A friend on Facebook wished everyone in the Financial Services industry, a very merry Financial Christmas and Happy New Financial Year. To be fair, the entire of the Financial Services industry in this respect, piggy backs off of the Accounting industry, which in turn is dictated to by the Australian Taxation Office. Taxation, which is derived from the Latin 'taxo' which means 'I pay", is ultimately the reason why money exists at all; so of course the people in charge of issuing money are the arbiters of how and when people should pay it back.
As an accountant and also as a football fan and a cricket fan, practically everything important as far as I am concerned, occurs when the year contains a slash. Football begins in August and ends in May. Cricket begins in September and ends in March. The year begins on July 1st and ends on June 30th. So the fact that there should be Accounting Christmas on June 25th, where Accounting Saint Nick comes down the chimney and takes a stocktake all of your presents before sending you an invoice ('taxo' is 'I pay') is delicious to me.
The wider implications for this up and down the calendar are immense. Having the Accounting year six months out of synch does mean that Accounting Easter is probably that one day in September that we want to remember. Armistice Day is likely Accounting ANZAC Day but where the calendar went wrong. Accounting Valentine's Day would be on August 14th; which seems way to cold to be useful. Pro Tip: If you do happen to love an accountant, do not buy them roses or chocolates, send them a visit from one the three wise men of Johnny Walker, Jack Daniel or James Beam.
It is already a reasonably well known fact among people who want to burn stupid amounts of money on holes in the water, and fast cars that they never ever drive fast, that Horse New Year is the 1st of August. 1st of August is the official day when all horses in Australia have their birthday and it is crucial when it comes to grading horses in age races.
This does also mean that Horse Christmas must therefore the 25th of July. I have no idea what Horse Christmas entails but I am sure that when those horses which had escaped from the Royal Horse Guards went running through central London, they must have though that all their Christmases, New Years' and Birthdays all came at once.
There is a legend that April Fools' Day also supposedly comes from a tale that the calendar changed and that people who still celebrated New Years' Day on April 1st were very silly indeed. The problem with this is that New Years' Day in England actually used to be the 25th of March and after the 11 days were added to the calendar in the 1750s, the year had long since changed but the date for taxation assessment had not; which is why the United Kingdom tax year runs from 6th April to 5th April.
This got me thinking. Owing to the fact that the seasons actually lag behind the four cardinal points of the year of the solstices and the equinoxes, it means that the coldest day of the year in Australia, generally happens to fall on August 25th for most states and territories. You know what this means? Goth Christmas!
Goth is not emo. Goth is not metal. Goth is not punk. Goth is an entire aesthetic all to itself. The wearing of black, especially big black coats and big black boots, lends itself nicely to the fact that Goths are the best equipped to deal with winter. 25th of August as the coldest day of the year, is likely the last day when Goths are truly happy. For immediately around the corner is which 1st of September; which is not only the first official day of Spring but as our calendars are now time shifted, it is not also Goth New Year.
The cold hard truth is that as the year is cyclical, it matters not an iota when New Years' Day is. I am consistently disappointed by New Years' Day and think that the best New Years' Days that I have ever had, have involved playing Risk, Chess, 500, Catan, or some other board game. This kind of shenaniganry also helps to explain why Arabic New Year, Jewish New Year, Chinese New Year, Ethiopian New Year, et cetera et cetera et cetera, are all different, and why the Catholic Church decided to make just about every single day of the year a Saint's Day for some far flung minor celebrity who performed some sub-par miracle. I did a miracle by turning a working computer into a not working computer by pouring Mountain Dew all over it; and now I am Saint Bork of West Banana. Happy New Year.
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