Welcome to Blue Monday

...Which has as much scientific basis & truth behind it as statements like "less guns=less crime" and "we have to pass the bill to see what's in it"...

So- Blue Monday
Feel like crap today?
Here's why:
Cliff Arnall (the phlogiston scientist that came up with this crap) says the date was calculated by using many factors, including: weather conditions, debt level (the difference between debt accumulated and our ability to pay), time since Christmas, time since failing our new year’s resolutions, low motivational levels and feeling of a need to take action.


This date allegedly falls on the Monday of the last full week of January. The date was first declared to be 24 January in 2005.
In 2011 there was confusion about the correct date; some claimed it to be 17 January 2011 while others stated Blue Monday was on 24 January 2011. In 2012, the most depressing day of the year was said to be 23 January.

Calculation
(in case you want to waste your valuable time thinking about this...)

According to a press release by a mental health charity, the formula is:

where W=weather
d=debt,
T=time since Christmas,
Q=time since failing our new year’s resolutions,
M=low motivational levels
and N_a = the feeling of a need to take action
'D' is not defined in the release, nor are units.
(Personally I think D=the current level of Dumbassery in the current administration, contributing to the overall malaise in the country - TBG)

Writing about the calculation, Ben Goldacre stated: ... the fact is that Cliff Arnall's equations ... fail even to make mathematical sense on their own terms.

Really Ben, y'think?

TBG- ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE