Dear All, Today (at 17.05 Australian Eastern Standard Summer Time) is the Summer Solstice in the southern hemisphere and the Winter Solstice in the northern hemisphere.
I was simply going to wish you all a Happy Summer Solstice and wish you all the best for the coming year, but I made the mistake of running it past my lawyers. Here is their recommendation. ** 'Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, non-addictive, gender neutral celebration of the summer solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable tradition of the religious persuasion of your choice, with respect for the religious or secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all, and � 'A fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2004 but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures, whose contributions to society have made Australia great (not to imply that Australia is necessarily greater than any other country), and without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability or religious faith of the wishee. 'By accepting this greeting, you are accepting these terms. This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. 'It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for the wishees or others and is void where prohibited by law and revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher. 'This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year, or until the issuance of a subsequent solstice greeting, whichever comes first. Warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher.'* ** So what has this got to do with metrication � I hear you ask! I am often reminded that avoidance and non-acceptance of metric measures are in many ways similar to the avoidance and non-acceptance of the Summer and Winter Solstices � people go to extraordinary lengths to hide these natural events (and simple measures) by clothing them in all sorts of ceremonial (and complexifying) garments. Cheers, Pat Naughtin Geelong, Australia * With thanks, this piece was adapted from Anon. --
