More date rape we didn't want

Over the years the Western calendar has been raped by the public relations industry. Where we used to have Quarter Days, Lady Days, Christmas Week and Lent we are now forced to confront National Insect Week, National Potato Day, Compost Awareness Week, National Moth Night and Be Nice to Nettles Week.

Fortunately we have several months to prepare for this year's World Car Free Day. We know that our leaders have sat around their conference tables and considered their record on transport:

• Right, how's our strategy going? (What strategy?)
• How much have we invested in infrastructure (Small change)
• What happened to the buses and railways? (Sold them off)
• Where is everybody? (At the out-of-town shopping mall)
• What was that crunching noise under the front wheels? (A cyclist)
• What's the next obvious step? (Resort to vaudeville).

So, they've bought the PR presentation, imagining great photo opportunities featuring businesspeople striding happily to work, traffic wardens asleep in empty parking bays, folk-dancing at deserted crossroads, and so on.

They've picked a day at random and will spend our money telling us what fun it will be to leave at home the only viable means we have have of getting around our desolate social landscape. For sheer bloody cheek this takes a lot of beating, and on the day in question, without thinking about it, the nation has in the past responded as one, with heavier than normal traffic reported by motoring organisations throughout the land.

Like spurious surveys, awareness days are part of the stock in trade of the PR industry, and are normally ignored as a matter of principle. However, they can have their uses if you are the quick-witted sort, since they give you a set of incontrovertible excuses for your erratic and provocative behaviour. When caught in the act you only need to say "I do apologise, I thought it was Taunt a Tourist Day".

This doesn't work for foreigners though. As customs officials prise you out from under a Channel Tunnel train at Waterloo Station it's pointless saying "I'm sorry, I could have sworn it was Illegal Immigration Week."

Have a nice Day.