My trusty Penguin Book of Quotations does not tell me who first said the English take their pleasures sadly but it certainly isn't true today.

Looking out of the window where I work this week, I seem to be one of the few people fettered to an office stool.

Half-term, when I was at school, was just a couple of days off but now, it is an excuse for a week-long jamboree. Brighton is bursting with people on short breaks and day trips. Thousands of local people have jetted off to foreign parts to soak up the last vestiges of summer sun.

I was on a bus one evening this week, which was packed with 14-year-old girls going to one of the nappy nights held by clubs for young teenagers.

In between slurping from communal wine bottles, these feisty young trollops were conversing at a decibel level not unlike Concorde passing overhead and having a thoroughly wonderful raucous time.

Tonight is Hallowe'en, an occasion which passed almost without comment until recently.

Now it is an excuse for ghouls, ghosts and gropers to come out of the shadows and for varmints to go round the suburbs worrying susceptible old ladies with dubious variants on trick and treat.

Next week will be November 5, an evening once devoted to letting off a few damp squibs and penny bangers in dank back gardens.

For many people, it has become a full-scale party not confined to Bonfire Night but lasting several weeks before and after.

Often fireworks costing hundreds of pounds are ignited in lavish displays.

We seem prepared to celebrate anything and are not averse to inventing some new excuses. Couples always celebrated their anniversaries but now often also mark the day when they first met.

St Valentine's Day, which often falls conveniently in the February half term, is not confined to the exchange of small presents but, for many, is marked by meals for two in restaurants offering romantic meals at exorbitant prices.

The lovely-dovey atmosphere at these sentimental beanfeasts is enough to make non-participants retch.

Christmas now runs seamlessly into New Year with only skeleton services operated by public authorities during this period.

By the time many people have taken off a few days beforehand to complete their shopping, they have often not worked for a fortnight.

Easter has lost most of the religious significance it once had with Good Friday, one of the most holy days in the Christian calendar, now a shopping festival.

Whitsun has been ousted by the Spring Bank Holiday while, sandwiched uncomfortably between them, is May Day, an excuse for village rituals such as dancing around maypoles or for marking the rights of workers.

Anarchists have also made this a day for attacking the capitalism that provides them with their benefits.

We seem to hop from one pleasure to another with few breaks. Whereas once, most families, if they took holidays, had one modest break by the sea in the summer.

Now I know of some people who take six or even eight trips a year. Eating out, a special occasion in the past, is now a weekly or twice weekly event for many people, despite the enormous expense of most restaurants.

Restaurants, night spots, clubs, cafes and stores, open with almost monotonous regularity in most Sussex resorts, especially Brighton and Hove, which seems to have become the nation's pleasure dome.

I query how they all keep going until I see the trippers rolling in by train, taxi and car with bulging handbags and wallets stuffed with credit cards.

I sometimes wonder whether these merrymakers ever miss the enjoyment of anticipating a treat but apparently not, as the revels never seem to be over.

So Happy Half Term, Happy Hallowe'en and don't forget, an excuse to celebrate tomorrow is that it will be All Saints' Day.