Occasional Digest

IT’S only a matter of hours until office chat turns to what people are doing at the weekend. But probably keep these plans to yourself:

Passing out shitfaced

Besides being too revealing, the fact that you’ll be drunkenly falling to the floor in a puddle of your own puke is a given. You might as well tell your coworkers you’ve got a fun weekend of breathing lined up. No need to explicitly admit you’re a lush, so just give a vague impression and say you’re meeting friends for a drink. They’ll fill in the rest with their imaginations.

Gooning for 48 hours

Kink shaming be damned, embarking on a two-day wankathon is disturbing in and of itself. Telling your colleagues about it will only make things worse as you’ll have to explain what gooning is to team members who aren’t as online or perverse. They always wondered if you were a tragic, sex-starved loser, but there’s no need to confirm their suspicions in graphic detail.

Crying over the state of your life

Just because you work in an open-plan office doesn’t mean you need to be open about your emotional wellbeing. So what if you’re going to spend Sunday evening curled up in the fetal position sobbing over the terrible choices that have led to your shit life? Everyone else does it; they just have the decency to talk about some tedious film they’re going to watch instead.

Embarking on an affair

Keep this to yourself to protect the health and safety of your colleagues. The most exciting discussions they have are about the printer’s ink levels and KPI forecasts, so telling them that you’re planning to sneak off to a Travelodge to shag your mate’s missus senseless will cause them to pass out from excitement. Instead fob them off with some bollocks about going for a roast.

Spending quality time with your loving family

Not everyone in your office is lucky enough to have found love and reproduced, you inconsiderate bastard. Donna from accounts will put on a brave face if you talk about these plans, but she’ll scurry off to the loo for a massive cry when you’re not looking. Just say you’re going to watch the football, nobody really gives a shit what you’re doing anyway.

Iceland was proclaimed an independent republic on June 17th 1944.

Iceland actually gained independence from Denmark much earlier, on December 1st 1918 with the signing of the Act of Union with Denmark. The Act recognised Iceland as an independent state under the Danish crown.

The formation of the republic in 1944 was based on a clause in the 1918 Act which allowed for a change to the relationship between Iceland and Denmark in 1943.

Due to the German occupation of Denmark in 1943, a vote on the revision to the Act was delayed until after the Second World War finished.

The referendum was held in at the end of May 1944. Voters were asked whether the Union with Denmark should be abolished and whether to adopt a new republican constitution. Both measures were approved with more than 98% in favour and a voter turnout of 98.4%.

Although he would have preferred a different outcome in the referendum, King Christian X of Denmark sent a letter on June 17th 1944 congratulating Icelanders on forming their Republic.

The June 17th date was already a significant date in Iceland’s history as it is the birthday of Jón Sigurdsson who was the leader of the 19th century Icelandic independence movement which led to the 1918 Act of Union. Sigurdsson died in Copenhagen in 1879.

June 17th, was therefore chosen as Iceland’s National Holiday as a fitting date to mark the Independence from Denmark, the proclamation of the Icelandic republic and to recognize Jón Sigurdsson’s efforts toward Icelandic independence.

The day has been a legal public holiday since 1971, though it had been a tradition for most employers to give their workers a day off since 1945.

The full title of the holiday is ‘The Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus’. In Spanish, it is known as ‘El Sagrado Corazón de Jesús’. 

In the calendar of the Roman Catholic Church it is a feast day 19 days after Pentecost and the second Friday after Corpus Christi. Like other holidays in Colombia that are based on a Catholic event, the holiday is celebrated on the Monday after the actual date. 

The Feast of the Sacred Heart is devoted to the physical heart of Jesus as a symbol of his divine love for all humanity. 

The devotion to the Sacred Heart developed in the middle ages out of worship to the scared wounds that Jesus received during his crucifixion. The devotion became more widespread in the seventeenth century when a French nun, Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque said she learnt of the devotion from Jesus during several apparitions. The devotion to the Sacred Heart then spread across Spain due to the work of the Jesuits. This meant that the Spanish brought this tradition to their colonisation of Latin America. 

