Everyday I arrive work to a never ending deluge of emails, but I received quite a seemingly interesting email in my junk mail folder on Friday - entitled 'Dave - we need you'.
Intrigued, I opened said email and couldn't help but read the whole thing. Like most people who share my name, I have resigned myself to the fact 'most men are called David' but the email informed me that my names sakes and myself were in fact the "back bone of the British nation". How cool.
As I continued to read through this affrimation, it all became clear. The email was proposing a national holiday in honour of those of us who are called David, Dave or Davy. It contained information about a Twitter page, Facebook and Myspace pages with which to campaign for the cause, to get a day off just for being called Dave. There were even instructions on how to print out a rosette to wear with pride to encourage friends and colleagues to get behind the idea of a National Day of Dave.
After getting over the idea, I decided to do my bit and let my colleagues know about the initiative and we got to thinking about how many 'official' days and weeks there were going around. It seems every week there is a national 'something' day.
Who comes up with these ideas? How many people actually take any notice of them? Cynics (mostly single friends) often tell me days like Valentine's day are nothing more than an excuse for shops to make money out of chocolates, cards and teddy bears.
I hope the email I received on Friday was nothing more than a joke and it made me laugh, but it also exposes the fact national days and weeks might have gone too far.
