h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

We've three short weeks coming up here in Ireland. Next week, Thursday is St Patrick's Day. The following week, Friday is Good Friday. The week after that, Monday is Easter Monday. The first and third of these are Public Holidays, while the second is a day off for many people although not everybody.

So most people have three 4-day weeks. Of course because I don't work on Wednesdays, I have three 3-days weeks coming up.

I'll be singing a concert this weekend and next weekend, and I hope to go down to Wexford and open up our mobile home after the winter at the long 4-day Easter weekend.

I hope you're having some spring weather to go with it.

We've been practicing Easter choir music, too, and we're having a demonstration Seder tomorrow night.

But of course, we don't get St Pat's Day off - probably just as well, as it might lead to even more embarrassing behaviour, such as dyeing rivers, beer, and hair...

Americans like to dye things,don't they?

Yep.

http://svcdn.simpleviewinc.com/v3/cache/chicago/7BFFC4135C157171615AA28A1E3573A2.jpg

Chicago river dyed green

I thought the green beer was mad until, I think it was Psychocandy, told me about the dying of the rivers!

I have a three-day week next week, and a three-day-week the next, but I'm debating taking all of Easter week off.

KB, knowing you, taking Easter Week off is merely evidence of your extreme piety...

Exactly! Having to go to work really interferes with getting up to pray Matins at 3am!

And I've worked out that if I try really hard, I could complete the spiritual exercises of Ignatius Loyola in one week instead of the recommended month!

Leading to instant sainthood...

Or instant madness. I'm not convinced that Loyola was sane.

Loyola was extraordinarily brilliant. Kind of a Matrix Master.

We have two short weeks coming up - Good Friday is an all-hatches-battened-down holiday here. And non-existent weekends with all the singing going on.

One choir I am in is putting on St Mark's Passion by Reinhard Keiser over the weekend of Palm Sunday. Am off to a rehearsal in an hour. It's a real tongue-twister, especially in German.

Oh dear - I meant that the weekends exist, but they are filled with choir rehearsals and church services and stuff.

"Loyola was extraordinarily brilliant." [Recumbentman]

Genius and insanity are said to be separated by a very thin line....

People say that to me. A lot. I don't know why...

I'm pretty sure that you aren't insane, so I don't want to hurt your feelings by extending the analogy.

Aha. You don't know me that well, Paul. 'A half bubble off plumb' was the assessment of a Texas journalist...

...that's the spirit!

...level...

Perhaps being a tad out of sync with Texan norms and mores isn't entirely a bad thing, Dmitri!

Hoss Cartwright from the "Bonanza" tv series had z theory about Texans, that it had to do with locoweed getting into cattle feed and Texans eating the cattle.

Myself, I think its the same as with California, too much sun inducing mania, a dynamic opposite for seasonal affective depression.

I like that. It might explain Molly Ivins and Kinky Friedman.