In 1902, Colombia was officially consecrated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and this remained in the constitution until 1991.

ALL homeworkers are completing their allotted tasks and attending meetings entirely naked, they have confirmed.

Across the country, anyone working from home is typing with their laptop mere inches from their exposed, perspiring genitalia and will not mention it if you do not ask.

Jordan, not his real name, said: “In a heatwave you should open windows at night and keep curtains closed by day. And with all the curtains closed only a fool’s wearing underpants.

“If you’re in an office? You’ve got air-con as reward for your sweaty frottering commute. I don’t have that luxury. I’m forced to use more primal methods.

“No, I will not be turning my camera on for the meeting. I think we both know why, and I urge you not to press the issue. It wouldn’t just be the background that needed blurring.

“I’m clocking in, I’m doing my job, there will be no complaints about the quality of my work. What does it matter to you I’m doing it as naked and unashamed as Adam and Eve before the serpent? ROIs are ROIs.”

Office manager Joanna, not her real name, said: “So you mean in the call with Sally this morning, she was nude? I’m not sure how I feel about that. She’s got massive tits.”

Sunday 14 June Liberation Day in Falkland Islands

On April 2nd 1982, Argentina invaded and occupied the Falkland Islands. Argentina asserted that the islands are Argentine territory.

Three days later, the British government dispatched a naval task force to engage the Argentine Navy and Air Force before making an amphibious assault on the islands.

The conflict lasted just over ten weeks and ended with an Argentine surrender on June 14th, returning the islands to British control.

In total, 649 Argentine military personnel, 255 British military personnel, and three Falkland Islanders died during the hostilities.

ONCE it was the next big thing, now you can’t even Freecycle it. Were you one of the visionaries who bought a piece of the future that turned out to be a dusty piece of crap?

VR headsets

We’ve only been hearing how revolutionary these are for 30 years or so. A decade ago you gave in and decided you wanted to venture into virtual realms and experience bold new realities. Okay, porn, you wanted VR porn. What you got instead was a boring rock-climbing simulation and a phenomenally severe migraine.

3D television

You watched Avatar in the cinema and were seduced by the possibilities. Okay, porn, you wanted 3D porn. But blue extraterrestrials plugging their ponytails into plants were the only 3D content available and it turns out Avatar isn’t as rewatchable as Titanic or Terminator 2. Also you kept losing the glasses.

Nutribullet

A purchase you believed would make you a smoothie-guzzling Adonis which, with hindsight, you should have asked Amazon to deliver direct to the back of your kitchen cupboard. Nothing but a messy ballache which produced unpleasant tasting drinks with disturbing, slimy textures. Also you’re not all that keen on fruit.

Segway

Slow, difficult to ride, dangerous and deeply uncool: the Segway was a compilation of all the ways in which a vehicle can be bad. It didn’t revolutionise getting from A to B. It’s now exclusively associated with obese Americans travelling between urban tourist sites that can be walked around if you haven’t breakfasted on links in syrup.

Peloton

You were never going to get fit when the gym was a 15-minute drive away. Exercise classes in the spare room? Perfect. Then came an astonishingly fast transition from cycling while watching a class, to cycling while watching Netflix, to lying on the sofa while watching Netflix. The subscription’s lapsed. The Peloton remains, silently judging you.

Robot vacuum cleaner

It seemed such a wonderful solution; you go to bed, set the little fellow running and wake up to a lovely clean room. Until you get one and discover waking up means growling ‘Where’s the f**king hoover?’ before retrieving it from whatever corner or sofa it’s stuck under. You’ve gone back to your Henry and you swear he looks smug.

Saint Anthony of Padua (August 15th 1195 – June 13th 1231) was a Portuguese Catholic priest and Franciscan friar who became a saint in 1232 and was made a Doctor of the Church in 1946.

