I'm moving!

Plot28 is moving to a new home. Actually, it's moving to 2 new homes. The 'new' Plot28 can be found at plot28.net. From now on, that's where all my general blogging and ranting will be going down. All the allotment-related stuff will be moving to allotmenteering.com. I hope this isn't too much of a chore for everyone, but the old blogger format is a bit limiting and it makes it too difficult for readers to leave comments if they don't have their own blogger account. The new sites are easy to comment on; just leave a name and email and make a comment. After I've ok'd your first comment, any subsequent comments should go straight up there. So, as Delia would say, 'Where are ya? Let's be avin' ya'.

So remember, plot28.net and allotmenteering.com from now on. I've transferred my old posts and there's already new stuff posted on P28. Like my newly planted peas, allotmenteering.com will take a few weeks, but it will be worth the wait. See you on the other side.

Jesus and chocolate

It's Easter again. Of all the ramshackle public holidays that we cling to so desperately in Britain, Easter is probably my favourite. For a nation that is more multicultural than most, it's always astounded me that the Christians have the monopoly in deciding when the national holidays are. One disadvantage of this Jesus-biased status quo, is that the holidays are all during the cold weather. Perhaps we should be a bit more ecumenical about it and look for a religion that's got an important holiday in October for us to celebrate, when we could all get a great deal on some late summer sun in the Maldives. When I was at Uni in the 1880s, I used to make it my mission to buddy-up to friends from as many different religions as possible, so that I could legitimately drink to a plethora of gods and spirits, right around the calendar. To be fair, I've found that one decent Hindu friend is all you need; you bring the gods and I'll bring the spirits.

In the meantime, before the advent of the glorious world party, we'll have to make the most of it and have it large this Easter. Trouble is, I'm not really sure what 'having it large' at Easter should entail? Obviously enough, it should involve some level of chocolate-based self-abuse. Which is great if you're a chocolate fetishist, or 'a girl' as some would define chocolate fetishism. I'm not being all blokey about it, but I'm just not genetically pre-disposed to getting my rocks off at the meandering daydreams of liquid cocoa fountains or satin sheets strewn with crumbled Flake. And that's Easter's main problem from a marketing perspective; if you're not worshiping at the temple of Mars (or Cadbury's if you're old school), then it's hard to find something to party for. Not like good old Christmas. Everyone knows that you can have a cool Yule and party on, even if you have less than a passing acquaintance with the baby Jesus, just because there is so much more iconography and symbolism associated with Xmas for you to get your teeth into. Resurrection and chocolate; silly and sickly. So why is Easter my fave hol?

I think it's because the religious aspects of Easter are so flimsy, so patently manufactured to fit a deep-felt need in all of us to recognise the arrival of spring, that you can ignore the donkey-back-empty-tomb nonsense and just enjoy some quality time at the point in the year when everything is bursting with potential and even the most cynical are forced to exercise their optimism muscles. I realise that I'm being a bit geo-centric here; my chums and readers in the southern hemisphere have a different perspective. For those of you under the Southern Cross, it's just the chocolate and bunnies. Unless you guys are actually celebrating harvest at Easter, in which case you have a load of great reasons to get with your homies and have a knees-up.

Any of you religious types reading this, please don't fume and get offended. As a committed atheist, it's important for me to wring every last drop out of each and every day of my life; I've got to get busy with the party now, because I'm not planning on rocking a fat one with the heavenly host for all eternity. So this weekend, I'll be having Easter as large as I can. From memory, next week I'll be showing my respects in the party manner for Siva the Destroyer. Wow, only a few short months to Yom Kippur. I must send out the invites. Anybody fancy a bite of my Toffee Crisp, for Jesus' sake?