A question about Mondays

[Guy Profumo]

Does anybody like them?

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

A question about Mondays

I prefer the Saturdays.

[Jah Womble]

A question about Mondays

Did you know that 'Monday' is an anagram of 'Dynamo'?

Well, you do now.

[Geoffrey de Ste. Croix]

A question about Mondays

E.P. Thompson’s classic investigation Time, Work-Discipline and Industrial Capitalism outlines that Monday was not always the gloomy start to the week as we experience it. "Saint Monday" for centuries a common tradition, was a day for idleness, personal business, visiting the market or recovering from a hangover. He quotes the lyrics of an old Sheffield song called the "Jovial Cutlers":

"How upon a good Saint Monday,
Sitting by the smithy fire,
Telling what's been done o't Sunday,
And in cheerful mirth conspire,
Soon I hear the trap-door rise up,
On the ladder stands my wife:
"Damn thee, Jack, I'll dust they eyes up,
Thou leads a plaguy drunken life;
Here thou sits instead of working,
Wi' thy pitcher on thy knee;
Curse thee, thou'd be always lurking.
And I may slave myself for thee".

It was only with the gradual imposition of the discipline of the factory clock from the late 18th Century onwards and the capitalist culture of "time spent" rather than "time passed" that Saint Monday became Gloomy Monday.

Thompson points out however that Saint Monday survived in certain trades at least until the mid 20th Century. Thompson says he spoke with one Yorkshire miner in 1967 who told him the practice of tossing a coin on whether to go to work on the Monday or not was still prevalent. Amongst the brewers of Burton on Trent Thompson mentions that it still continued.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

A question about Mondays

In response to Guy's original question, not especially, but then I've experienced very few Mondays that were as dire and irritating as the Boomtown Rats single on the topic.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

A question about Mondays

I'm surprised Bank Holidays remain on Mondays. Fridays would be much better. Hardly anyone does as much on a Friday afternoon as on a Monday morning as it is, indeed many people deliberately take Friday off to "get away for the Bank Holiday weekend". If Friday WAS the Bank Holiday, I wonder how many would similarly take the Monday off out of their own time. Or would Thursday become the new Friday?

[Guy Profumo]

A question about Mondays

Evariste Euler Gauss wrote: In response to Guy's original question, not especially, but then I've experienced very few Mondays that were as dire and irritating as the Boomtown Rats single on the topic.

Not as dire as the event it referenced though.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

A question about Mondays

Bloody hell, never knew that. Awful (though surpassed in awfulness by umpteen similar events in the US since of course).

So basically I've just been Alan Partridge saying "You wake up in the morning, you've got to read all the Sunday papers, the kids are running round, you've got to mow the lawn, wash the car.."