Also known as Anthony of Lisbon, he is the patron saint of Portugal as well as the patron saint of people who lose things and of children.

St. Anthony of Padua was born in Lisbon, Portugal to a wealthy family; his father was a captain in the Royal army. He was ordained as a priest and became inspired after meeting five Franciscan friars who were on their way to Muslim Morocco to preach the Gospel. A few months later he discovered that the monks were martyred and he joined the Franciscan order to follow in their path, adopting the name of Anthony, after Anthony the Great, who was one of the first monks and noted for his travels in desert lands.

Anthony’s life was changed when he was almost accidentally forced into giving a sermon. This uncovered his great gift for making speeches which led to Saint Francis asking him to travel around Italy preaching the Gospel which he did. He converted many people and became famed for his sermons.

Many miracles are assigned to Saint Anthony and he is often referred to as the ‘The Saint of Miracles’ or ‘the Wonder Worker’.

He was canonized less than a year after his death by Pope Gregory IX on May 30th 1232. This is the second-fastest canonization ever.

THE sun is shining, out-of-office is on, it’s a perfect time to read a good book but you don’t want to. Use one of these excuses to squint at your phone instead:

‘The text’s too small’

After several attempts to use a two-finger gesture to zoom in, you irritably decide that with all its densely-packed words in daunting paragraphs, lack of tabs and unwillingness even to impose a comforting pop-up, this book is refusing to meet you halfway. What are you meant to do, get your glasses? They’re all the way inside. F**k that.

‘Too many pages’

The comforting endless scroll of social media means you have no idea how much you’re reading, even when you’re an hour deep into a Reddit thread about Heated Rivalryships. Books, on the other hand, can’t even be held without revealing an intimidating number of pages and exhausting you before you even start, so you don’t.

‘There’s no comment section’

When you come across a villain online there immediately follows a long comment section where hundreds agree on what a monumental arsehole they are. Bad guys in books require you to make your own judgement and then stick with it all the way to their eventual comeuppance. Justice is delayed too long when you’re ready to condemn now.

‘It’s too slow’

Page after page of description of some bloody Victorian workhouse. Can’t they just jump-cut between one paragraph and the next? Include explanatory captions? Couldn’t this be condensed down to a 15-second Instagram reel? What was Charles Dickens thinking, not pivoting to short-form video?

‘There’s no tits in it’

Social media these days has, like all other media, discovered the lowest common denominator and it’s boobs. Novels? You’ll struggle to find one which has an actual picture, even in medical textbooks. Compare that to any app. Even LinkedIn has tits these days.

Since 1991, this holiday in the world’s largest country has changed its name twice. It was originally called ‘Independence Day’, though it was not a national holiday.

According to some surveys, many Russians still think that this holiday is Russia’s Independence Day, but the holiday has never had such a name in official documents. According to the survey of Levada Center in May 2003, 65% of the respondents named the holiday the Independence Day of Russia.

In 1994 Boris Yeltsin declared it a national holiday. The day was renamed to the catchy ‘Day of the adoption of the Declaration of Sovereignty of the Russian Federation’ with the intention of commemorating the renewed independence of the country, the creation of the post of President, the adoption of the historical national flag, and a new national anthem

On February 1st 2002, it was officially renamed to Russia Day.

THE Spanish tourist board is encouraging Britons to visit this summer for a good chuckle at all those miserable because they cannot be in Dubai.

As thousands of former influencers and the wealth-adjacent are forced to spend summers in a less glamorous location due to an inconvenient war, ordinary people are invited for a cheap holiday in someone else’s misery.

Holidaymaker Mr Hunt, not his real name, said: “You can see them congregating in beachfront cafes, bitching about how low the skyscrapers are or that 30 degrees isn’t hot enough.

