Bad weather, debt, seasonal blues and failed resolutions mean today is miserable Monday, says one scientist.
Cardiff University tutor Cliff Arnalls says his formula proves 24 January is the grimmest day of the year.
The formula for the day of misery reads 1/8W+(D-d) 3/8xTQ MxNA.
Where W is weather, D is debt – minus the money (d) due on January’s pay day – and T is the time since Christmas.
Q is the period since the failure to quit a bad habit, M stands for general motivational levels and NA is the need to take action and do something about it.
(from BBC News)
I think the science is pretty dodgy, but here in Durham I can’t argue that the atmosphere is generally pretty depressing. I was going to take a photo to demonstrate what I meant, but from Mary’s, where I was standing (there’s another story there – get to that in a bit) you actually couldn’t see the Cathedral – the sleet was that bad. It was, to say the least, fairly ucky.
There’s a general feeling of Januaryness (I’m not the first person to use that word – look at Google) around at the moment.
But enough of that. Let’s get over the depressing stuff and look at the positive side of life: today is National Pie Day. Oh bummer, no it’s not. That was yesterday. Drat. Back to the depressing stuff, then. Check out this extremely clever but frankly depressing series of animations by Monkeyhub portryaing “one man’s struggle to cope with the soul-sapping, will-to-live draining, life-force mugging, moral-crushing experiences of work” – I’m number 9… Make sure you don’t miss their version of Radiohead’s Creep. Classic.
9 o’clock lecture tomorrow morning. It’s trying to snow at the moment, but the rain seems to be winning. And the pipes keep making funny noises.
That’s all for now. Check back tomorrow for the very exciting news of my own personal roller coaster / elevator.
Oh, and the title of this post? Tis from a Tori Amos song, cunningly titled “I Don’t Like Mondays“. (Apparently it was originally by the Boomtown Rats, but I don’t know who they are…)