Is it just me, or do these international days seem to crop up every few days now?
Apparently I’m right. The United Nations has around 230 official International Days, which works out at four or five every week. Then there are the unofficial ones, which run into the thousands and cover almost anything you can think of.
There is World Toilet Day in November and International Day of the Potato in May.
The potato one caught my attention.
Ireland gained independence over a hundred years ago, but somehow it took until 2020 for somebody to decide that the potato deserved its own international day.
Surely we should have been leading the campaign.
In Ireland, International Day of the Potato ought to be treated like St Patrick’s Day. Schools closed, banks closed, parades through every town and a ceremonial bag of spuds carried up O’Connell Street.
I can already see the television coverage.
The Taoiseach standing outside Government Buildings holding a large Rooster while explaining how important the potato is to our national identity.
Apparently these official days are created through the United Nations. Member countries make suggestions and a committee decides whether they are worthy.
You knew there would be a committee.
Nothing of international importance can happen without several people sitting around a table with folders in front of them.
I imagine somebody has to formally propose International Day of the Potato, another person seconds it, and then various countries have their say.
Ireland supports it.
Belgium wants chips included.
France insists on gratin.
Britain claims the baked potato.
Eventually everyone agrees and another International Day is born.
The idea behind all of this is to raise global awareness.
Unfortunately, there are now so many things I am supposed to be globally aware of that my awareness system is beginning to fail.
It is a bit like an old computer running Windows XP.
You click on something, nothing happens, and eventually the whole thing freezes.
One day I am supposed to be thinking about wetlands, the next about bees, then potatoes, toilets and possibly pulses.
There is only so much awareness available.
I have no idea who in the Irish Government is responsible for submitting suggestions to the UN International Day people, but when I find out I intend to contact them.
Ireland has clearly been missing opportunities.
Top of my list would be International Rhubarb Crumble Day.
This would be a proper event.
Every café and restaurant in Ireland would be required to serve rhubarb crumble for the day, preferably with large quantities of cream.
Proper cream.
Not that squirty stuff from a can that looks impressive for about fifteen seconds before collapsing into a puddle.
And none of this modern restaurant nonsense where you get a tiny spoonful of cream carefully placed beside the crumble.
You need a jug.
A decent jug.
The sort where nobody watches how much you pour.
I would also suggest International Immersion Day, when we remember all those Irish parents who spent years shouting up the stairs:
“Who left the immersion on?”
Then there could be Grand Stretch in the Evening Day, probably sometime in March, when everyone in Ireland is legally required to look out the window at half past six and say:
“There’s a great stretch in it now.”
But Rhubarb Crumble Day would be my priority.
It has everything.
Irish produce, local cafés, dairy farming and general happiness.
And after a large bowl of rhubarb crumble and cream, most people are in no mood to cause international trouble.
Surely that is exactly the sort of thing the United Nations is looking for.