“My girlfriend and I settled in next to them, luxuriating in their complaints that you can’t get a decent gold leaf coffee anywhere. It’s so relaxing hearing them fall silent as a Mercedes S-Class goes by, swallowing their bitter regret they’re not in it.”

Ray, not his real name from Venezuela, owner of Inspector Morse-themed bar One More Shot said: “We get them in here, moaning none of the hotel pools are infinite, disappointed their cocktails don’t cost three figures.

“We put an influencer on stage to bitch that she couldn’t hire a gold-plated Lamborghini anywhere so how could she make content and it was harming her hustle. The regulars were in stitches. Far better than the Chubby Brown tribute we’d booked.”

Former Dubai resident Hannah, not her real name, said: “How can it be a holiday without a Prada store? Why has this crowd gathered? What’s schadenfreude? Is it a German watch brand? Are they up for a collab?”

There is some uncertainty as to when King Kamehameha was born with several years between 1736 and 1761 being proposed. What is known is that he was the son of a high chief of a tribe on Hawaii. The name “Kamehameha” means “the lonely one.”

Kamehameha is noted for uniting the Hawaiian Islands in 1810 and becoming Hawaii’s first king. He ruled until his death in 1819.

King Kamehameha I established ‘Ke Kānāwai Māmalahoe’, or Law of the Splintered Paddle, which assured that every man, woman and child would be able to travel safely and in peace, with the right to ‘lie down to sleep by the roadside without fear of harm’. This has become a model for modern human rights for the treatment of civilians during times of war. It comes from an incident when a fisherman hit the King with a paddle during a military expedition. Kamehameha ruled that the fisherman had only been protecting his land and family.

Kamehameha Day was established in 1872 by King Kamehameha V, the great-grandchild of Kamehameha, as a national holiday to honor the memory of Kamehameha.

All state and county offices on the Big Island and throughout the state will be closed on June 11th in observance of the holiday on Kamehameha Day. Public transport may run on a modified schedule.

Since 1901, it has been a tradition to drape leis (Hawaiian floral garlands) from the statues of the King on the islands.

There is also a floral parade that features a young man dressed in a replica of the king’s ceremonial cloak and helmet. Other events include Hawaiian music, dance, and traditional arts and crafts.

THE grovelling sentences a man comes out with when writing a covering letter disgust him to his core, it has emerged.

Self-hating jobseeker Rubin, not his real name,  can barely look at himself in the mirror after typing out sentences like ‘I am a proactive self-starter with a commitment to excellence and growth’ in a professional covering letter.

He said: “I would never sincerely say something like ‘my goals are in alignment with your corporate values’. No self-respecting person would.

“But thanks to the sick capitalist society we live in and my inability to win the lottery, I’m forced to churn out ridiculous word salad that even ChatGPT would be ashamed of. I’m only applying for a minimum-wage position, for Christ’s sake.

“Each cap-in-hand, jargon-stuffed sentence is an assault on my worth as a human being. I hope to God my wife and kids never read it. They’d move out, change their names, and never contact me again. And that would be the right thing to do.

“I shouldn’t even have to write a sodding covering letter anyway, all of the relevant information is in my f**king CV. Maybe if I just write that they’ll admire my balls-to-the-wall honesty?”

Employer Martin Bishop said: “The worst part is we won’t even read it. The job ad was merely a formality and we’ve already hired internally.”

Camões wrote Os Lusíadas (The Lusiads), Portugal’s national epic celebrating the country’s history and achievements. While it is only officially celebrated in Portugal, Portuguese descendants across the world may also celebrate the holiday.

The Lusiads focuses on the Portuguese explorations in the 16th century, which greatly expanded the influence of Portugal. The poem is considered to be the most important piece of Portuguese literature and has become a symbol for the glory of the Portuguese nation.

Camões was a colourful character. He lost one eye fighting and was shipwrecked off the coast of present-day Vietnam. According to legend, during the shipwrecking, he kept his epic poem dry by swimming with one arm and keeping the other arm above water.

