And now for something completely different....

That's right, as promised something a bit lighter this time. No more politics, war, anti-American propaganda or anything similar, at least not today.

So what then, you may ask, are you going to entertain us with today? Truth be told, and I'd be a liar if I didn't, I haven't got a clue, but I'm sure I'll work it out along the way.

Firstly, as it's Easter Monday, a couple of things that strike me as being a little bit strange.
Now, I'm not religious in any way, so maybe my understanding of Easter itself could be a little bit better, but when exactly is Easter? Christmas I understand, 25th December to celebrate the "Birth of Christ" or whatever. Right, fair enough. By that logic it makes sense to commemorate "The Death of Christ" too, again, fair enough. Only no bugger seems to actually know when we should do that, which, in my opinion, adds a little bit of weight to the whole argument about Jesus and the Bible being nothing more than a story. I mean, if you know when he was supposedly born, then surely its not too hard to find out when he died? After all he was a lot more famous just before his death than he was just before his birth, though I admit there are a suspicious number of songs and Christmas Carols in particular which seem to point towards a little bit of prior knowledge on the part of their composers. Anyway, what I'm getting at is that there is no fixed date for Easter. In my head anyway it’s always at some point in March or April, so I just did what I probably should have done before starting to write, I looked it up on the intermaweb. And this is where I got a bit of a shock. Easter, the second most important date in the Christian Calendar, falls according to the cycles of the moon.

Now, again my knowledge or such matters is sketchy to say the least, but surely that's a little bit pagan for a Christian Celebration?!
Then I got to thinking about the actual days of Easter, see how radical my thought process is?! and it struck me that Good Friday seems to be a funny name for the day when Jesus supposedly died. Call me naive, but if I were him, and I was sitting in some kind of post-project evaluation meeting with whoever was responsible for the naming of days (I'm pretty sure that's how it happens) I think I would feel a little aggrieved:
"Good work for the last few years there Mr Christ, all that water into wine and loaves and fishes seems to have had the desired effect, there's even talk of a book and a movie at some point in the future, but in the meantime what we are going to do is add a few days of holiday into the calendar in your honour."
"Ok, sounds good, when were you thinking of?"
"Well, there's December 25th of course, should tie in nicely with a big Coca Cola marketing drive too which is good, and we were thinking of a long weekend sometime in March or April to commemorate that nasty business with the old Crucifix and the Romans."
"Right....when you say sometime in March or April, could you be more specific?"
"In a word, no. You see it all depends on the cycles of the moon."
"The moon?"
"Yep, the moon. Problem?"
"Well, it's just that, well what's wrong with having it fall on the actual day that I was crucified?"
"Ah but you see we dont know when that was, do we?"
"Well I do, I was there. It was the...."
"Well obviously you know, but we thought it might add to your mystique a bit, you know, build your profile a bit."
"You think I need to, after all I've done?"
"Well, it can't harm can it? And we're going to call the day Good Friday!"
"GOOD FRIDAY? What, in the name of Chr...erm in the name of Sweet Jes... erm, well what in the name of something that came before me was good about it?"
"You don't like the name? Ah, well, we've already released the press release and everything......sorry."

Now, obviously, I don't know for sure that that is how it went, but then again, that puts me on a par with most of the Bible, which can't be bad. Oh, and another thing, if you’re gonna name the day he died Good Friday, you could at least name the day he came back to life Even Better Sunday or something.

So, in true Christian tradition, my next post will depend largely on the cycles of the moon.