So, Osama Bin Laden is dead. But I'm not gonna review him, or his killing, 'cause I'd have to either do a load of research to form an opinion or wait for more info on the operation to come out. But I think we can safely assume that most people would give him a big fat zero and his death over 9000. So I'm going to review a scourge that has plagued our time since before Bin Laden was even born. The bank holiday. I am in no way placing public holidays on the same level as a man who personally oversaw the mass murder of thousands of people, but it's pretty close.
Bank holidays. I hate bank holidays. Probably because I'm a dirty part time worker, but every time a bank holiday comes around I sigh. If I'm at work, it's massively busy, and full of people saying "Oh, must suck working on a bank holiday". Way to rub it in asshole. And even if I'm not at work I just stay indoors, because going anywhere on a bank holiday will result in you being crushed in a massive crowd of people.
Bank holidays? Why do banks need holidays? They're buildings. Should we have hospital holidays? Prison holidays. That would be a bad idea. You'd have to give the prison a break by letting all the inmates out on the street for the day. After that you'd probably need to have a street holiday. But enough with that joke, because it makes me sound like an idiot who doesn't know what bank holidays are really all about. Of course I do, I just looked it up on Wikipedia.
Before 1834, bank employees got a shitload of days off each year, 33 to be exact. Then it was probably decided that with banks closed for so long and everyone else unable to do business, the bank employees should stop being so damn lazy and only have four extra days off a year. Then in 1871, a fellow named John Lubbock added on a few more because he thought bank employees should be able to play some cricket. Yup it's daylight savings all over again, some throwaway opinion that somehow got turned into legislation. So there we have it, banks close, people play some cricket, no one else can function because they can't get to the bank, so everyone gets the day off.
Must have been pretty sweet for a while, when people actually did need the banks and therefore had no option but to take the day off too. But nowadays, people don't need banks. Everything's online, you get people coming to collect your money from your stores on set days, so surely bank holidays are unnecessary? Of course not, they've just added more and more of them. And what if the bank holiday falls on a weekend, when most people are off anyway? No problem, just get the queen to move it at the beginning of the year.
I'll be the first to admit that this is all just a rant coming from my cynical mind. I work most weekends, and quite a few bank holidays, and there are all these people around, having fun. I guess I shouldn't hate bank holidays that much. These people work a lot during the week, whereas I get a few days to bum around and spend time with my kids. It's a lot better going out on those days when everyone else is at work. You can get a lot more down in town too. Maybe I should feel sorry for them having to squeeze in all their activities while everyone else is trying to do the same thing. Maybe working on bank holidays is a blessing for me.
But no, I'll still be a bit grumpy about this. Because I know that as soon as I get a proper 9-5 Monday to Friday job, my opinion will completely change and I'll hate everyone who gets to swan around in their part time work days off like I used to. Then I can write a review about them.
My rating: 1/5
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