Notes from the culture divide: The silly season

In SA, December is "the silly season". It's Christmas. Everyone's on holiday. Nothing much happens at work, unless you're in the hospitality industry. Employees yawn and stare out the window and take long lunch breaks to do their Christmas shopping. Newspapers and magazines are thinner than usual, and full of "human interest" stories (usually about animals), because nothing's happening and no one's around to read them anyway. It's Christmas, after all.

In the UK, August is "the silly season". It's summer. Everyone's on holiday. Nothing much happens at work, unless you're in the hospitality industry. Employees yawn and stare out the window and take long lunch breaks to do their summer sales shopping. Newspapers and magazines are thinner than usual, and full of "human interest" stories (usually about animals), because nothing's happening and no one's around to read them anyway. It's summer, after all.

Oh but wait, Christmas still comes in December. People take holidays then too. And long lunches. And meedja types still fret over how to fill their column inches or broadcast minutes when no one's doing anything but choosing the best colour nailpolish to set off their beaded sandals on that midwinter beach break in Morocco.

SA may have more public holidays, but the whole country only really shuts down once a year. In the UK, it happens twice. Because here, Christmas isn't sensibly stuck in the middle of summer, where it doesn't interfere with anything much. It's cunningly placed at the end of the year, giving us a well deserved break after, ooh... three whole months of slog, at least!