So I suppose we could call it Springval?

April 4, 2017 1:52 AM

Theresa May has weighed in on an argument regarding the National Trust's decision to erase mention of Easter from their Egg Hunts, something the NT has denied.

Twitter has pointed out that this is not really true.

Fret not, though, Easterwatch is keeping a careful eye on the situation.

posted by threetwentytwo (69 comments total)

Puzzled by the AB of C's very intemperate language about John Cadbury. Do Quakers even bother with Easter? How do they feel about Anglicans stepping in to tell people what they think about it?
posted by Segundus at 2:07 AM on April 4, 2017

Stuff like this really gives you a glimpse at the soul of British conservatism. The imaginary barbarians of political correctness are at the gate again, trying to water down our dubious for-profit religious festivals. Resist, or the 1950s could be lost forever!
posted by pipeski at 2:21 AM on April 4, 2017 [34 favorites]

Archbishop of York Dr John Sentamu accused the chocolate giant of ‘spitting on the grave’ of its religious founder by removing references to Christianity’s most sacred festival.

When I read that I thought "Oh, that's interesting, an archbishop who doesn't believe in the Resurrection."

No, what the Archbishop actually meant was that the famous Quaker dissenter John Cadbury, despite his opposition to external shows of piety, and despite his persecution by by the Established (and then wholly dominant) Anglican Church, would certainly have agreed with the Anglican Archbishop that children must be reminded that their shiny confectionery has been magically laid by Jesus's friend, Bunny. And Jews and Moslems can fsck right off, OK?
posted by Joe in Australia at 2:22 AM on April 4, 2017 [14 favorites]

Where's Mitta Romenig when you need him to fight the Wodenist threat?
posted by Zarkonnen at 2:41 AM on April 4, 2017 [1 favorite]

As a Muslim with a British passport, I think there are more fundamental problems around how religions in the UK are represented, or the relative power they hold, or the assumption that they are organised on the same hierarchical lines as the Church of England.

I also think it would be nice if non-Christian celebrations were brought into the mainstream, instead of Christian celebrations made into the secular norm.
posted by tavegyl at 2:47 AM on April 4, 2017 [25 favorites]

Christmas has fallen! Let the war on Easter begin!
posted by TedW at 2:55 AM on April 4, 2017 [22 favorites]

I wonder if this is an intentional dog-whistle to the UKIP-xenophobe element, for whom "CADBURY HAVE REMOVED THE WORD EASTER FROM THEIR EGGS!!1" is an actual "Muslims are taking over the country!!" rallying point.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 3:03 AM on April 4, 2017 [7 favorites]

I think one of the many terrible realisations associated with the outcomes of brexit is we now have a prime minister who engages in this ludicrous tabloid simplicity. After all, this is the same person who claimed that a cat had blocked someone from being deported despite it not being even slightly true. This is why I'm so pessimistic about brexit, because we have a leadership (and, to be honest, an opposition) who are utterly disconnected from reality.
posted by Cannon Fodder at 3:20 AM on April 4, 2017 [19 favorites]

Hey, Joe in Australia, the 2nd sentence of your 2nd paragraph has a misspelling of Muslim in English that the Muslim Council of Great Britain specifically requested the Daily Mail stop using in 2002 because of how othering it is. Also, you're being a total jerk in the 1st sentence of the paragraph, even if the Archbishop was being a little sanctimonious when he called on the memory of John Cadbury. I know for sure that while the Cadbury family had control of the business, they were very supportive of the wider and more doctrinal Christian community. They did after all provide financing guarantees to the parish that I grew up in for the church building and its church hall well into the 1980s, for example.

Hopefully it goes without saying that as a pluralist (moderately*) observant Christian who takes Easter more seriously than anything else, I despise May's phyletism.

*things are tricky for me at the moment.
posted by ambrosen at 3:41 AM on April 4, 2017 [8 favorites]

There's a good Allusionist episode on "Winterval" (spoiler: Birmingham City Council did not try to do away with Christmas).

Also, I need the Caramac egg from 1976 in the Easter@Watch link.
posted by paduasoy at 3:46 AM on April 4, 2017 [5 favorites]

Although it's just been pointed out on Twitter that Easter is an anagram of Theresa, so really it's just narcissism on the Prime Minister's part.
posted by ambrosen at 4:03 AM on April 4, 2017

Also, you're being a total jerk in the 1st sentence of the paragraph

I don't understand your comment. Joe was saying that his initial (mis)reading of line, " ... ‘spitting on the grave’ of its religious founder ...", was as a reference to Christ (the "religious founder"). Thus Joe's joke, "an archbishop who doesn't believe in the Resurrection". I don't see how Joe is being a jerk there, as he is essentially making a joke about his own casual misreading (which he clarifies in the second part of the comment). Also, I don't see how anything in that comment could be read as a criticism of Cadbury.
posted by the quidnunc kid at 4:04 AM on April 4, 2017 [3 favorites]

Oh wait, you meant, "the 1st sentence of your [second] paragraph]" - ! Looks like quidnunc is unreading the worstest today (as always) :-(
posted by the quidnunc kid at 4:07 AM on April 4, 2017

