LAST week I took a holiday. Well, sort of. I spent 30 hours in the air, the same amount sleeping off the jetlag and one day of it working, but a holiday it was nonetheless, in the sense that I got out of the office for a week and briefly wore a pair of flip-flops.
Now that I'm back though, I realise that, far from making me feel relaxed and refreshed, this holiday has done nothing but make me cranky. Somewhere along the way I picked up a cold which I have yet to shake off, I am still jetlagged and spending mos
t of my days yawning for Scotland, while the actual holiday bit of the trip passed by so quickly I'm not even sure if it actually happened now, or if I merely dreamed it during one of those epic sleeps.
What I should have done of course, was go on holiday for a fortnight. Had I done so, however, I suspect I would have had a hard time persuading anyone to join me. According to a survey, the traditional two-week holiday is dying out. More than half of British families have said they won't go on a two-week summer holiday this year, and instead will be taking four short breaks spread out over the year.
When I was younger everyone went on a two-week summer holiday. The first week back at school after the summer was inevitably taken up with interminable recitations of "what I did on my summer holidays", as children recounted in breathless detail the quality of the toilet facilities at French camping grounds or the colour of the air sickness bags on Monarch flights to Majorca. Two-week holidays were the norm. They were expected. They were part of the natural order of things.
Not any more. A lack of cash, the difficulty in taking enough time off and partners being unable to co-ordinate their holiday time means the two-week holiday may soon be a thing of a past. If you ask me, this is a mistake. We now work the longest hours in Europe, and many of us struggle to maintain any sort of work/life balance whatsoever. Holidays are a chance to regain some of those lost hours, spend a little more time with those you love most and recharge the batteries.
The problem with a few days here and there, or perhaps even a week at a time, is that you don't get enough time to do that. By the time you've packed yourself, the house and the car up, driven to your destination or got on a plane, checked into your accommodation and tested out the quality of the local drinking water, you're so stressed and exhausted you need another holiday just to recover. If you're only away for three or four days at a time you don't get a chance to do that. Before you know it you're packing up again and heading back home, only to find yourself with a pile of washing the size of Mount Etna.
In today's hectic lifestyles two-week holidays are, perhaps, the only chance we have now to truly relax.
It might be stressful to organise in the first place, but the rewards are still worth it. After all, when else are you going to wear in those new flip-flops?
US politics can be a dangerous gameI'M ALL for those who believe in a cause, but 28-year-old Jose Antonio Ortiz took things a bit too far last weekend when he stabbed his brother-in-law in the stomach in an argument over the two Democratic presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
Sean Shureld, an Obama supporter who is now recovering in hospital, had apparently told Ortiz that Obama was "trashing Clinton", while Ortiz, a fan of Clinton, maintained that Obama was "not a realist". And people say the younger generation don't get enthused by politics anymore.
Becks will have to be on the ball• WHAT on earth will David and Victoria Beckham find to chat about with Gordon and Sarah Brown when they go to stay at Chequers with them?
Raith Rovers' recent drubbing by Alloa Athletic? The amount of tax payable on a pair of Manolo Blahniks?
Or perhaps David will give Gordon some advice about what to do when you're roundly rejected by England.
A little something to chew onTHE ADVERTISING Standards Authority has slapped the wrists of Ferrero UK, the makers of Nutella, for producing an advert that suggested that far from being a high-fat, high-sugar spread, it was a healthy breakfast option for children. Turns out (drum roll, please), it's not. Amazing. What alerted them first, do you think? The sugary, chocolate-like consistency? The calorific content? Or the fact that no other breakfast food on the planet tastes like a melted Ferrero Rocher?
The full article contains 829 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
