I’d heard the expression before, but not grasped its meaning.
Then, last week, it was explained to me, albeit accidentally, while I was in one of my favourite environments, a coffee shop.
As I was sitting at my table, cwtshing my extra-skinny, ultra-healthy latte, and munching on my bacon and egg panini with extra butter, two well-dressed men, aged (I would guess) in their early 30s, parked their rears at an adjacent table.
I paid little attention to their conversation at first (who said, “That’s not like you, Phil!”?) as I was engrossed in one of the free newspapers the coffee shop supplies to customers to read while cradling a cappuccino or musing over a macchiato.
That might sound generous of Reg the proprietor, but they’re never that day’s newspapers. In fact, they’re usually a week old. I think he gets them from the chip shop next door.
Anyway, my engrossment was curtailed when I heard one of the men at the adjacent table (remember them?), using the expression I’ve been talking about. Which is . . . “Duvet Day”.
One chap had asked the other what he was doing the following Monday and his friend said, “Oh, I’m having a Duvet Day!”
Fortunately for me, and those of you for whom the expression is only vaguely familiar, his pal was puzzled and asked him to explain.
Well, you could have blown me down with a feather (if that’s your idea of a good time) when he said, “It means I won’t go into work, will probably stay in bed until lunchtime and won’t lose any pay. It’s a ‘thing’ these days!”
What?
As Frankie Howerd put it, “Never has my flabber been so gasted!”
With unemployment so high, particularly among those aged 16 to 24, it’s now a ‘thing’ to take a day off when you feel like it, stay in bed and expect to get paid for it?
Call me old-fashioned, but shouldn’t the glib expression ‘Duvet Day’ be renamed, using the word it replaced, to the much more honest ‘Skivers Day’?
Another bacon and egg panini, please, Reg!

I spent a glorious weekend down in west Wales, where the weather had apparently mistaken Pembrokeshire for the Mediterranean.
The beaches were packed tighter than a rugby clubhouse on Six Nations day, with families, paddleboarders, inflatable flamingos and enough Factor 50 to waterproof the entire coastline.
Everyone seemed determined to charge into the sea as if it was a giant heated swimming pool.
Unfortunately, the Irish Sea hadn’t received the memo.
While enjoying an ice cream that melted faster than a politician’s promise, I overheard an elderly couple discussing Britain’s most underrated trickster, the tide.
“People don’t realise how quickly it sneaks up on them,” the gentleman said.
“One minute you’re collecting shells, the next you’re starring in your own rescue drama.”
His wife nodded knowingly. “Hundreds get caught out every year. The tide doesn’t send a warning text.”
They had a point.
Every year, visitors underestimate tidal times and strong currents, with tragic consequences. The sea is beautiful, but it doesn’t negotiate.
The conversation then drifted onto another worrying subject: swimming.
The couple lamented how many local leisure centres with swimming pools have disappeared over the past decade.
Those that remain often charge prices that make you wonder whether you’re paying for swimming lessons or a Caribbean cruise.
When I was a young lad, learning to swim was almost a rite of passage.
Today, far too many youngsters never get the chance to become confident swimmers.
That’s not just unfortunate, it’s dangerous.
So, while the Welsh sunshine continues pretending it’s the Costa del Sol, perhaps we should remember that our coastline still plays by British rules. Check the tide times. Respect the currents. Learn to swim if you can.
After all, the only thing that should be swept away this summer is your stress, not you.

I’m not au fait with the latest trends, or too many French phrases, come to that, but I’ve noticed in the last few years, something very annoying has happened to TV rolling news channels.
And I don’t just mean there’s far too many of them.
Add newspapers like this esteemed publication; online news; and hourly news bulletins on every radio station and we’ve never been so well informed.
I have a dim memory that when I was a lad, the news at six or 10 pm might, on very rare occasions, be interrupted by a ‘News Flash’ containing something really important.
But rolling news channels are so obsessed with ‘Breaking News’ they break it over our heads far too often.
Presenters could be in the middle of an in-depth, interesting interview with a celebrity or chatting to a politician and a person of dubious character (you’ll have to make up your own jokes in regard to that last sentence, otherwise I could be censured by sensitive Senedd censors*), then, suddenly, one of the presenters will say, “I’ll have to stop you there, because we have some breaking news!”
Forgive me for pointing out something I may have pointed out in one of the hundreds of articles I’ve written over the last decade, but I reckon seven out of 10 ‘Breaking News’ stories are not so urgent they couldn’t wait a couple of minutes until the current interview or news story has been wound up.
It can only be a matter of time until a Breaking News story is interrupted by more “Breaking News”.
* I completely understand why some of our 96 (at the last count) Welsh Senedd Members could be so sensitive to scrutiny and, assuming they’re able to understand it . . . satirical humour.
Being a MS. can be a perilous occupation. You are constantly in the public eye and if you’re foolish enough to put a foot wrong, career-wise it could be “Goodnight Vienna!”
In other words, one day you could be in the Senedd debating ‘Big Issues’ and the next day you could be on the street selling them.

