Legal Research

Blue Bollocks

By scott

“Experts say Monday, January 19, 2009, will go down as the most depressing day in history.” reads the headline.

Now I had gotten up this morning feeling not too bad. I’d watched on the news about Obama’s latest party bash, and how everyone is looking forward to him becoming President of the US tomorrow; I’d checked to find that the DLR seemed to be running ok; and I had some podcasts downloaded onto the iPhone to listen to on the way back and from work. All was well with the world. And then …

I saw this headline, and it all changed. It is a good job we don’t have windows you can open in our building or I’d have had to fight my way past people to throw myself out of the nearest window. I even contemplated visiting someone else’s building that does have windows to give it a go. However, instead I choose to go outside in Canary Wharf, and licked my middle finger and held it up in the air; and I think I can say with all certainty that it is 7.6 on the Scott Vine finger depression scale [FDS] ?

Yes, I know, 7.6. You must remember what it was like when it was that 6.9 day back in October 2008? I know there are people still trying to recover from that one. Back then we didn’t even know which celebs where going into the Big Brother House - that’s how traumatic it was.

No wait, what’s that you say? Blue Monday sounds bollocks? [Don’t let any New Order fans here you say that] Hmm, you may have a point. Maybe we should look at who these ‘experts’ are: take a bow, Psychologist Dr Cliff Arnall, who devised a mathematical formula (though one that is not as good as my FDS one) that pinpoints today as Blue Monday. He says there are six depressive factors - winter weather, Christmas credit card bills, abandoned New Year’s resolutions, job security fears, mounting debt and the house price collapse.

Now, Dr Arnall is so clever that he realised that these factors will not have occurred to you yesterday - it was a Sunday after all: day of rest and all that. He also realised that by tomorrow you’ll be feeling just that little bit better about all this stuff, after having time to rationalise today. I am not worthy Dr Arnall. [ On a side note, could you let me know where you sign up to get gigs like this, as I feel that my FDS? could have many uses]

Still, I’m sure the supporters of Everton football club (who play in Blue) will be hoping that it is indeed a ‘Blue’ monday when they play city rivals Liverpool this evening. maybe Dr Arnall is just a ‘Toffee’.

Full post as published by Information Overload on January 19, 2009 (boomark / email).