Back to Work.

Well I was there last Monday, but many won't be going back until Monday or even later.

I personally love Christmas with my family, and I make sure that I work hard enough through the year to always have the time to take a week off that includes it. But the whole fortnight thing to me is baffling, and seems to have emerged in the UK as something almost akin to a right. The whole country seems to stop a week of more before Christmas and takes until the middle of January to start up again.

I know that other parts of the world, including the rather more dynamic economies of the US just do not behave like this and I'm not sure either when it all started to creep in so much here. But it is now entrenched and it is sclerotic and pernicious.

I really do not have any difficulty with us in the UK having a bit longer than some to celebrate Christmas, but what is so special about January 2nd, or December 30th.? Or whatever the dates are which happen to fall on the |"second week", as it is now known.

Maybe soon, everyone will be asking for another week off, just to recover from the first two.