For a nation which declares a public holiday for just about anything, New Zealand is suffering badly in 2000. This weekend's Taranaki Anniversary Day is the first day off we've had since New Year. What with Waitangi Day falling on a Sunday, Anzac Day being absorbed into the late Easter, plus the fact that it's a leap year, we will actually be working three extra days this year.

Easter has always been an odd holiday, in that it moves around between early March and late April. You'd think that if the powers that be can assign the birth of Jesus to a specific date, they could, as it were, nail down a date for the crucifixion. Easter Tuesday, however, is an antipodean add-on. It probably originates from the same place as the holiday on 2 January - namely, the great kiwi hangover. At least they didn't call it Day After Easter Monday, which must count for something.

With Waitangi Day becoming increasingly controversial, there has been a call to scrap it in favour of a New Zealand Day. I can see the point - the day should be a chance to celebrate our diversity, rather than grandstand about our differences. But we have to move it away from 6 February, to rid it of the Waitangi stigma. So where do we put it?

Well, there is a substantial interval in the calendar between June and October. Maybe our Not Waitangi Day could be placed somewhere in this gap. But instigating a public holiday is a long drawn out process and I can see the bureaucrats spinning it out for years. So I think I've come up with the ultimate solution. You probably figured I would.

I propose that every citizen of New Zealand be allowed one extra statutory holiday per annum, to be taken at their own discretion. There are certain ground rules - it has to be on a Monday, at least eight weeks after Pentecost and before Labour Day; and you can't save them up for five years and take a week off. The name for this holiday - and I've thought about it long and hard - shall be Bad Hair Day.

Everyone has a bad hair day. I have at least four per week. But only very rarely is it so bad that you really do not want to be seen in public. So if it really bothers you, and it happens to fall on a Monday between the required dates, phone your employer. The holiday will be recorded by the personnel department, or human resources, as they are known these days - a sort of "impersonnel."

I have no qualms with people pre-booking their Bad Hair Days. In fact, think how much easier it would be to arrange a family get-together without all that holiday traffic or the stress of Christmas. And I love the idea of the irate customer accosting a receptionist or shop assistant, demanding to see the manager, only to be told "I'm sorry, he's having a Bad Hair Day."

Of course, there will be those sensitive souls who will say that Bad Hair Day is demeaning to the follicularly disadvantaged. It's a cultural offence on a par with placing crosses on hot cross buns. But whereas I would suggest to the champions of the uncrossed bun that they get a life, I do pity the shiny, unhappy people. So, for every Bad Hair Day claim by a person of diminished hirsuteness, an official government-issue Bad Hairpiece will be supplied by Winz, who will be renamed Wigz.

And no, I don't expect them to spend millions on signage for their new logo.