Leap Year Party: keep it down...

When I came back to the hotel, dead tired after a day out in the field reporting, the front desk clerk handed me a telegram (remember those?). It said: “Today’s the day. STOP. What do you say? STOP. Love Marie.”

Bursting out laughing when I phoned her later that evening was apparently not the response she was looking for. She wasn’t kidding. And that slight – okay, major error – on my part was the beginning of the end of that romance (though it took another two years to finally go wheels-up).

I should have known from the date: 29 February. Leap year. The day which comes around once every four years. And, so I had been told by her (my red-haired Irish girlfriend), it is the one day when tradition can be turned upside down. Women are allowed to ask their men to marry them.

But – and this was an enormous but for a 22 year old like me – the second part of that belief was that, once you were asked, as a man, you were not allowed to refuse.

She never asked again. Funny that…

Leap year came around a while later – in an oblique way for me, because that’s the day my niece was born. On Thursday, she celebrated her “ninth” birthday. (Go on, work that out yourself…)

I’ve never been one for the silly superstitions around dates so, when Fridays fall on the 13th, I don’t crawl into bed and hope the falling asteroid doesn’t obliterate me.

A day is a day is a day as far as I’m concerned… although I suppose Cancerians are bloody-minded and I would say that, wouldn’t I?

But I was fascinated by a debate on the 29th which was around the idea: You worked today free.

The argument runs that, if you’re in full-time employment, your salary gets calculated on an annual basis of however many working days you are required to put in (less your annual leave and public holidays, of course).

But on the last day of February in a leap year, you still get your normal, 28-day-month salary for the month.

How fair is that? That extra day’s pay could make quite a difference to those families who are struggling.

At the same time, it is, effectively, an undeserved 0.27% boost in profit for the employer.

Well, what about this, then? Let’s form a Leap Year Party and contest the elections. Full pay for 29 February and political speeches can only be made on that day…

Who’s with me?