zhisou

Easter makes me feel foreign. Easter in Spain is solemn processions of hooded churchy people and widows dressed in black marching behind huge wooden floats carried on the shoulders of serious gum-chewing men.

Easter in the UK is chocolate eggs and rabbits and pictures of chicks – the feathered kind.

It seems as though the only holidays that catch on in the UK are the ones that have a pagan link. So Easter´s not about the crucifixion of Christ, it´s about spring and babies and eggs and hope. Christmas isn´t about the birth of our saviour, it´s about mid-winter feasting and yule logs and hanging crap on trees.

I guess this is why the crazy Fat Tuesday pre-Lent carnivals that shake the Catholic world barely register up north where a few stout lonely souls half-heartedly eat a couple of pancakes and wonder why they bother.

When I rule I will restructure the bank holiday system to reflect the true meaning of our festivals. We´ll have Winter Solstice and Yule, we´ll celebrate the joy of Spring and the magic of midsummer.  We´d have bountiful Autumn harvest festivals. We´d ditch all this Christmas and Easter and Whit´sun malarky.

How fantastic would that be!

And the shops would have to close.