When Van Morrison once sang that there'd be days like this he probably didn't mean there'd actually be days like this, days like cucumber day.
But it’s a thing now and World Cucumber Day is upon us – at least in this part of the world – America “celebrated” its own Cucumber Day earlier this month.
Yes it IS confusing.
In having a day to call its own, the cucumber joins doughnuts, tapas, flip flops, baths, axe throwing, VCRs (seriously), goats cheese (yuk), chocolate éclairs, chocolate macaroons, sewing machines and the Magna Carta in having a day all to itself. And that just covers half of June.
And next month you can look forward to Take Your Plant For A Walk Day, cousins day, father-in-law day and compliment your mirror day to pick four entirely at random.
It appears there is a day for virtually everything now – apart, perhaps, from Chlamydia although Sweden did try and get one going back in 2010 but it didn't quite take the world by storm, like, say, Ikea or Abba did.
But have you ever wondered how a thing gets to be a day? And could we just announce that tomorrow is World Irish Times Journalist Day?
The short answer is yes, we could just announce tomorrow as the day to honour ourselves alone and start banging on about it in the paper and online and on social media and hope it takes off around the world.
Truth be told, we won't be doing that because of concerns such a day might be as popular as World Chlamydia Day was back in its – very short-lived – day.
But the point is that anyone, anywhere can make up a day and sometimes it takes off and sometimes it doesn’t.
There is a US-based gatekeeper – nationaldaycalendar.com – which (loosely) polices America’s national days, many of which are exported all over the world.
It lists hundreds of celebration days but who decides what days appear and why? There's a couple ways it can happen," the site's co-founder, Marlo Anderson told the US news website MarketWatch in 2015. "Of course, a company or an individual can just declare it, and a lot of people do. In the last year we've received over 10,000 requests for national days," he said.
The site has a surprisingly high rejection rate and they might only accept 25 days each year and will turn its nose up at days which honour brands (there goes World Irish Times Journalists Day) in favour of things, such as World Newspaper Day (which, weirdly doesn't actually exist although World Press Freedom Day does take place in early May each year).
According to Anderson, the most common requests that gets rejected are those from smitten people in the throes of new romance who want to honour their partner with a day of their own.
But would it be Cucumber Day in the centre of the forest if no one was around? Of course it wouldn't. Big Days can't operate in a vacuum and the driving force behind virtually all the days now is social media and the only reason any such days get any traction is because people talk about them on Twitter of Facebook.
And if you’re wondering if social media has a day to call its own then wonder no more. Of course it has. Something so self-obsessed would hardly be found wanting when it came to honouring itself now would it?
And when it the big day? June 30th. Get the bunting ready.
For the day that’s in it... amazing facts about cucumbers
The phrase “cool as a cucumber” does not come from the fact that cucumbers are typically stored in our fridges but because they cool the blood’s temperature – which is why cucumber slices ease swelling and puffiness when applied to the eyes and face. Or maybe it is because there can be a temperature difference of as much as 7 degrees between the inside of a cucumber and the actual temperature. The internet is conflicted on the topic.
If you want your breath to smell fresh and can’t get your hands on a toothbrush and some toothpaste, a slice of cucumber might be your only man. If you hold a slice to the roof of your mouth with your tongue for 30 seconds, phytochemicals contained within the cucumber should kill all the bad breath-causing bacteria.
They might seem like overly dressed sticks of water but cucumbers contain Vitamin B1, Vitamin B2, Vitamin B3, Vitamin B5, Vitamin B6, Folic Acid, Vitamin C, Calcium, Iron, Magnesium, Phosphorus, Potassium and Zinc.
Cucumbers are made up of 95 per cent water and they are pretty low in calories making them ideal for hydration and appetite control. And if you have been out on the lash and a worried about a hangover, a couple of slices of cucumber before you crash out and then a couple more when you wake up might be better than Solpadeine.
If your bathroom mirror fogs up after your morning shower give it a wipe with a cucumber slice and it will clear it right up. And if you are slightly bonkers you can also use cucumbers to clean your bathroom fittings.
The world's heaviest cucumber was grown by a David Thomas in September 2015 for the Malvern Autumn Show in Worcestershire. It weighed 12.9 kg.
Most of the world’s cucumbers come from Chi.... .Oh, that HAS to be enough about bloody cucumbers, surely???
