Cry God For Harry! England! And Saint Snoooooze!!

From the Tasty-Bits (TM) Mail Sack:

Good afternoon,

I saw your blog and thought you may be interested in a campaign we are organising to encourage people to take the day off work on St Georges Day next year.

We want the government to introduce a bank holiday on 23 April. They have refused in the past because they believe there is insufficient support. If a sizeable number of us take the day off work it will send a powerful message to those in charge.

If they won’t give us a bank holiday, we will organise our own.

I’m sure you appreciate that a bank holiday on St. George’s Day will be a great opportunity for all the English, regardless of colour or religion, to recognise the things that bind us together – rather than concentrating on our differences.

Everything from cricket to curry could be celebrated on our national day.

Please go to www.stgeorgesholiday.com and join thousands of others who have pledged to take the day off work on Monday 23 April 2007 .

Kind regards

Graham Smith

P.S. We plan to contact a number of celebrities and ask them to support the campaign, I would be interested to hear your suggestions on who to contact. Many thanks.

Now being the old Tory that I am (there, Bill, I said it), I've always been quite the fan of St. George's Day. I usually celebrate in my own quiet way by running up the Union Jack at home (when I can slip it past the Missus) and by wearing a red tie to work. So I'm not at all unsympathetic to this idea. At least I wasn't until I had a look at the website and spotted what seems to be the real motivation. Money quote:

England lags far behind the rest of Europe in the number of bank holidays we get. A bank holiday on St George's Day would be a great opportunity for us to recognise what binds us together, instead of concentrating on what divides us.

Emphasis added. Translation? "Hey! How come all those wogs get to blow off work more than we do? That's not fair, is it mate?"

Yes, I'm feeling a bit cynical this morning.

UPDATE: By the bye, I note the site's earnest attempts to include Englishmen of all religions in the celebration of St. George. It strikes me that getting non-Christians interested in a Saint's Day would be a hard sell. Unless, of course, the Saint is secularized to the point where his or her religious affiliation is meaningless, something I don't think George would appreciate in particular.