Seizing the Day: The Skinny’s Alternative Food & Drink Holidays

If there’s one thing we can’t handle, it’s forced jollity. Yes, we are great fun at parties, thanks very much. This St Patrick's Day, those who dare to brave the pubs of Edinburgh and Glasgow will encounter events and actions that bear the hallmarks of the terror that is ‘organised fun.’

There will be laughter, and actually-fairly-racist-when-you-think-about-it impressions and costumes, and lots of TASTY TASTY GUINNESS. So what to do? Play along? Stage a protest? Stay in the house on a Monday night? No chance.

After all, anyone can set up their own ‘INSERT ISSUE HERE Day,’ and we’ve found a few alternatives that we can hitch our food and drink wagon to. Or, in the words of Kool and the Gang, we’re going to celebrate and party with you, come on now.

Mardi Gras

An easy sell to start with. One of the more extreme blowouts on the global social calendar, it’s most commonly associated with the carnivals of Brazil and the debauched revelry of the southern states of the USA.

Luckily, Edinburgh and Glasgow have a surprisingly well-developed food infrastructure in terms of those areas, with the likes of barbecue joint Tropeiro, southern American eatery Squid and Whale and bar/restaurant Boteco do Brasil making the dream of a Scottish Mardi Gras totally achievable.

Two problems – Mardi Gras is in March this year, but it’s usually in February, which scuppers the calendar a little. The other issue is the dress code – you will have to provide your own crazy mask and costume. We'll call that one problem, and one craft assignment.

Pi(e) Day

It’s Pi Day, Pi Day; gotta get down on Pi Day. The discovery of everyone’s favourite mathematical constant is already marked by science types and numerologists each year on 14 March, or 3.14 if you prefer to read and write dates in some kind of strange and wrong way.

What we propose is making it more about the Pies than the Pi, and celebrating the contribution that suspicious meat encased in pastry has made to our society. Imagine the scenes – queues outside every bakery in the land, pilgrimages to Kilmarnock to have the best football stadium pie in the country, and gravy, gravy everywhere.

Admittedly, the idea needs a bit of work, but then we can’t imagine that April Fool’s took off straight away either. If we start by eating pies, and wing it from there, we should all be fine.

World Water Day

If you like your fun mid-season holidays to be a bit more pious and down-the-line, a food takeover of World Water Day might be just your thing. The UN marks World Water Day every 22 March, but they ‘celebrate’ with charts, graphs, and ‘riveting’ reports on hydrodynamics.

We propose taking a slightly different tact, and celebrating the many forms in which water can be consumed. We’re thinking enormous ice lollies, steamed dumplings and puddings, and all the different kinds of water you can think of. Sparkling, non-sparkling, the list is endless.

And, as we all know, the one thing that can convince slightly drunk people to come around to your way of thinking is a cool, clear glass of water. Hang on a minute, there’s a chance that this idea might be total rubbish. Let us check, we’ll get back to you in a second.

International Day of Happiness

OK, that water idea is a bit rubbish. All we really need to take on the stout-fuelled tyranny of St Patrick’s Day is a chance to eat and drink and be merry, with a very vague theme to tie it all together. Something obvious, like a celebration of a basic human emotion.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we present to you The United Nations International Day of Happiness. This is not a joke – it’s a genuine, bona fide thing that the UN launched last year. 20 March is the date, and being generally chipper is the aim. Admittedly, this isn’t without its problems – for one thing, hijacking a UN peace initiative to get back at a multinational drinks company’s wholesale takeover of a country’s national holiday won't be an easy sell.

Also, this Day of Happiness sounds suspiciously like the ‘Do What You Feel’ festival from an episode of The Simpsons from about 15 years ago, and that ended with the event’s inspiration nearly getting his head kicked in by an unruly mob. These points aside, this sounds like our kind of thing, because it’s incredibly ambiguous.
Does cake make you happy? Get down your local cafe and tell them that it’s a Happiness Day treat. Fancy a pint? On you go; it is, after all, the United Nations International Day of Happiness, a real thing which you can look up yourself if you don’t believe us.

We can do this, people. Grab your forks, put on your best drinking glasses, and go out and be happy. That, ironically, is an order.