The government have outlined plans to do some bank holiday shuffling by moving one of the May bank holidays to April or introducing a new one in October.
Thanks to Wills ‘n Kate obligingly providing us with an extra day off this year along with giving Londoners the dilemma of whether to abandon the capital for the duration or fling themselves wholeheartedly into royal wedding fever, the subject of the country’s stingy allowance of bank holidays is exercising the government. The surfeit of long weekends around Easter and May compared with those long months between September and Christmas has always been rather vexing and ministers are grabbing the golden opportunity presented by the Olympics to extend the tourist season even if they can’t guarantee the weather.
We love bank holidays at Londonist and are positively fizzing with excitement at the prospect of an extra one to get out and see stuff that we’re too tired or too busy to see on a normal day. We’ll also be providing you with a handy guide (like this one) of things to do in the city on bank holiday weekends, assuming that the RMT doesn’t go on strike, that is.
Sadly, proposals for double summertime have been vetoed as not being beneficial enough for tourism but Diamond Geezer plans to start a campaign based on his excellent and informative explanation of why current summertime arrangements are just plain wrong.
Suggestions around naming include Trafalgar Day and the curiously grating National Day and UK Day. What would you call our alternative bank holiday?
