HAS anyone else noticed that there seems to be a day or even a whole week designated for pretty much every conceivable cause these days? Some of these are of the utmost importance and deserve to be acknowledged.

International Peace Day for example is celebrated by most right-minded people (if they remember). Just don’t mention it to the armed forces.

Human Rights Day is another hugely important occasion, not that you would have noticed in this country recently.

Yet almost without fail we stumble from one such commemorative event to the next, with only the changing of a wristband to signify the difference. Save the Earthworm Week, Amnesia Remembrance day, Stand Up Against Impotence Saturday — you name it, they have a slot pencilled in on the calendar.

This week is apparently World Gobshitery Awareness Week. Not an occasion usually marked with any real reverence — try getting a Hallmark card with a twee rhyme about that — although I understand the guy who writes them is an honorary life member.

Nevertheless it appears to have infected the global zeitgeist to a phenomenal degree.

Tired of having your fatuous utterances pilloried purely because they make no sense?

Always the first to proffer an inanity at a business or political meeting only to be ignored?

Do your pronouncements lack all but the merest semblance of profundity?

Well fear not brothers and sisters, we at Gobshitery Awareness are here for you, whether you like it or not. And we won’t go away.

Students of politics will no doubt be thinking: “Isn’t this every week?” And they would have a point. But no, this seven-day window has seen countless individuals around the globe raise their game to mark the occasion.

Now this column usually eschews the spiteful bile poured forth by Republican maniacs like professional offence-giver Ann Coulter. But in the spirit of the season and all that…

In the space of a few days Coulter has argued that disabled migrants should not be allowed into the US and “better” people should be brought in instead. She also warned that we would have to get used to “our daughters getting raped” because of the number of immigrants in the country. So far so pathetically predictable.

She then somewhat blotted her copybook however by claiming that US citizens could end up “fleeing to Canada” to escape the foreign hordes, which would of course make them, er, refugees and immigrants.

But she wasn’t done there. In a stroke of perverse genius Coulter, who is at least nominally female, came out with the claim, and — in the words of Theresa May — I’m not making this up, that women should not be allowed to vote.

Can you hear that noise? That’s the sound of thousands of Suffragettes rotating in their graves.

It’s taking things to a whole new level when you’re spouting bigotry against your own gender.

I don’t know about you but I can think of ONE woman who definitely shouldn’t be allowed to vote.

Jaw-droppingly crass as Coulter’s remarks were, there were other contenders for the prize this week.

On the ultra right-wing Family Research Council’s (FRC) “Washington Watch” programme on Monday, evangelist Franklin Graham urged listeners to follow him in boycotting businesses he sees as “too LGBT-friendly.”

If the name sounds familiar that’s because he’s the son of God’s official spokesman on matters of intolerance and avarice, Billy Graham, and the apple hasn’t fallen far from the tree.

Graham told guest-host Craig James, an FRC official, that the US has “turned our back as a nation on God” and no longer “listens to the religious leaders of this country.” That would be him, presumably.

Graham urged people to “love” their gay and lesbian neighbours “enough to warn them” that they will “spend eternity in hell” since “God has no hope but to judge them.”

Yeah, thanks for that Franklin.

That is the kind of sick and twisted internal logic employed by your average abusive spouse: “I only beat them up because I love them so much.”

Contrary to the opinion of most God-botherers, there is actually very little in the “good book” referring to same-sex relationships. I seem to recall there is an awful lot about worshipping false idols, robbing the poor and gullible and posing as a false prophet.

In keeping with the spirit of the sentiment I think it’s incumbent on the rest of us to “love” Franklin enough to inform him that if there is a hell, he’s going to be right at the front of the queue.