Weeknotes #349

It was Silver Week (Wikipedia): a five-day weekend where Monday was Respect for the Aged Day, Wednesday was Autumnal Equinox Day and so under Japanese law, Tuesday was an ‘extra’ holiday. I was thinking that I didn’t remember a five-day weekend last year and it turns out it’s only in years where you have Respect for the Aged Day be Monday and Autumnal Equinox Day be the Wednesday. This triggers the application of the rule under Section 3(3) of the Act on National Holidays (国民の祝日に関する法律) (a copy of which is available in English). The rule turns an ordinary weekday into a public holiday if it’s surrounded by two public holidays. This doesn’t happen very often: the next time will be 2032. Does all of that ring a bell? Almost certainly not for you but I did wonder if I’d written about this before and it turns out yes. In this weeknote in 2022, I wrote: I was going to call the week ‘Silver Week’ but after a quick glance at Wikipedia’s entry) I realised that wouldn’t be correct. Silver Week…