Jobs are being lost as newspaper offices and staffing arrangements are being restructured, because more and more people are getting their information from the internet.

Even in the local region jobs are being cut from newspapers, which is fine because I think I have found a new calling in life.

I want to be the person who decides and allocates the plethora of international days that somehow seem to clutter the calendar.

Because, let’s face it, some of these days are just obscure and downright strange.

Sure, there are the self-explanatory days raising awareness about particular illnesses or conditions, such as World Autism Awareness Day, World Aids Day, World Cancer Day and World Refugee Day.

Even the Global Day of Parents, World Oceans Day, World Elder Abuse Awareness Day and World Blood Donor Day can be easily understood by the masses.

But unfortunately not all of them are simple and straight forward.

For example, did you know this week was the Week of Solidarity with the Peoples of Non-Self-Governing Territories?

No? Did that one just happen to slip by you while you were busy watching the football or sweeping the floor?

I must admit I don’t really know what that means, or what the wekk is supposed to achieve, although I suppose it is just as obscure as the United Nations Public Service Day coming up next month.

Is that suggesting we should all go out and do some public service, or is it paying tribute to all the dedicated and hard working people in the public service – which in itself if a bit of an oxymoron giving the lack of service the public service so often provides.

Although I have to admit there are days where it seems like a small group of a possibly a handful of people have got together and then annoyed the heck out of someone who eventually gave in and said, “Here, we will give you an international day,” just to shut them up and get rid of them.

And then the four people in the pressure group walk off smiling, thinking their hundreds of hours writing letters actually achieved something, not realising their days would be included in a calendar but never spoken of again.

I suspect that was  probably the reason behind things like the International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and Its Abolition;  the International Day for Preventing the Exploitation of the Environment in War and Armed Conflict; the International Volunteer Day for Economic and Social Development; or even the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists.

There are the bizarre ones, such as World Toilet Day and World Television Day, although they pale behind the International Talk Like a Pirate Day and International Star Wars Day.

But the day that has me most puzzled at the moment is something called Fatality Free Friday, calling on people to sign a pledge that for one day in coming weeks they will do their best not to kill themselves on the roads, or kill anyone else.

Now this might seem a bit strange and a bit of a startling revelation, but I spend pretty much every day trying not to kill myself or anyone else, and most people are in the same boat.

And even if I sign the pledge does that mean it is okay to drive like an idiot on other days?