In the year that Camões died, Portugal lost its independence to Spain and began a period of rule by three generations of Spanish kings. It was over 60 years before the country regained its independence.

For such national days, it is common practice to use a date of birth to mark the national day, but since Camões’ date of birth was not known, the date of his death is celebrated instead.

Portugal Day began to be celebrated in 1880, decreed by King Luís I, who announced a national festival in honour of the 300th anniversary of the death of Luís de Camões.

This holiday marks the anniversary of the autonomous community of La Rioja’s statute being approved on June 9th 1982.

The Spanish autonomous community of La Rioja in northeast Spain is the least populated region of Spain. Historically it formed part of different provinces in the area. It became its own province in 1833, named the Province of Logroño, after the capital town. The province was renamed as La Rioja in 1980.

The region is well known for its red wine, and the region can boast over 500 wineries.

Various events are organised to mark the Day of La Rioja. These include exhibitions of the work of local artists, concerts of modern and traditional music, tastings of traditional dishes and wines (of course), and sports events.

Many people display the flag of their autonomous community during events and on public buildings and private homes. Some people also wear clothes or paint their faces based on the flag’s colours

Tonga is a Polynesian kingdom located in the Pacific Ocean, 1,250 miles north of New Zealand. It is composed of over 170 South Pacific islands, of which only about 36 are inhabited.

In some countries, notably those in the Caribbean, Emancipation Day means the abolition of slavery by the European colonial powers in the early part of the 19th century. Emancipation in Tonga means the abolition of the system of serfdom which had been used by the local chiefs for centuries as a means of forced labour.

On June 4th 1862, Tonga’s first Christian king, George Tupuo I declared the abolition of serfdom in the official emancipation edict as part of his 1862 Code of Laws: 

“All chiefs and people are to all intents and purposes set at liberty from serfdom, and all vassalage, from the institution of this law; and it shall not be lawful for any chief or person, to seize, or take by force, or beg authoritatively, in Tonga fashion, anything from anyone.”

Influenced by Christian missionaries, the abolition was a key milestone in the history of Tonga as it freed commoners from the virtual ownership of chiefs.

Another important event that took place on June 4th is also celebrated on this day.

Tonga became a British protected state under a Treaty of Friendship in May 1900, to fend off European settlers and rival Tongan chiefs who had tried to overthrow the king. This Treaty of Friendship and protected state status expired on June 4th 1970 under arrangements established prior to her death by the third monarch, Queen Sālote.

AN old and decrepit man is under the mistaken impression that you and he are contemporaries.

While talking to friends and acquaintances at social events, Martin, not his real name, has been insisting they are old fogies well past their prime like him – something that is clearly not true.

Nathan, not his real name, said: “Martin and I were getting on fine in the pub. We agreed on a lot of things, like the state of the roads, how much we hate e-scooters and our dislike of loud teenagers on the bus.

“I’d started telling him about how I did my back in jogging – jogging, which is what young people do – and he clearly said ‘Well, that’s what happens to people our age’. Where the f**k did that come from?

“Martin’s got grey hair and wears boring M&S shirts, whereas I wear trainers and like to think I am quite fashionable in a sort of ‘ageless’ way. I mean, yes, I have a few flecks of grey but that can happen in your 30s. Although I’m not in my 30s, I’m in my 50s, obviously.

“So I’m not sure how he got this insane idea we’re in the same over-the-hill age bracket, just because he was in the year above me at school.”

Martin said: “I distinctly remember Nathan from school, so he’s not much younger than me. Also I saw how big he has the text on his phone. It’s good to know he’s socially and sexually irrelevant too.”

Malta’s position in the Mediterranean sea has made the islands a strategically important location since classical times, with the islands passing from one ruler to another through the ages.

