April 22 - Robin Knox Johnston Day?

So my blogging friend Adam Turinas (who messes about in a boat called Messing About and writes about it in a blog called Messing About in Messing About or if he doesn't he should) wants to Make April 22nd Robin Knox-Johnston Day on the Web.

Hmmm. I'm not sure about this. I can see good arguments for and against this proposition.

Against

1. April 22 is already taken. It's Lenin's birthday. OK. OK. So things didn't work out in the long run exactly how he had hoped, but he certainly had a major impact on 20th century history.
   
   
2. April 22 is also Robert Oppenheimer's birthday. We're still living with the aftermath of Dr. Oppenheimer's creation. It will be many decades, if ever, before the human race can sleep easy again.
   
   
3. Oh, and by the way, April 22 is Earth Day. Geeze Adam what were you thinking? As the years go by, the importance of appreciation for the earth's environment will only increase. Why divert attention from Earth Day with some other festival on the same day?
   
   
4. Finally, April 22 is Glenn Campbell's birthday. Like a rhinestone cowboy riding out on a horse in a star-spangled rodeo... Don't you just get goose bumps when you hear the line "There'll be a load of compromisin', on the road to my horizon"? What a brilliant rhyme! I rest my case.

For

1. Robin Knox-Johnston was the only finisher, and so the winner, of the 1968/69 Sunday Times Golden Globe Race, becoming the first man to circumnavigate the globe non-stop and single-handed on 22 April 1969. Pretty impressive dude.
   
   
2. He donated his prize money as Golden Globe winner to the family of Donald Crowhurst, who committed suicide during the race. What a guy!
   
   
3. He conceived the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race, an event which gives paying amateur crew members the chance to sail around the world.
   
   
4. He has one of those cool double-barreled English surnames that always gives blokes like me with only one name an inferiority complex.
   
   
5. He has a very nautical looking beard.
   
   
6. Come on guys, look at #1 again. He was the first. The first human being in the history of the world to sail single-handed non-stop around the world. Nobody had ever done it before. Nobody even knew if it was possible. Every other guy who tried that year either broke down, gave up, went crazy, or committed suicide. This is right up there with the achievements of Columbus (who was beaten by the Vikings anyway) and Edmund Hillary (who may or may not have stepped on the summit of Everest before Tenzing Norgay, or even Mallory and Irving 29 years earlier.)

OK Adam. I give up. You are right. Let's Make April 22nd Robin Knox-Johnston Day on the Web