the case with the Early May Bank Holiday, when I took the opportunity to get sizzled and sozzled on the Cote d�Azur. But now, by golly, we�re just staying home and watching the war. Yes, the battle of the PlayStation versus the GameCube for the dragon of the night�s long attention span. Hmmm. Maybe the computer will grab victory by default.
Beyond that, I think it�ll be good just to rest. Instead of jumping from place to place, I will mostly just be jumping to the sounds of some good tunes and hopefully enjoying the grass that I may be able to score for myself this weekend. I�m so bored with alcohol, don�tcha know.
Happy Memorial Day, and Long Live the Bank of England. Yea!
� M.E.M.
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Copyright � 2001-2007 by M.E. Manning. All material is written by me, unless explicitly stated otherwise by use of footnotes or bylines. Do not copy or redistribute without my permission.
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