A few days leave from work made it a long weekend which was a brilliant idea given that we Victorians get an extra day off next weekend: the Queen's Birthday holiday.

Surely many of you know that it is not the Queen's actual birthday; she turned 81 back in April, bless her cotton socks, etc. Apparently her birthday is celebrated publicly in June because the weather is better in England in June than in April and is that not utter genius.

I hereby wish to celebrate my birthday both in September, which is the actual anniversary, and let's say the second weekend of February, just for kicks. The weather will be better, to borrow Liz's excuse. A day off for everybody: Harpo's Birthday Holiday.

And while we're at it, let's move Christmas Day to late April in order to liven up the start of the footy season and get the religious festivals over together. We could move Cup Day to the Wednesday just so we don't have to spend our day off bothering with that horse race they have. And, dammit, the Dawn Service on ANZAC Day is just too early. Let's make it Comfy Brunch Service.

It turns out that they don't have the Queen's Birthday holiday in Perth — they had a Federation Day off yesterday, celebrating the birth of Western Australia — which is a surprisingly republican move for a state that voted 59% no in the referendum.

How the rest of Perth celebrates Federation Day I can't say: I didn't see a great deal of enthusiasm for the concept. But in my brother's family it apparently involves bribing small children with icecream and reading about Gruffaloes — and perhaps some of the “jumping game” you see us playing here.

Can there be any better way of celebrating?

¶ 2:10 pm