Good Friday

Standardisation, harmonisation, globalisation.

I find it sad that local holidays are less and less reliably a common, shared day off. International trading, the power of the big financial centres, and company mergers seem inevitably to require that we live our lives in lockstep nationally and globally as far as possible.

Presbyterian Scotland used to observe today rather than Easter Monday as a public holiday, but in 1996 Scottish banks harmonised their holidays with those in England and Wales. Now it seems to be mainly schools and local authorities who take the day.

There must be an awful lot of families and City council staff living down this way if this morning's empty path is anything to go by.

Extra - the fish on display at Something Fishy on Broughton St were not looking happy.