Escape or just lighten up?

If you can’t escape the election – at least let’s all lighten up!

No doubt some of you will have marked the page dated June the 8th in your diary as an important day in British politics.

Then again, with the prospect looming of seven weeks worth of party political broadcasts, TV debates and MPs (who you never see from one election to another) banging on your front door to plead for your vote, some of you will have already marked the page dated June the 7th in your diary as the day you escape all the madness and fly off somewhere warm for your holiday.

Lucky you!

As this is an election-free zone, if I tell you that June the 8th is an important date, you can guess it has nothing to do with politics or polling booths.

If you look back in history (well, you can’t look forward in history, can you?)  – June the 8th is significant for several reasons.

On June the 8th 452, Attila The Hun invaded Italy. He meant to invade Austria but his satnav was playing up and as soon as he discovered Italy had a better climate, he stayed put.

Attila’s occupation didn’t have much impact on the Italians otherwise their national dish would be wienerschnitzel and not pasta.

When Attila walked through his front door after a hard day’s pillaging, did he call out to Mrs. Attila “Hi, Hun! I’m home!”?

On June the 8th 1786 the first commercial ice cream went on sale. As refrigerators hadn’t been invented, by June 9th it had all melted away.

On  June 8th 1896  the first ever case of a car being stolen was recorded. The owner didn’t recognise the thief but he did manage to write down the registration number of the getaway car.

Yes, it’s all very silly.

But isn’t that what we all need right now?