From an animal point of view, this day in history is quite an important one. I found no les than three events of note for this date. Hugh Lofting was born in 1886, Lewis Caroll dies in 1898 and Walt Disney first screened Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1938. Hugh Lofting in writing Dr Dolittle helped many humans to understand that animals can speak and it is more a question of their lack of understanding than it is of our not talking. Lewis Caroll similarly understood our ability to talk and gave us speaking parts in his books and whilst there weren’t many speaking parts for animals in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Walt Disney has done more for the movie careers of animals than any other film producer. All in all I think that makes it quite a day to celebrate. Besides, January is such a dull month that any excuse to celebrate has got to be worth taking. It might help everyone if this were declared a national bank holiday on which all four legged animals should be honoured. Alternatively we could call it ‘Mad Hatter’s Day’ and start a tradition for wearing peculiar hats and being completely ridiculous, not that for some people that would set it apart from every other day of the year!
We could do with something like a Mad Hatter’s Day this year to cheer everyone up, when everyday they are being surrounded by bad news about the economy. Either that or the media should start changing some of it’s headlines. Instead of saying this was the worst Christmas trading for fourteen years, perhaps they could have led with ‘Christmas trading better than in 1994’, it simply puts a more positive spin on things and will help us to feel less depressed.