Convenient Day

Convenient Day was written in 2014 – it remains a continuing rant.

Today is the 2nd of June and I happened to come across the Daily Mirror’s paper headline (not the on-line site so I cannot give a link.) The Headline across the top half of the page has the news that today’s copy has a story concerning the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings including a reprint of the Mirror’s lead story form the time of the landings.

“FREE INSIDE
70 Years on… our original D-Day Paper”

Given the secrecy and timing of the landings the story was printed on the 7th June reporting the landings on the previous day. All well and good and something to report and recall, even celebrate the successful landings despite the huge sacrifice to achieve the landings.

My problem is this. The 2nd of June is not 70 years on, it’s nearly 70 years on. The headline is incorrect, it’s a lie, at best misleading and covers half the page of a national newspaper. The landings were originally scheduled for 5th June but delayed for 24 hours for weather until the early hours of the 6th. They were not and have never been on the 2nd. We may celebrate birthdays or anniversaries outside of the day itself but the anniversary day. You do not become 18 the day before even if you have a convenient birthday party and open your presents. It is not 70 years today, yet it will be on the 6th and to be even more pedantic the Mirror’s story is the 7th commemorating the 6th.
This confirms a further comment about other convenient celebrations. We have the Queen’s official birthday rather than her actual birthday and then my pet peeve Remembrance Day. The Armistice came into being at the 11th Hour on the 11th Day of the 11th Month. The two minute silence should be applied then. Instead it is postponed or delivered early as a national remembrance on the nearest convenient Sunday. Even then local services are not held at the war memorial on the Sunday they start there but are in the Church not by the memorial. On the actual 11th even if it is a Sunday there are just a few persons standing near the memorial at 11:00. Why, because it would be inconvenient for the nation to remember the 1st World War Sacrifice on the day in question. Millions gave their lives but we must not halt current commerce, government or anything else because it’s inconvenient. For Remembrance Day I could throw in the Church’s need to control the events regardless of the religion, or lack of it, of those involved and commemorated.
The same is true of other Bank Holidays on convenient Mondays. If we are to celebrate May Day why not on the 1st of May rather than the first Monday in May. Easter Monday is clearly tied with the religious events based on lunar calendars and weeks since whenever. Whit Sunday was the last Sunday in May another religious occasion but again is now a convenient last Monday in May Bank Holiday.
With 24 hour shopping and global enterprise, is the whole concept of bank holidays on convenient Mondays or other dates outmoded and ridiculous? Why not celebrate/commemorate the date in question. Why can’t May Day be 1st May it is after all May Day and will occasionally be a Monday and why can’t remembrance day be on the day we should remember?