This madness must end. Once upon a time, public holidays meant something. Now they’re being handed out with all the sense of occasion and grandeur as third prize in a pub-raffle. Why, just the other week, we were forced to sit at home to wait out another one of these time-wasters. Don’t get me wrong; I like Bohemian Rhapsody as much as the next person, but telling everyone they can take the day off work to commemorate it seems a trifle over the top.
This madness must end. Once upon a time, public holidays meant something. Now they’re being handed out with all the sense of occasion and grandeur as third prize in a pub-raffle. Why, just the other week, we were forced to sit at home to wait out another one of these time-wasters. Don’t get me wrong; I like Bohemian Rhapsody as much as the next person, but telling everyone they can take the day off work to commemorate it seems a trifle over the top.
It’s a question that demands an answer: why does Queen get a public holiday when other equally worthy musical acts go without? Surely Fleetwood Mac deserves a long weekend. The Beatles merit the better part of a week. And if Lady Gaga isn’t enough to let you go home early at least once a year, there’s simply no justice in this crazy mixed up world. Forget gold and platinum records; a day in your honour is where it’s at.
Perhaps I’m hoping for too much. Granted, with ‘Grand Final Eve’ the bar for a public holiday has been set so low that almost anyone and anything can now fall over it; and if we can have a day off to celebrate something that’s not happened yet, we surely deserve some reprieve to let us kick out the jams. But if the powers that be aren’t musically inclined, then the least we can do is combine existing public holidays with great musical acts. That way, we can kill two birds with one Rolling Stone (metaphorically speaking, of course).
If anyone needs a day off, it’s The Beach Boys. Perhaps we can lump them in with Easter and celebrate Good Vibrations Friday? Or perhaps cast a light on a forgotten artist of yesteryear like Barry McGuire? Just the very notion of New Year’s Eve of Destruction seems oddly appropriate. Personally, I’d like for us all to put our feet up and duff the lid of our collective cap to poodle-headed one-hit wonders of the eighties, Europe, by observing Grand Final Countdown Eve.
Truth be told, maybe the reason I react so strongly against the Queen’s Birthday is that I don’t own any of their albums. Not a one. Not in any format. You could scour my CDs, vinyl albums and cassettes all you wish and you won’t find anything by Freddy, Brian or the other two. The only version of ‘A Night At the Opera’ I own is by the Marx Brothers. When push comes to shove, I barely know any of their lyrics save for the bit that goes ‘Galileo’ in the alternating Mr. Gasbo / Emperor from ‘Return of the Jedi’ voices. Perhaps the real problem is that I feel guilty for taking the day at all.
That said, we’re all a little bit to blame. Nobody talks about the absurdity of the Queen’s Birthday for fear that if we do, someone might just agree with us and take it away. That, frankly, is the wrong approach. Instead, we should be turning our minds to alternative days. Because the real reason people want to observe the Queen’s Birthday is to fill the vacuum that otherwise exists between Easter and Melbourne Cup Day. (I’m ignoring Grand Final Eve. You should too.)
There are plenty of alternatives. Previously, I’ve suggested that we swap the Queen’s Birthday for Bloomsday on 16 June. That’s the day that celebrates James Joyce’s Ulysses. Before you snigger at the idea of having a day off for a book, I’ll simply say that Ulysses beats the Melbourne Cup hands down every day of the week and twice on the first Tuesday in November in terms of significance. I also proposed June 6 as ‘Convoy Day’, to celebrate the day on which a group of errant truckers decided to drive across America in C.W. McCall’s country-pop masterpiece. But there are other options, too.
July 1st has to be a contender. There’s no doubt that it’s a magical time of year. Autumn has bid its farewell. The days are getting ever shorter. And accountants everywhere are getting excited at the prospect of closing out another financial year. In fact, there’s nothing our family likes to do more than to head to our nearest major department store to gaze in wonder at the seasonal window display celebrating the start of the taxation season. This year’s theme is deductions. If we have time, we might even get our photo taken with the head of the ATO, perched on his knee whilst we list all the things we want from the coming financial year.
Perhaps the thing that really gets my goat is giving all that attention to an overseas band rather than one from Australia. At this point, we shouldn’t need to suck up to a group from Britain just to get the day off. Next year, the Government should gazette Ted Mulry Appreciation Day instead. ‘AC/DC Day’ feels strangely right. (Imagine the greeting card. You’d open it and be greeted with a tinny version of ‘Hell’s Bells’ or ‘The Jack’.) The Edinburgh Rose Tattoo is as good a reason for a backyard barbecue as you’re ever going to get. Or maybe we should be more discerning. It’s odd that some public holidays are days of great national significance and others seem to be the result of a clerical error. But what do I know? Now excuse me, I’ve got some music to listen to.