The Time Bubble

I wish more people would blog. By that I mean people I know, and also people who live locally who I don't know but who interact within the same community. Perhaps I am a little parochial, but I am far more interested in what is going on within my local community than in the wider world. Yes obviously I read the paper every day to keep up on what is happening in the wider world, but it's the world I directly live in that interests and affects me. For example the headlines today are all about a new EU plan to stop the banks failing. Now whilst I don't deny that all of this has some long term affect on my personal prosperity it does not affect how I live my life on a daily basis - and it won't have any influence on whether I decide to go to the shops or to the park today. I am interested in people - and by that I mean real people. Sadly it seems that we as a culture are generally obsessed only with the celebrity. I never read the red top tabloids because they hold no...

Happy St George's Day!  There are certain debates that come up every year in the calendar, e.g. why do we mess about changing the clocks, but the one that seems to grow stronger every year is - why don't we celebrate St George's Day the way other countries do? - Ireland being the one most commonly referred to, but often you hear the USA and Australia mentioned. I don't think there is any one single reason, but a combination of factors. The first is that St George's Day is not  a bank holiday. Now that is a real big one, probably the biggest of all. In all of those other countries I mentioned their national day is a holiday as in most countries. I could list countless examples. There has been a clamour in this country to make St George's Day a bank holiday for many years but the Government has always been reluctant to add an additional day. Not only that but the timing is far from ideal. You will all be aware of the lopsided nature of our 8 bank holida...