Zoom
Peter Edgerton
Friday, 16 January 2026, 11:09
The Oxford English Dictionary offers five different definitions for the word 'logic', which is a bit, you know, illogical if you ask me. Anyway, it's the second one which is most troubling: 'Reasoned or sound thinking, the principles or methods by which correct conclusions are drawn'. The thing is, correct conclusions can very often be drawn from splendidly unsound thinking and flying very much by the seat of one's pants.
I'm writing this piece on 14 January which is Unesco World Logic Day, which brings with it a chance to celebrate all those logical decisions we've made in our lives that have brought us no end of joy and wonder. You know, like that time we... hang on... here we go... er... any minute now... oh, well. My own absurd existence has been littered with decisions that made no sense at all on paper but very often worked out rather well. For example, staying in Malaga for longer than the one night I had originally planned with very little money and not knowing a single soul except for a group of students I'd just met in a pub. Currently, it's just over 30 wonderful years since that one night and counting.
When Steve Jobs was mooting the idea of the iPad at Apple, he was, by all accounts, strongly advised by his team of boffins to shelve the project given that customers could already buy both a mobile phone and a desktop and it simply wouldn't be logical to produce a tablet too. Mmmm...
Similarly, you'd think J.K. Rowling might have looked at the 12 rejection letters lying on her coffee table one morning and thought 'You know what - the errant antics of a schoolboy wizard might not be as good an idea as I thought after half a lager'. But no, she sent the thirteenth manuscript in to Bloomsbury anyway and, hey presto, unleashed a behemoth.
In fact, the more you think about it, the greatest of human qualities often fly in the face of any logic. Love, for example. If logic played a big part, there'd be no woman alive who wouldn't swoon at the prospect of a tank-top sporting suitor, chomping on a bourbon biscuit jotting down the pros and cons of married life in a notepad gifted to him by his mother on his last birthday.
Also, courage. Surely, the greatest acts of bravery in history have defied all logic. In fact, that's precisely the point. From Joan of Arc to Dunkirk; Oskar Schindler to Rosa Parks, our past (and present) has been graced by those who put aside what made the most sense in favour of what they felt was right.
So, it seems to me that logic has its place in the world but I think Unesco need to be looking very seriously at an international 'It Makes No Sense Whatsoever but I'll Do It Anyway' day. It'd be the logical thing to do, after all.