As well as being Liverpool’s Capital of Culture year, 2008 is a leap year. So, as we are blessed with this wondrous spare day, the Daily Post features team muse on how, in an ideal world, they would spend February 29 – if they weren’t in the office

MY ENERGY levels are perilously low coping with 365 days. “Here comes sloth,” says my wife jocularly when I creep through the door – so I would spend the extra day rounding-up all the energetic gym-going, marathon-running, water-bottle-carrying bores, so they could be shipped off to a volcanic island threatened by global warming.

But that would be nothing compared to the fate awaiting bungee-jumpers, people who parrot into their portable phones on the street and those wretches who try and sell kitchens on the phone. On the other hand, I quite like doorstep evangelists, whom one can engage in discussions about the price of blue cheese and the colour of the moon.

* I would dream in a comfy armchair in front of an old-fashioned coal fire, periodically laughing at people who leave their carbon footprints on the Earth, think outside the box and use the word “action” as a verb.

* I would walk the high hills of Snowdonia, (pictured), with my son and a springer spaniel approaching old age.

* I would spend the morning shopping with my wife because I’m a diplomat and coward, which are often the same thing. But I would devote the afternoon to listening to my old Lonnie Donegan and Kinks records (particularly the Village Green Preservation Society).

* I would read again The Great Gatsby and some of F Scott Fitzgerald’s short stories, enjoying again the poetic beauty of his prose, then I would go to bed with a nice cup of cocoa.

Emma Johnson – on a culture quest

AN EXTRA day that has not already been allocated to doing a million and one things – well, the best way to spend that would be in front of the television with the entire boxed set (series 1-6) of Sex and the City, left. That way, I would be right on top of everything when the film comes out in May.

Then again, I am rather ashamed to say but I have never taken in any of our fine art galleries or museums in the city. So what better way to spend the day than a trip to the Walker and Tate Liverpool?

When that is over, I could come home and colour co-ordinate my wardrobe. In a standard year, there are not enough days to do that but this one is a spare so game on.

But, as I actually am the only member of the team with February 29 off, I will be spending it learning to ski/snowboard at the Chill Factor, the UK’s biggest indoor ski centre, near the Trafford Centre, in Manchester. In reality, that means I will spend most of the day on my very wet bottom.

Peter Elson – playing catch-up

AS SOMEONE who is always trying to beat the clock and always losing, I would like to use my Leap Day to catch up with everything that I’ve run out of time to complete in the previous year. In fact, I think there should be a February 29 every year, purely for this purpose.

Banking on fine, clear Lake District weather (which would be a certainty in February), I’d like to glide up Scafell Pike (pushed by a light gale-force wind, naturally) so that I could cruise to the summit with the minimum of effort and enjoy a classic picnic, including Grosvenor pie and Battenburg cake, with lashings of ginger beer, while feasting on a view over five counties. Ideally, a mountain rescue helicopter would airlift me down to a cosy Lakeland pub.

* Maybe I would take time to visit St Mary’s parish church, Edge Hill, Liverpool, which I’ve driven past countless times and never been inside. Apparently the Mole of Edge Hill, Joseph Williamson, who was busy digging in the 1800s extended one of his tunnels from his house to St Mary’s, so he’d not have to go outside to attend church. Is it still there? Then there’s St Bride’s, Percy Street, and St Patrick’s, Park Lane – basically there aren’t enough Leap Days.

After years of broken promises to myself, I’ll take up the piano again, which I technically stopped learning when I was about 12, although I had effectively opted out of years before by the simple expedient of doing no practice. Now I realise the error of my ways and this Leap Day, I’ll leap onto the piano stool and Begin the Beguine in my plan to storm the world as a cocktail pianist in the cream of Prescot’s speak-easies.

Laura Davis – completing all those grand plans

I SUPPOSE my extra day should be spent catching up on things I really should be doing but never seem to find the time for – like weeding the garden, cleaning the carpet or dubbing my walking boots.

However, as it would take an entire year of leap days to complete these tasks, I shall dedicate my time to simply finishing off the ones I have already started. So that should include the milk bottle indicator I began in design technology lessons, the half-knitted egg cosy for my Guide “crafts” badge and my Gold Duke of Edinburgh Award.

* I would like to see what it would be like to be someone else for a change, but it would have to be at a particularly interesting point in their lives.

Gypsy Rose Lee during the time she lived with WH Auden, Benjamin Britten and Carson McCullers in a ramshackle house in Brooklyn would be a good choice.

* As one of the few people in my family not blessed with artistic talent, I should like to spend the day learning how to draw. Just one thing would be fine, maybe a face or a flower, but even a decent-looking straight line would be a start.

* I would like to fly to Paris for the day by helicopter and spend a long, lazy afternoon rowing on the lake at Versailles with a bottle of white wine attached to the boat by a piece of string, trailing behind in the cold water to chill. Then I would sit under the shade of a willow tree, sipping from a crystal class while re-reading Paul Auster.

* As you spend most of your life having to do what other people tell you to, I would like to spend 24 hours doing the opposite of what I am told. This could be risky, say if someone suggested I get out of the road when there’s a bus coming . . .

Emma Pinch – pondering great questions

FEBRUARY 29 has been crow-barred into the calendar to keep the Western world running with durch sprung technik efficiency; none of this sitting around waiting for moons to wax and wane and chanting mantras like you (possibly) get in less stuffy countries.

A made-up day like February 29 should be spent on things that you could never put into your Blackberry. I’d spend an entire day lolling about perusing Reveal, Look, First, Grazia, Top Sante, Love It, Hair and all those other lovely hairdressers’ magazines you only usually get to read out of one awkwardly angled eye while your scalp’s being sandblasted by the junior. Or I’d go to the cinema in the middle of the day and watch kidult flicks like Finding Nemo, Shrek and Ratatouille, right. For sustenance, I’d have sackfuls of white chocolate mice, strawberry bootlaces, Doritos and other cinema staples, bought from Spar, not the designated multiplex outlet.

I’d solve once and for all the random panics that descend occasionally and quickly lift, but could one day be rather important. Do I possess the deeds to my flat in any findable place; what is my blood group; does my car still have its spare tyre, and if so, where?

I might try to avail myself of some of the grown-up stuff taught on a day when I must have overslept, like how an interest-only mortgage works and what exactly an ISA wrapping is.

I should also familiarise myself with the exact location of my car’s oil reservoir and read the instructions on my camera/mobile phone/lap top. On second thoughts, even with an extra day or two, life’s too short.

Philip Key – catching up on the soaps

THERE is a message I write on all my Christmas cards to old friends: “We must meet up this year.” Do we meet up? Hardly ever.

Before I know it, a year has passed and I find myself writing the same message.

I tell myself there are not enough days in a year. Now there is an extra one, perhaps there is an opportunity to do something about it.

There is little chance of seeing them all. But one of them, even two? Maybe this could be the year.

On the other hand, I could do something else I have never done and for once catch up with the rest of the population. I could watch a television soap.

There was a time when I was an avid viewer of Coronation Street but that was in black and white days when Ena Sharples, left, was still in the snug.

Just who are all these characters in the Street now or Albert Square come to that? What’s going on down at the farm in Emmerdale? And who on earth lives in Ramsey Street?

The extra day will give me an opportunity to discover just what fascinates millions of viewers and answer my question: am I missing something?