It’d be the step-mother of all understatements to say that the banks have taken a bit of bashing recently. They’ve been smeared with many things, most notably nearly sending our little island nation back into the dark ages – a time when civil liberties were a mere abstract construct; when we were all subjects of a blue-blooded, crown-wearing land baron; and when we were in the midst of a war with those rather barbarian Scots.  Sound familiar? Only difference now being that said Scots are no longer dress-wearing, faced-painted brutes running riot over the highlands, but instead can be found occupying the offices of Whitehall, fighting a bureaucratic war against right-minded England. Interestingly sources close to the ‘Caledonian Massive’ say that they are quietly confident of defeating the masses of passive classes.

Anyway, what weekends such as the one just passed are here for is to remind us that were it not for the banks, and the City of London, our plethora of annual holidays would be cut down to just a measly one-and-a-half days – equivalent to what our American cousins currently enjoy.

Thanks to the bankers combining with the ‘leader amongst equals’, Jesus Christ, to create the biological-mother of all WCW tag-teams, we’ve been blessed with weekends that last as long as your average internet start-up blogging website – 4 days. Do the math; that adds up to two whole days off of work, nestled cutely either side of Christ’s rather-far-fetched resurrection from the dead.

Come rain or shine, parks, pub gardens and even patches of grass by the side of the road were guaranteed to be occupied by revellers basking in their extra days of freedom from the shackles of employment . The Gregorian calender wisely informs us that summer is now officially here; and with it a harem of white-collared tramps supping upon bespoke, organic, alcoholic apple juice, predictably come out of the woodwork.  No doubt nasty little cricket sets and plastic Woolworths Pound Land picnic baskets will have sold out across the land. Bank holidays appear to bring out the amateur sportsman/sportswoman/sportschild in all of us – be they inebriated or not.

A bank holiday may mean a day off of work for y’all, but not for Cultsha. We spent our time roaming the parks of the capital to asses the common consensus on this most awesome of weekends, and what it represents.

“I’ll be the first one to thank the banks. Not only have I had a few days off of work, but they’re really doing a wonderful job with my ISA, and their Tier-1 Capital ratio; well let me tell you about that….. ” commented a familiar looking chap sporting beige chinos, immaculate deck shoes, and carrying the demeanour of Patrick Bateman, of American Psycho fame.

So to not be accused of interviewing an uneven spread of the populous we asked a rather intoxicated fellow lying in a pool of his own vomit whether he kept the weekend a family, home-time affair. His response was a little slurred: “Yoouu’re having a fucking laugh if yoouuuu think I even thought about washing the car; the dog, the dog yeah, it had to walk iiiittttself; and I seeennnt the wife and kids on a picnic on their oowwwn.”

“So what if the banks are shut, the hospitals understaffed, and our children learning a little less; I for one needed a bloody long weekend – us Brits work harder than any other peoples in Europe,” piped a rather ill-educated other (A recent study actually disproved this widely believed fact. It was disproved after a man with all his chromosomes intact pointed out that just because it got dark before most of us left work for 9 months of the year it doesn’t actually mean that we work longer hours.)

So what’s the collateral of all this organised-fun? Well, offices across the nation are bracing themselves for a large number of absentees on Tuesday. Trade unions estimate the cost of the ‘post-Easter sickie’ to be a £146 million strain on the economy. Let’s hope we surpassed that figure this year.