Year 4711, should in all reality be Year of the cologne. 4711 of course was and is a very famous eau de Cologne. The one that started on Sunday however was the lunar New Year.
The Chinese New Year of the Snake, the water Snake to be precise.
Mine is the wisdom of the ages,
I hold the key to the mysteries of life.
Casting my seeds on fertile ground
I nurture them with constancy and pupose.
My sights are fixed,
My gaze unchanging.
Unyielding, inexorable and deep,
I advance with steady, unslackened gait.
The solid earth beneath me.
I AM THE SNAKE.
Tuesday was a real multi day!! Abraham Lincoln's Birthday and Mardi Gras, which of course is French for Fat Tuesday.
It was of course also Pancake or Shrove Tuesday. The day that the partying areas of the world, mainly areas with a large amounts of catholics party till they drop in preperation for the period of lent that starts on Ash Wednesday the day after!
The same reason of course that we empty our larders of all things and stuff them in pancakes for the fasting that starts on Ash Wednesday!!
Then of course the day itself, Ash Wednesday, where everybody has dirty foreheads, turns up late for work and nobody seems to care!! A very important day religiously and I do understand really! The Ashes represent universally the power of the flame and brings the whole importance of the lent and Easter cycle as the palms from the Easter before are burned to form the ashes. The ashes on the forehead are a sign that you will be doing something for the lenten period to cleanse your soul.
Thursday and although some peoples favourite of them all, the feast day of St. Valentine, the most commercial of all the special days of the year and often referred to as St. Hallmark's Day. Though I have to say if there is a Saint responsible for making people, everywhere and from all sorts of backgrounds spend a huge amount of money on all sorts of things from strawberries and chocolate to weekends away and plastic surgery, not to mention diamond rings then I think St. Hallmark fades in to insignificance. St. Money perhaps!!
Valentine was actually a rather dubious Roman saint about which very little is known. Also known of course as SAD - Single's Awareness Day and my own feeling is that if you love someone enough and love them properly then you certainly don't need a special day to show it.
Finally Friday 15th February 1971 known as D Day when Britain lost its ancient currency of pounds, shillings and pence. It was replaced by a whole new currency featuring 100 new pence in a new pound! 240% of the value of an old penny! Which was really a d and the new penny then became a p.
Retail prices increased by the same percentage over night.
6d (a tanner) half a shilling overnight grew by 240% to 6p which was 1/2d and nobody was supposed to notice. It's complicated, too complicated really for everyday conversation. However suffice to say that people of a certain age will still be heard muttering things like, "Bloody hell 13 shillings for a Mars bar!"
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