Bank Holiday Blues

The problem with Bank Holidays is that they are usually on a Monday.  Which means that people can't really enjoy them in full because they have to go back to work on the Tuesday.  Which, of course, makes it feel a bit like another Sunday. If you go out for the day, you have to make out sure you get back reasonably early to prepare for work the next day.  For the same reasons, pubs feel dead on a Bank Holiday Monday evening, feeling like a Sunday evening.  OK, I know that by giving us a three day weekend the Monday Bank Holiday, in theory, means that we can all enjoy Sunday properly.  But the problem with that is that stuff like Sunday trading hours and pub early closing times are still in force, meaning that there is a lot you still can't do, even though it is now the middle day of an extended weekend.  Now, as my long time reader(s) will know, I'm a big fan of Bank Holidays, as, if nothing else, they provide us with a collective leisure experience - for some reason it is very reassuring to know that most other people are also having a day off work and doing non-work related stuff.  (It wasn't always this way - as a kid I hated them, because everywhere would be closed, just as it had been the day before: those were the days when nowhere opened on a Sunday or Bank Holiday).  It is just the fact that they mainly fall on Mondays that niggles me.

I mean, can't we move some of them to Fridays?  The only regular Friday one we have - Good Friday - is bloody brilliant, as it kicks off a four day weekend.  So, can't May Day move to a Friday, or Whit Monday become Whit Friday?  Other countries don't schedule their public holidays exclusively for Mondays.  I remember being in Belgium once on a week-long work trip and everything coming to a halt on the Wednesday, as it turned out to be a holiday and all the public buildings (including the one where we were having our meetings) closed for the day.  It was great - we got a paid day of in Brussels to do whatever the fuck we liked.  Of course, they have more public holidays in the EU than we have here, so they can afford to spread them around a bit more.  We really need more here.  Every so often, the possibility of a new Autumn Bank Holiday is mooted, but it never happens.  It certainly won't happen with the current bunch of bastards in power as they don't want workers having any time off.  But really, we do need more time away from work - the case for a four day working week is becoming ever stronger as working patterns change.  More people want more flexible working patterns with part-time working becoming ever more popular.  Although, as I found, employers can still be reluctant to embrace these ideas - my former employer rejected my proposal to further reduce my hours on my hypothetical return from my 'career break', precipitating my resignation.  (In truth, I didn't really want to work for them any more at all - I just wanted to see what their reaction would be).  Even now, I'm finding it surprisingly difficult to convince potential employers that I simply neither want nor need to work full time any more, despite the media keep telling me that part-time working is the new thing.