Why I so hate the month of March

IF the month of March was to have a baptism ceremony for the modern age, it should be renamed “Bastard”.

It’s a month so tediously long, it stretches time itself.

Where are we today – the day your Midweek Sport first hits your newsagent?

We’re at Wednesday, March 10 – the 10th! – and, be honest, it already feels like your last payday was a month ago. The good news? Well, there isn’t any. Literally none. Just another three ENTIRE weeks until the last day of the month, which for most of us heralds our bank accounts looking ravishing in black instead of drowning in red for a day or two.

Why do they do this to us? Really?

Nasty

Why have a teeny tiny month like February, with its blissfully compact 28 days making your meagre monies seem to stretch further, only to then follow it up with the utter wanker that is 31-day March?

The Romans – who we’re expected to thank, on our knees, for our current useless calendar – reckoned the Ides of March made for a decent deadline date for debts to be settled.

It’s all got something or other to do with the moon cycle and how they worked things out back then.

But it also has nasty connotations that have carried on from way back when to today.

March’s Ides traditionally the 15th – something to do with the moon again – but it was also the chosen date for the assassination of a certain Julius Caesar in 44BC.

He got stabbed 23 times (more than the number of days left in this bastard month of March) by fellow senators after seemingly upsetting one too many political applecarts.

And Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs has carried on with the same idea, as – like always – the new financial year weirdly starts on April 1.

You can hear them rubbing their clammy hands on the lap of their cheap shiny suits already, can’t you?

Deaf ears activated. Hearts hardened. Pencils deftly sharpened. And ominous brown envelopes at the ready.

Even the bloody star signs for March are rubbish. It’s mainly Pisces for the first two-thirds – meaning you’re a fish out of water.

Or then it moves into Aries, sign of the ram – which, let’s face it, is a bit like calling someone a shit-smeared sheep while sniggering behind the back of your hand.

So, March, then. A month to celebrate the beginning of the end of the Roman Empire.

A month when you are seemingly endlessly skint, stink of fish, and at risk of getting bummed by an eager shepherd.

And a month when the taxman gears up for another twelve months of legally persecuting people while they still wait for what feels like an eon to get paid again.

Roll on April. At least the pubs will be open.

Oh, hang on… that’s May, isn’t it?