In 1800, the British had assisted Malta in removing the occupying French forces and the Maltese people had asked to become a sovereign nation in the British Empire. This was ratified in the treaty of Paris in 1815.

Following the end of World War I, tensions had been rising due to the inability of the colonial government to ensure basic supplies to the island. This had led to some merchants being seen to have made a lot of money from the situation, while others fared badly.

Added to this was the feeling that political moves for greater autonomy and independence for Malta were seemingly going unheard.

In early June 1919, a change in the governor of the island was treated with scepticism by some and on June 7th, a crowd started removing British flags from buildings that had been flying at half-mast across the island due to the recent death of the President of the Court.

The mob grew in size and turned their attention to the homes of the merchants who had been doing well from the recent supply issues. It was at one of these houses that a standoff between the mob and the army ended in tragedy with the soldiers firing and killing three protestors and injuring fifty others. The uprising continued for a few days during which time, a fourth civilian died from injuries received while resisting arrest.

The uprising was short-lasting, but the bloody events of June 7th 1919 led to the National Assembly drafting the new Constitution. Two years later, Malta was given responsibility for self-government and home affairs and the first Maltese Parliament was set up.

By Hannah. Not her real name, You know, of the Berkshire Tomlinsons

I USED to be the fashion editor for British Vogue, and now I’m a bricklayer and hod-carrier. Why? You already know the answer is money, don’t you? 

Yes, I walked away from a six-figure job to do something real and earthy for reasons I’d list as spiritual fulfilment and a need to abandon artifice, but actually comes down to ‘because I could afford to’. So useful having what I refer to as a ‘small private income’. 

It’s very much the same reason I left London for Somerset, which you may remember from a previous article. I claimed it was to ‘remove myself from the aspirational rat-race of Mulberry bags and matcha martinis’ but made £2.2 million selling my flat. 

I’m back in London now, of course – the Somerset place is being rented to a crypto-billionaire, more than covering the mortgage – but I’m not returning to my old job. No, not the Vogue one, the City one? 

From my classic piece ‘I walked away from a job in the City to become a chocolatier’? That didn’t mention my £865k pay-off until after my rapturous discovery that I needed purpose in my life, and had found it in organic raw cacao? 

Yes, well it turns out selling chocolate is a lot like being a common shopgirl. So I walked away from that, keeping only my substantial shareholding, and now I’m a bricklayer! I know, aren’t I remarkable? 

Not a real bricklayer, of course. That would be absurd. No, this is the point where I reveal I’ve retrained as an architect and I’m only bricklaying for a few days and a photoshoot! My actual salary is f**king telephone numbers. 

So why don’t you take inspiration from me and give up your boring job to do something you love? Because you’re worried you won’t have the money for rent or food? How boring and small of you. No wonder poor people never succeed. 

The Korean War began on June 25th 1950, when troops from Communist-ruled North Korea invaded South Korea. 

There was a boycott of the United Nations by the Soviet Union at the time, and therefore, no veto, which allowed the UN to intervene when it became apparent that the superior North Korean forces would easily take over the entire country. 

The Soviets and the Chinese backed North Korea, with the participation of millions of Chinese troops. After large advances on both sides, the war eventually reached a stalemate. 

The 1953 armistice, never signed by South Korea, split the peninsula along the demilitarized zone near the original demarcation line. 

No peace treaty has ever been signed and technically, the two countries are still at war.

The Korean War was the first war in which a world organization, the United Nations (UN), played a military role and a major challenge for the United Nations, which had come into existence only five years earlier.

Across South Korea, officials and citizens will pray and lay flowers at the graves of the war dead. It is common practice to display the flag of South Korea on the front doors of homes to commemorate the civilians and soldiers who died in war. 

In 1956, South Korea held its first memorial ceremony for soldiers who died in the Korean War. Memorial Day was declared a public holiday on April 19th 1956, just three years after the war ended.

I WAS born in 1994, at the tail end of the shoegaze era. Am I especially unfortunate to be part of the whiniest generation in history?

