St. Andrews Day. Notice to Americans & Others

I was wondering yesterday why the Scottish national flag was doing being prominently displayed on the banner of our favorite pervy literary site. Sure enough, with a little research on my part, I found out that it is St. Andrews Day today, Nov. 30th. I thought that I was lucky just to recognize the flag however there is much more to it and just so all of us non-Scot's will be better informed I offer this short paragraph from Wiki on what's up.

St. Andrew's Day is the feast day of Saint Andrew. It is celebrated on 30 November.

Saint Andrew is the patron saint of Scotland, and St. Andrew's Day (Scottish Gaelic: Latha Naomh Anndra) is Scotland's official national day. In 2006, the Scottish Parliament designated St. Andrew's Day as an official bank holiday.

Although most commonly associated with Scotland, Saint Andrew is also the patron saint of Greece, Romania, Russia and the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople.[1]

In Germany, the feast day is celebrated as Andreasnacht ("St. Andrew's Night"), in Austria with the custom of Andreasgebet ("St. Andrew's Prayer"), and in Poland as Andrzejki ("Andrews").

So now you know and you don't even have to ask any of the many Proud Scot's that feature so prominently here; not to mention not having to endure a 'ear pounding' or in this case 'eye pounding' about why this is so important and significant. For myself, I plan to celebrate St. Andrews day in my own way by taking advantage of one of FOUR St. Andrew's crosses (X-crosses to us Americans) at my local S/M club today in honor of the man who handed down such a terrific device to restrain subbys while I enjoy making them scream.

Besides, I'm told that this is a BANK HOLIDAY, what ever that is, and I believe in celebrating Holidays just because they are though I'm glad that my bank is not Holidaying today as it is my payday.


PS: Sorry it had to snow on your national day. Brrrrrr!!!!!!!!

Ooo and I thought it was because PinkAngel rocks

Bank holiday is like an extra days holiday, except I never got any bank holidays off!

For Scotland it's a Bank Holiday. For those of us in merry ol' England it is not and should be just because.

If I could I would run out and kiss a wee heeland coo in honor of St. Andrew.

thank-you for an interesting tidbit of information. Not a bank holiday here, and its not snowing either. It is pouring rain here to day though. hope you ejoyed your "celebration."

On St Paddy's Day people try to get in touch with their inner Irishman by drinking half as much as the typical one does... They try to drink like the Irish, but since for most of them it's a once a year bit they can only handle half the typical weekday drinking a Irish fellow does before they pass out.

If people are going to get in touch with their inner Scotsman... Do we have to beware cattle thieves while locking up our more attractive sheep?

Goodgulf
(Who really thought hard about St. George, but the only way he could think to poke fun at the English was something along the lines of taxes. Boy, did the English get let out when colourful characters were being handed out. Drunken Irish, Sheep molesting Scots, Boring English - one of those groups just isn't like the others)

Blame the Celtic influence for the colourful characters .. I have ancestry which is half English and half Celtic which means I'm boring one minute and totally loopy then next.

Ooo this lends itself to soooooooo many comments...

Nope I shall be good... for now

Oh you DO dear. You DO. But they need to pass an act making it clear that you ROCK all the time. Must be the sugar rush from the Pink Fairey cakes! Unfortunately, just like us Americans on MLK day; it's just an excuse to let the bureaucracy have a day off. All the rest of us have to work. Idea. Join the spanko civil service. Surely there is a dept. for that over there.


Is that really possible?

Bank holidays are called such because in the early days of the British banking system there were periods of hysterical speculation ( Tulips..South Sea Bubble ) which inevitably crashed at the moment of "the emperor has got no clothes". The Authorities decided to close the Banks to prevent depositors from withdrawing their money and declared a national holiday to cover their intentions. On occasions they were closed for days until the nerves were calmed. I must say that little has changed in human nature as regards speculation and we should really have had a run of bank holidays recently rather than bailing them all out. I suspect there is not really a Bank in the whole world that is solvent. Except perhaps Hoares on The Strand. Just the one branch and never dabbled in derivatives. The immortal line...My bankers are Hoares. Cash is always king.