May Days

There are 2 bank holidays in May - this weekend and at the end of the month. Then, of course, in true British fashion, there isn't another one until the end of August. Why do I identify this as a national curiousity? Well, national curiosities are on my mind today (yes, I've been reading The Guardian), such as: why have two bank holidays in a single month followed by a veritable drought of free time during the loveliest months of the year (hopefully...)? Or why worry about binge-drinking students when the same anxious government cuts funding, cuts employment opportunities, and royally screws the economy, thus ensuring that when they graduate, students immediately resort to drink?

Or, how does this become the Lord Mayor of London?

The positive spin has this tow-haired, ignorant relic of the private school system and patriarchal privilege making such a hash of the next four years that the Conservative party will sink out of sight for the national elections. The reality of it is likely closer to a functioning democracy voting for the person they actually believe represents their views. Which is to say, secure the crockery, we're shifting to the right.

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Tomorrow is our annual pilgrimage out to Leyburn for the real beginning of the summer: the Dales' Festival of Food and Drink. This year it's perfectly timed to mark the end of teaching - and thus, sadly, the end of one source of income! Ah, the life of the over-educated and woefully underemployed...