I missed out on student grants. I missed out on cheap house prices. I missed out on lead poisoning from exhausts, corporal punishment in schools and mass unemployment as well, but I’m not interested in those because they didn’t happen to me.

Meanwhile my generation has suffered endless inequitable treatment. We missed Britpop, due to being children, so the first record I bought was Big Brovaz’s Nu Flow. You see how we’re cursed?

We couldn’t go to university. I mean loads of us could and did, unlike all those boomers who worked down the pit and got their pet hawks killed for daring to dream, but it wasn’t free and that’s a terrible injustice.

Our chances of buying an Instagrammable property in Notting Hill are basically zero, unlike in the 60s where you could rent a subdivided slum and get dogs set on you if you didn’t pay on time or they evicted you regardless.

And we’ve had the terrible misfortune of the internet meaning we get bullied on social media, instead of in real life, and we have non-stop 24-7 internet filth traumatising us instead of having to get what erotic charge we could from shop mannequins.

Finally, there’s pensions. Anyone older than us has an incredible pension, financed by most men dying of massive smoking-induced heart attacks aged 64 after which their wives moved in with their children to sit in the corner frowning for 20 incontinent years.

Yes, we truly are the unluckiest, and consequently the whiniest, generation in history. Though I bet another generation will come along and claim to be even whinier. It’s so unfair.

Sir Randol Fawkes was a free trade unionist, civil rights activist and author who had an important impact on the modern Bahamas. Fawkes is often referred to as “the father of Labour” in the Bahamas for the work he did in establishing the trade union movement in The Bahamas.

In 1961, he successfully a bill through the House of Assembly which established Labour Day as a public holiday. Fawkes pushed for a Labour Day Holiday as he thought a day should be set aside and designated as Labour Day as “a fitting memorial to the contributions made by the working people to the progress of the Colony.”

In recognition of his outstanding contributions to the trade union movement and to the country, knighthood was conferred on Sir Randol by Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth in 1978.

Sir Randol died in 2000 and in 2013, Senators debated and passed a bill to rename the Labour Day Holiday “The Randol Fawkes Labour Day”.

On this holiday, members of the labour unions from different organizations, as well as political parties, march in a large parade through the streets of downtown Nassau, usually in colourful uniforms. The parade ends at the Southern Recreation Grounds, where union leaders and local politicians deliver speeches.

On Independence Day 2020, Sir Randol Fawkes was awarded the nation’s top honor of the Order of National Hero in the National Honours Awards.

The emergence of Corpus Christi as a Christian feast didn’t happen until the second half of the thirteenth century with the efforts of a nun called Juliana of Liège.

Since childhood, Juliana had been claiming that God had been telling her that there should be a feast day for the Eucharist and eventually she petitioned the Bishop of Liège. In those days bishops could order feasts in their local dioceses. The bishop agreed to the feast and convened a synod in 1246 and ordered that a celebration of Corpus Christi should be held annually.

The Corpus Christi celebration only started to become more widespread after both Juliana and the Bishop had died. In 1264 Pope Urban IV issued the papal bull Transiturus in which Corpus Christi was made a feast throughout the entire Latin Rite. He fixed it for Thursday after the “octave” of Pentecost when only designated celebrations or special feasts were blessed. This feast is celebrated on a Thursday in remembrance of the institution of the Eucharist (the last supper) which takes place on Maundy Thursday, the eve of Jesus’ death on the Cross.

Corpus Christi is primarily a Roman Catholic feast, but it is also acknowledged in the calendar of a few Anglican churches, most notably the Church of England. It is also celebrated by some Western Rite Orthodox Christians. Across many parts of medieval Europe, Corpus Christi was a popular time for the performance of mystery plays.

Along with Lent, Advent, Easter, Pentecost and Christmas, Roman Catholic Bishops have a duty to be present at their cathedrals on Corpus Christi.