How to have a traditional Recovery Monday

DID you hit the pub hard last night, safe in the knowledge you have today off? Do Recovery Monday in traditional style:

Rise late

Ideally after midday. This isn’t Christmas, there’s no reward for waking up early. The only thing waiting for you is a cold half-eaten pizza on the kitchen table and a toilet full of vomit you don’t remember producing. And the telly’s on, and the front door’s half-open.

Decorate your home

Transform your flat with Recovery Monday decorations: sprinkle the contents of your ashtray and stash box across the sofa, place two slices of cold, burnt toast in the toaster, and erect a towering pile of washing-up in the kitchen sink. The true celebrant will have already done it last night.

Remember times past

At New Year, we join hands and think of auld acquaintance. On birthdays, we gather those close to us to recall the happy times of the past. On this holiday, we go through our phones, searching text records, social media accounts and Amazon purchases to try to remember what the f**king hell we did last night.

Prepare a festive meal

Easter has eggs, Halloween has Haribo, and Recovery Monday also has a ritual feast. Beginning with paracetamol, Lucozade and a bag of onion rings from the nearest corner shop, by mid-afternoon it’s time to whip up a feast big enough for a whole family, courtesy of Deliveroo and your local takeaway, then to eat it alone in front of Spartacus on ITV4.

Do f**k all

Lying on the sofa mindlessly scrolling on your phone while half-watching telly is a sacred recovery Monday activity. Doing productive stuff like filing your tax return or going for a run is heresy and is punishable by disapproval from your friends. Three-hour trips to the bathroom are allowed and in most cases unavoidable.

Succumb to dread

As your hangover recedes your guilt will rise. You’ve wasted this precious day off. You could have read a book, started learning an instrument or applied for a better job. Too late now. Lie back and let the crushing futility of life wash over you. Everything will return to awful normality by tomorrow.

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World War Two and five other historical crises that could have been solved by cutting taxes, by Liz Truss

FROM Atlantis sinking to 9/11, I’ve yet to see any crisis faced that couldn’t be beaten by the cutting of taxes. I’ll talk you through a few:

The fall of Rome

Invaded by Goths, sacked by barbarians, the rise of Christianity and the decadence of its people: all mere irritants compared to the savage taxing of agriculture. Nobody grew food because it didn’t make economic sense to do so so millions starved. We could all be speaking Latin today if they’d announced a tax holiday.

The Black Death

The most fatal pandemic in recorded history killed 200 million. It was blamed on the conjunction of planets and a punishment from God instead of recognising the truth: it was caused by big government stifling wealth creators with regressive taxation. Cut those and bubonic plague couldn’t have got a foothold.

The English Civil War

Despite everything English being great and good at all times, because I won’t have people doing this country down, at one time there were competing visions of greatness. Like now, except Rishi’s beaten. Anyway, I’m not 100 per cent what it was about because of my terrible Leeds education, but I do know that lowering taxes would have fixed it.

World War Two

Hitler? Only became chancellor because of high taxes, not because of rampant inflation and failing government services or anything. Europe? Weak because of high taxes, not because of out-of-touch governments ignoring worker demands or anything. World War Two? Entirely preventable by the introduction of freeports.

The loss of the British Empire

One of the greatest disasters in history, and all due to taxation. If we’d just announced a zero-tax regime the money would have come flooding in – left-wing economists don’t understand this, but that’s how it works – and we’d be rightly ruling the US and China by now. We must get it back. We owe it to the Queen.

The resignation of Margaret Thatcher

A hammer-blow from which this nation has never recovered. And so unnecessary because all she needed do was abolish the poll tax, income tax, VAT, capital gains tax, the NHS and all public services. She would still be ruling us today. And in a very important sense soon will be.

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