The Great Welsh Heatwave of 2025
Well, who ordered all this then?
After spending eight months complaining that it was wetter than a mermaid’s washing line, Wales has finally been treated to a proper dose of sunshine. And how have we responded? By complaining. Typical.
It only took a couple of days nudging 27°C before the nation collectively declared, “I can’t cope with this.”
Suddenly everyone’s an expert on heat exhaustion, the dog’s lying flat out like an old rug, and Dai down the road is insisting he could fry an egg on the bonnet of his Fiesta. Mind you, he probably gave it a go.
Only a few weeks back we were peering through rain-streaked windows muttering, “It’s always sunny in Spain.”
Now we’re standing in the garden saying, “I’d give anything for a bit of drizzle.”
You couldn’t make us up.
The supermarkets have sold out of fans, paddling pools and ice lollies, while every Welsh Mam is marching around the house shouting, “Shut that door! I’m not paying to cool the whole of Carmarthenshire!”
Meanwhile, every Dad in Wales has dusted off the barbecue at the first glimpse of blue sky.
Never mind that it’s 30 degrees and everyone’s melting into the patio furniture, those sausages aren’t going to burn themselves.
Well, actually, they probably will.
And then there’s the great Welsh wardrobe dilemma. We spend all year waiting to wear shorts, only to discover our legs haven’t seen daylight since the Rugby World Cup. There’s enough Factor 50 being slapped on pale knees to keep the chemists in business until Christmas.
Sleep? Forget it.
Bedrooms have turned into saunas, duvets have been banished to the spare room, and half the country is lying spreadeagled on top of the bed wondering if opening another window will let in a breeze, or just another moth the size of a sparrow.
The best bit? We all know exactly how this ends.
By a week Tuesday it’ll be chucking it down again.
The flip-flops will be back in the cupboard, the barbecue will return to the shed after exactly one successful outing, and we’ll be back on Facebook posting, “Summer? That was nice while it lasted.”
Then, just to complete the annual Welsh tradition, we’ll spend the rest of July looking up cheap flights to the Algarve while standing in a queue at B&Q wearing a waterproof.
So, until the heavens inevitably open again, keep drinking plenty of water, check on your neighbours, and if it all gets too much, do what generations of Welsh people have always done . . .
Put the kettle on and have a good moan about it.
After all, sunshine comes and goes.
A proper Welsh complaint is forever.

Comedy is a serious business for those who choose it as a career.
All comedians, even the biggest names, can suffer from pre-show nerves and middle-of-the-night worries about their careers.
But, from my experience and knowledge about the history of making audiences laugh, most comedians are able to cope with these insecurities.
That great entertainer Des O’Connor once told a friend of mine, “Hosting a Royal Variety Performance can be a terrifying experience, with so much responsibility on your shoulders. But as nervous as I am before the curtain goes up, I wouldn’t swap my job with anyone!”
However, that same friend confided that one of the nicest comedians he’s worked with was, despite having a beautiful wife and a rather grand house in Surrey, a manic depressive who needed to be constantly reassured about his comedic talents.
The public adored Tony Hancock when he was at the top, but he wasn’t a happy man and eventually ditched his brilliant writers Galton and Simpson to search for ‘the true essence of comedy’.
Had he realised he’d already found it in Ray and Alan’s scripts, he may not have entered that downward spiral that led to him becoming so depressed that he took his own life.
Always a nervous performer, Larry Grayson often made reference to his sweaty top lip in his act, while Spike Milligan suffered from long periods of depression all his life, possibly rooted in his wartime experiences.
So, you can see that having to maintain a career in comedy, either as a performer or writer, can take its toll.
Such was the popularity of ‘King Of Clowns’ Joseph Grimaldi (1778-1837) his shows at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane and Sadlers Wells were always sold out.  He created the white-faced make-up still used by circus clowns referred to as Joeys.
During the run of one of Grimaldi’s spectacular pantomimes, a man went to his doctor complaining he felt permanently depressed.
The doctor said “That’s easily remedied. Go and see Grimaldi at Sadlers Wells and he’ll cheer you up!”
To which his patient replied . . . “I am Grimaldi!”

Remember when every house in Wales seemed to have a front room permanently packed with visitors? Ours certainly did.
Neighbours, distant relatives, the rent man, the Man from the Pru,  even the bailiffs occasionally popped in. It was less of a living room and more of a revolving cast from a sitcom. And Aunty Glad? She was fuelled almost entirely by Dubonnet.
As a gangly 10-year-old, I spent many evenings wedged under the dining table, listening to adults put the world to rights.
Politics, religion, nuclear war and the eternal argument over how to serve a scone, all discussed at full volume, usually at the same time.
Not surprisingly, I often misheard things.
When someone declared, “Neither a borrower nor a lender be,” I was convinced they’d said, “Neither a borrower nor a Brenda Lee,” and wondered what the Christmas singer had done to upset them.
Then there was Uncle Hugo, a fearless explorer if you believed his stories. I distinctly remember him saying, “There are flies, damn flies and stick insects,” while describing his expedition up the River Tawe.
Apparently, he’d actually said, “There are lies, damn lies and statistics.”
Mind you, Uncle Hugo was always full of surprises. We still call him my late uncle. He’s not dead,  he’s just never on time.
Experts reckon there’ll be more than two billion over-60s by 2050. At this rate, the queue at the Post Office will stretch to Carmarthen, and my chances of a full house at bingo will disappear faster than Aunty Glad’s bottle of Dubonnet.  Now those really were the good old days!