I’m not being deliberately contrarian – I am a person of peace – but I’ve decided bank holidays are rubbish. They are on my mind because May is peak season for them, but also because handsome and intelligent President Trump (listen, my son is moving to the US this summer and it would be nice to visit occasionally) has recently announcedtwo new public holidays. Not that he wants anyone to take time off for them, of course.
Inspired by this blue-sky stable genius thinking, I think we should do something radically better with ours. Because the current Monday bank holiday system is unfit for purpose. The last one was, I think we can agree, dismal: pewter-skied and joyless, fit only for a trudge around B&Q and an abandoned barbecue followed by a listless sofa double-screening.
The problem, on top of unpredictable weather, is the absence of surprise and spontaneity. We know when bank holidays are, so we “spend” them pre-emptively, imagining how much fun we will have and how many cool projects we’ll smash through. Reality inevitably disappoints, with inertia-induced self-loathing, rain, familial irritations and nagging Fomo. But what if you didn’t know when bank holidays were coming? Imagine the thrill of one announced at 7.30am on the day itself – a nicer use, perhaps, for that emergency alert they have put on our phones. It would be the adult equivalent of the teacher rolling out the TV on the trolley when you were expecting double maths.
This presents some logistical challenges (for a start, we can’t leave something this important to government: I suggest a citizen assembly, jury service style, to thrash out whether sporting triumphs or the first swift merit one). But wouldn’t it be worth the organisational effort for the national morale boost? Here are five days off I think should be sprung on us, ad hoc.
Low-stakes news-drama day
Occasionally, the news cycle makes it impossible to work, but in a fun, not deeply traumatic way (thinkWagatha Christie, that day whenalmost everyone in Boris Johnson’s cabinet resigned, or theOscar Slap) and the state should submit to the inevitable and grant us a day off. How you celebrate – convene a debate coven, go deep into subreddits or fulminate about the coarsening of public discourse – is up to you. Technical note: if no LSNDD has been declared in the two months preceding the Oscars, we get to watch the coverage live without worrying about work the next day.
Spring/summer/autumn/winter day
Each season brings at least one glorious day when work feels unnatural and unjust. Golden autumnal ones, soundtracked by the rustle of kicked-up leaves. Snow! The first spring day when it is warm enough to sit out without a coat, watching everything unfurl. Heatwave day, for languorously lizarding (before everything smells like bins and the office AC becomes appealing). With Met Office assistance, the citizen assembly could grant us one perfect day each season to become our happiest, most basic animal selves.
Get-your-shit-together day
We need a number of these annually: one for general life admin, one for pre-summer physical maintenance (imagine the public transport pain and personal shame we would all be spared) and one before each of the major gift-giving festivities. This would be genuinely life-changing for me, a person perpetually ambushed by the passage of time.
National treasure mourning day
I think I speak for the entire nation in saying that if Bob Mortimer, Kathy Burke or Judi Dench go before us, we will want a state-sanctioned downing of tools. A friend banned me from mentioningthe other namewe’re all thinking of (“You’ll jinx him!”) but we’ll need to be with loved ones when the time comes. Stop all the clocks, mute all the Slacks.
Vibe’s-off day
The emergency alert on your phone sounds with a message to turn on the TV. A lectern is dragged into Downing Street and Keir Starmer emerges, face grave as a tombstone. “This morning the citizen assembly has alerted me: we have had a rough night, none of our clothes look good, and we are, as a nation, ‘not feeling it’. I must give the British people a very simple instruction: you must stay at home, jammies on.” Yes, there would be shades of Covid, but hopefully in a healing way. Let’s make it happen.
Emma Beddington is a Guardian columnist