New Year's Eve Always on Saturday? Party on

It's not a bad idea, really. It just needs to get past the thousands of employees who would be put out of work because of it.

It is an idea put forward by a couple of well-meaning professors at Johns Hopkins University. Their idea is to make the calendar into a 364-day thing of beauty, which has the same dates on the same days of the week, every year. Christmas would be on a Sunday every year, as would New Year's Day. Public holidays would have the same date each year, and so on.

It's the bright idea of an economist and an astrophysicist, so this idea isn't lacking in the brainpower behind it. It's not like these guys just dashed something off. No, they spent several years poring over the details, eventually deciding to remove one day from the annual calendar and then make up for it by adding an extra week every few years. (Trust them, it works.)

The months would travel in cycles of three, with the first two having 30 and then the third having 31. Months four and five would have 30, and month six would have 31. You get the idea. But rather than adding that pesky Leap Day every four years, the calendar gurus decided to save them all up and have an extra week at the end of December every fix or six years. (Not sure what they're calling those days, other than Extra Day 1, Extra Day 2, etc.) Again, that's not the point. These guys have it figured out.

OK, so they know their numbers and they know their sun-moon-weekday dynamics. What they don't quite have worked out is the somewhat significant detail that they'd have to change the minds of millions of people all round the world. 

Some people like their September having only 30 days in it. Some people want their July 4 to be on a weekend two out of every seven years. (And in case you're wondering, these guys didn't go anywhere near Easter. That's a whole different kettle of fish.) Why should these people go away from something that they know like the back of their hand?

See, this is always the hard part isn't it — the marketing. You get a great idea and you put all your blood, sweat, and tears into it and then nobody knows about it or, worse, nobody cares. If people already have the iPhone 4S, why do they want your knock-off? They might like the fact that it's a bit quirky and you never know what Siri is going to say next. Why would they want your boring phone, which says the same thing every Sunday? 

What this also means, of course, is that once you buy a calendar, you won't have to buy another one. If you really have to include the year on your calendar (as if you can't remember once you've got the hang of it, along about April), then you can buy the calendar that has the year on it (instead of crossing out the last one or two digits every year and writing in your own version of currency). I could see buying a calendar every time you add the Extra Week, but that's still one every five or six years. 

And all of that means that an entire industry would nearly go out of business. Think of the millions of dollars spent each year around the world on the production and use of this year's calendar. Surely big business would have something to say about this permanent calendar business. If they have their way, this grand experiment would never see the light of day in any meaningful way.

The calendar gurus are confident, though. One of them has a history of changing people's minds, as a financial advisor in several countries in which people eventually decided to change currencies. They also think that time is on their side.

For these two, the calendar is just not a field full of daydreams. Their mantra could well be, if you build it, they will come.

You can read more about it here.