By Julia Moore

Research shows that March - any March - is rammed to the gunwals with ‘special’ days. There are the serious, awareness-raising days ( International Womens Day, Self-Harming Day), and the downright wacky. The eye-catcher this year is ‘Pi’ Day - maths, pi, not pastry pie. It has heightened significance in March 2015 - as the first 10-digit string, is, of course, the current status of pi: 3.14/15 9:26:53. For some, this event may be be (yet another) ‘end of the world’ day. If so, fortunate are we that this edition of TRW is released unto the world on 1st of the month.

If you do not recognize the 24-hour clock system, your ‘will-it, won’t it’ moment has two opportunities. Imagine the anticipation at breakfast on that day - a good time to attempt a perfect boiled egg. If you still exist in a terrestrial sense at 9.27 (or 9:26:54) to be precise, you can enjoy your egg to celebrate. If, however, it has all gone ‘Blaise Pascal’ (look it up) the egg no longer matters. You can then either over-worry or arrange a huge party for the pm version of 9.26,etc,,,etc,,,. If, however, down here in on Planet Earth, the 24-clock system stymies your ‘event’ moment, as 21:26:54 will arrive, with no significance unless you are a top-tiny triangle-shaped woman with fearsome hips.

Depending on your perspective, ‘special days’ have educational value, historical interest and, of course, commercial product placing. In a conspiratorial world, florists are secretly master-minding the event-calendar, digging up (probably fabricating) weird and wonderful facts in an attempt to attach a flower to something. The Earthy-significance here is that many ‘days’ have some link to the changing of seasons and some form of religious /custom observance.

The odd-ball celebratory days of course, are much more enjoyable. They require no obligatory observance, express imagination, madness and the quirky side of life. Apparently, National Pig Day (1st) is wildly celebrated in Midwest US and the Ides of March (15th) is important to anyone with aspirations to run an Empire. Saving a Spider day (14th) could be interesting if on same day as Arachnophobia Awareness Day - the 2 groups could meet and cancel each other out ? World Consumer Rights (14th) Day must be pure misery for big stores, as local consumer cells collude to return all their unwanted underwear in concert (unworn xmas gifts, obviously).

Tree-planting and celebrations of the French language seem to prevail throughout the month, (Mesdames, commes arbres voulez-vous?) but the outright favourites have to be: International Happiness Day (20th) and World Poetry Day (21st), so with huge apologies to all poets, everywhere:

My smile is but a transient act
My teeth are wild and yellow
My willow tree is full of crows
Boy, do those cats bellow.

Yet smile I do and smile I try
On this, and every day
I smile at strangers, children, rats and dogs
Whilst passing on my way

For some, the smile it is returned
For others it passes over
No need to feel a smile is spurrned
A smile it is a roamer.

So smile away and smile some more
Madness it may well be
But smile today and ever more
Joy-making is such glee.

(Please be advised that World Penguin Day is marked on 25th April. This is not to be confused with International Penguin Awareness Day, 20th January.)