How do you write dates?

Don't say "D", "A", "T", "E", "S" you smartarse. (That's almost as bad as the joke: Guy 1: "Help! Call me an ambulance!" Guy 2: "Ok. You're an ambulance...")

Can you tell I'm bored? What the hell kind of blog post has the title, "How do you write dates?" I know you wacky Americans write month, day, year whereas the rest of world write day, month, year. Well, I think it's the rest of the world - my experience thus far has taught me that UK and Europe do, so do Aus. Africa uses a totally different system which makes no sense to me, so that doesn't count. I don't think the penguins in Antarctica give a toss about the date; to them it's probably either: "eat fish day" or "get eaten by a bear" day, depending on what their bi-optional horoscopes say.

But anyway, this isn't what I meant at all by the post title. I meant, how do you indicate them? Which is even more boring.

Until I was about 22 I always used to write (for example) 17/6/83 (I say "for example" because I didn't want you to think I wrote the same date every day...). But then, almost overnight I noticed myself titling my daily notes in my notebook as 17-6-83. Wow! Somehow the slash I'd always used had gone horizontal and metamorphasised into a dash. What a strange thing to happen eh?

I've always kept a notebook of my daily work activities since I was 17. Even when self employed I used to ask each of my clients to provide me with a proper hardback notebook and each time I visited them I'd ask for my book and write up what I'd done on that visit or recall details from any previous visit.

In my current job, here in Aus, it's the same. On day 1 I asked for a hard backed notebook. Provisions man turned up with a spiral bound shitpad. I gave it back and pulled out of my bag (literally) one to describe what I meant by HARDback noteBOOK.. The provisions guy kind of gaped at me and said "Well mate, only senior management yet that type normally..."

He came back ten minutes later with my noteBOOK. As ever, I digress hugely. Last week I was flicking through my notebook for current job and I noticed that for the first time in my life on some days I'd started writing the date as 17.6.83. Bloody hell! The fallen over slash has shrivelled into a ball and died!

Then - can you handle the excitement? I turned the page and saw I'd written 17/6/83! My date separator is a phoenix! It fell over, died a few years later, and then within days was born again.

I'm not high on drugs I assure you. I'm just in a very stupid mood and anything goes. So to speak. Also, life is probably more uneventful now than it has been for years. Thank gods for the love of my life, TT, to keep me sane.