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This bank holiday the worst one, Britain agrees

THE August bank holiday is easily the worst of all the year’s bank holidays, the UK has decided. 

While grudgingly accepting that it is at least a day off, Britons believe that any honest comparison between the August bank holiday and its rivals will conclude that it comes at the very bottom of the list.

Nathan Muir of Hitchin said: “Oh, we’ll take it. But nobody really enjoys it.

“Going through chronologically, the two days at Christmas are mint and New Year’s Day is entirely necessary. Nobody would change those.

“Easter’s weird because it moves around but you get two at once which is always awesome, and there’s a bracing novelty to having a Friday off.

“The first May one’s good because it signals spring’s properly getting warm, and the second one’s even better because it’s the start of summer. They’re a perfect pair.

“But August? Means it’s the end of summer, back to school, the darkness is closing in, all the good times are over and the next four months are just bleak, painful reality as the year’s promise slips away. It’s a bummer of a bank holiday and an intimation of death.

“No wonder they put Reading and Leeds on this weekend, like a black mass for our hearts.”

Five obviously terrible behaviours to avoid if you want to be a presenter: A BBC guide

BIZARRELY, BBC presenters are required to observe certain ‘normal’ standards of behaviour these days. Avoid the following if you wish to remain on the payroll.

Sending inappropriate messages

Sending messages to female colleagues that, for legal reasons, have to be cryptically described as ‘inappropriate’ is obviously wrong wherever you work. It’s especially terrible when you do it as a BBC employee though, because we’re already haemorrhaging public trust and people who hate the licence fee will use it to further stick the knife in. At least wait until you go over to ITV in a disastrous career move if you absolutely have to do it.

Getting your knob out

Yes, even if you are a charismatic gay man larking around on the set of Doctor Who 15-odd years ago and nobody at the time seemed to mind. It might have seemed like fun and games in the moment, but all it takes is for sensibilities to change and suddenly whipping your tackle out retroactively makes you look like a sex pest. Use this handy mnemonic: ‘If In Doubt, Don’t Get It Out.’

What Huw Edwards did

Everyone knows what our once-beloved news presenter did, so there’s no need to go into the depressing details. On an individual level it’s too grim to contemplate, but as a company it completely f**ks over our news archive from the last 20 years. We’re going to have to shitcan BBC Wales just to cover the cost of pixellating him out of footage of landmark events. 

Basically anything anyone did in the 70s

No need to examine individual cases on this one. We’d be here all day. Just play it safe and do the exact opposite of what you think a BBC presenter in the 70s would do. Avoid gaudy tracksuits, remember to say ‘women’ not ‘tarts’, don’t slap arses, and ideally go home to your stable, loving family without doing abhorrent crimes on an industrial scale. Sounds obvious but at this point it clearly needs to be explicitly stated.

Advertising a product on air

The most disgusting behaviour of all. Mentioning a specific product or brand name without quickly following up with a disclaimer that other products are available will prompt your mysterious disappearance in the middle of the night. When asked what happened to you, fellow BBC employees will feign ignorance and pretend they’ve never heard of you. This is your one and only warning.

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