Final word: The outlook for Tuesday

A while ago, when we were all being recessed by the global recession, people started talking about the nine-day working fortnight. This seemed like a good idea at the time (especially to all the recently unemployed who had a no-day working fortnight to look forward to) but it never really caught on and eventually it got filed alongside the national cycle path in the "maybe next recession" basket.

But personally I think the idea didn't go far enough. Rather than shaving off one working day in 10, I think we should have cut the week - and I mean the actual week, not just the working week - back from seven days to six days. A six-day week makes heaps of sense - at least to me.

For starters, seven is a prime number, so it is a bugger to divide up easily. You see the problems this causes all the time when people are trying to organise all sorts of stuff, ranging from child custody to chores around the flat to who gets to choose what to watch on TV on what night.

Six, being divisible not only by one and itself, but also by two and three, is just so much more user-friendly when it comes to sorting out stuff on a day-to-day basis. In fact, six is such a blindingly obvious choice for ideal week length that whoever thought of the lunar-based seven-day week should be shot.

Of course, if we are to go down the incredibly sensible path of changing to a six-day week, then one of the seven days of the existing week needs to be given the flick. Again, the solution is blindingly obvious: Tuesday must go, because Tuesday - as any rational person can see - is the most useless day of the week.

Okay, sure, Monday is probably the least popular day of the week but this isn't a popularity contest, this is about what is right and proper. There is a reason for Monday: it is to tell us to stop having fun and go back to work. If you think there's a drinking culture in New Zealand now, imagine what it would be like if we didn't have Monday to tell us the weekend is over.

Wednesday exists to give us hope that the weekend will be here in a couple of days, while Thursday, although partially useless, is at least closer to the weekend than Tuesday, so it can stay. Friday is like this awesome social pressure release valve. Anyone who suggests dumping either Saturday or Sunday is completely barking mad.

So Tuesday is the obvious candidate for the job and for many reasons other than just its lousy proximity to the weekend. Even on a creationary myth level Tuesday sucks the celestial kumara. If you take, as I feel most people do, Sunday as the Seventh Day mentioned in Genesis, the day on which God put his feet up. Tuesday is, obviously, the Second Day. Monday gets the big "let there be light" drama, so that's quite exciting. Even Thursday gets something cool, with the whole creation of the sun and the moon and the stars.

And what does Tuesday get? Tuesday is "the firmament" day; on which God sort of moved the furniture round to prepare for the rest of his/her busy creating week. Rather dull really, especially in comparison to Saturday when everyone was told to go forth and multiply, which is pretty much what happens on Saturday nights to this very day. Tuesday, meanwhile, is still very much a stay-at-home night. Yawn.

Musically, also, Tuesday leaves an awful lot to be desired. Lynyrd Skynyrd's Tuesday's Gone is okay, I s'pose; and I've definitely got a soft spot for the Stones' Ruby Tuesday (only because my daughter's name is Ruby rather than anything the Tuesday part has to offer). In fact, the best Tuesday song in the world would have to be The Mockers' Forever Tuesday Morning. The fact that it's about a bloke who's just been dumped, thus rendering his life "forever Tuesday morning" rather says it all, musically, for Tuesday.

There's no decent sport on TV on a Tuesday; the Tuesday morning paper is the thinnest of any paper of the week; Tuesday is named after Tyr who was some kind of Norse god of law or war or something equally unappealing, who had his hand bitten off by a wolf (probably on a Tuesday because it's just that kind of a day). Seriously, the best thing you can say about Tuesday is that Tuesday's child is full of grace, which is quite nice.

Tuesday: over-rated, overstayed its welcome and due for the chop. You heard it here first.