just another day.

Calendars are tricky. Make the wrong choice, and you’re lumbered for the next 12 months. Often I’m lucky enough to receive a fine offering from one of my designery friends, but this year no such generosity was forthcoming. Which meant venturing into the ‘real world’ of big-breasted women, dog breeds, and soap stars to see if I could find something that remotely fitted the bill.

On www.calendarclub.com, I was mildly diverted by one featuring 12 Mexican wrestlers photographed by Malcolm Venville; tempted for a moment by a another featuring 12 reclining nudes painted by old masters including Ingres and Modigliani. But I finally settled for a collection of US fruit crate labels from the 1920s, which seemed suitably graphic and obscure.It turned up with a sticker on it which read “We apologise that February 29th appears on your 2009 calendar. This error does not affect the rest of the calendar. All other dates are correct”. No mention of this on the web site and no discount. You’d think for a company that specialises in selling calendars, the one they’d get right are the dates. If ever there was a case of form before function, this is it.

click to download pdf.