Not even mod-formatting this, because, to be honest, I'm basically confused at the moment, so I'll just reiterate our usual mantra that it's typically better to be straightforward about whatever you're saying rather than do the ironic/faux framing thing, which is often misread or confusing. Also, let's be aware of the OUTRAGE CLICKBAIT and political nature of the "controversy" and not ourselves become entangled in pointless angry tail-chasing.
posted by taz at 4:34 AM on April 4, 2017 [8 favorites]

Hmmm. It sort of seems to me like everyone is being misleading and talking around the issue. Cadbury said that they wanted non-Christians to feel comfortable partaking of their seasonal treats. Theresa May and Co. then immediately started accusing Cadbury and the NT of removing Easter from the egg hunt, which appears not to be true. But really what they're doing, right, is removing Christianity from Easter. Easter is a time of year marked by certain rituals, like egg hunts, rather than a religious holiday celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And my hunch is that Theresa May et. al. can't be honest about that objection, because a lot of Britons of Christian descent also see Easter as basically a secular holiday marked by secular rituals. "Multiculturalism is making it illegal to say Easter!!!!" is going to appeal more to those people and play more into mainstream prejudices than the more-honest "multiculturalism and secularization are causing us to treat Easter as a secular, seasonal holiday, rather than a religious one," although that's what is really going on.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 4:34 AM on April 4, 2017 [8 favorites]

Atheist household in England here - We celebrate Easter and glory in the commercial excesses thereof... and I'm happy to report that this year (as most) there has been bugger all about Christ on display anywhere.

I mean really. Even the most cursory glance at what people are buying/selling (Eggs, bunnies, chicks, bright colours, feasting on plenty) tells you this has nothing to do with Christ and is far more detached from the Christian festival it shares a name with than even Christmas is.

Easter is now a defacto homograph, and homographs are confusing to some so if Cadbury or the NT want to use clearer language (they happen to mostly not be doing so, but if they did) then that's fine.

The last significant connection is the absurd wandering date. It'd help planning the school vacations a lot if we dissociated from that wackiness too.

The bible fans can do their thing (and I have no idea what that is, really, it totally isn't reflected in mass culture) and us chocolate fanciers can do ours.
posted by samworm at 4:44 AM on April 4, 2017 [5 favorites]

I mean really. Even the most cursory glance at what people are buying/selling (Eggs, bunnies, chicks, bright colours, feasting on plenty) tells you this has nothing to do with Christ and is far more detached from the Christian festival it shares a name with than even Christmas is.

In fairness, it's a lot easier to secularize "adorbs baby is born and everyone is happy!" than "dude rises from the dead after being tortured to death." If you aren't steeped in Christianity, the actual religious content of Easter is a more horror movie than joyous celebration.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 4:48 AM on April 4, 2017 [8 favorites]

I wonder how the non-religious symbols around two major Christian holidays (Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny), have contributed to the expansion of the cultural force of those holidays in the Western world. Many non-religious (or nominally religious) in the US enjoy the trappings and spirit of Christmas and Easter without revering the religious identity of them. Is this the same in other cultures?
posted by demiurge at 4:54 AM on April 4, 2017

Honestly, this is about distracting people from the welfare cuts that went into effect this week. Smoke and mirrors.
posted by kariebookish at 5:00 AM on April 4, 2017 [27 favorites]

Let the war on Easter begin!

War on the warren!
posted by pracowity at 5:01 AM on April 4, 2017 [1 favorite]

Archbishop of York Dr John Sentamu accused the chocolate giant of ‘spitting on the grave’ of its religious founder by removing references to Christianity’s most sacred festival.

Apparently the irony of the church complaining about perverting the meaning of a traditional spring festival to appeal to more people and further your own agenda was lost on the good Archbishop.
posted by Dr Dracator at 5:05 AM on April 4, 2017 [29 favorites]

best quote from the comments in the guardian article:


"...saying she was furious both as the daughter of a vicar and as a National Trust member."

Well, as a British citizen I'm pretty furious that you keep popping off to the Middle East to sell arms to monsters, and while you're at home you seem to spend every day turning my country into a darker, crueller and less tolerant place. So yeah, if you want to talk about Christian values, let's fucking talk.
posted by lalochezia at 5:11 AM on April 4, 2017 [29 favorites]

As NewsThump put it: Theresa May furious about Easter Eggs while visiting country where blasphemers are beheaded. Although the satire gets stretched where it claims that the criticism is in retribution for Mondelēz's structuring of the Cadbury's debt in order to avoid corporation tax. Not sure that the current UK government's too bothered about that.
posted by ambrosen at 5:13 AM on April 4, 2017 [1 favorite]

I know for sure that while the Cadbury family had control of the business, they were very supportive of the wider and more doctrinal Christian community.

Ambrosen, you're imposing your modern sensibilities on the past. John Cadbury was born in 1801, at a time when Quakers couldn't hold public office, or government employment, or even attend English universities. It just doesn't make sense to imagine him "supporting" the wholly-dominant Established church that was persecuting him and his coreligionists.
posted by Joe in Australia at 5:16 AM on April 4, 2017 [14 favorites]

Please explain samworm's use of the word "homograph" above.
posted by lungtaworld at 5:24 AM on April 4, 2017

Apparently the irony of the church complaining about perverting the meaning of a traditional spring festival to appeal to more people and further your own agenda was lost on the good Archbishop.

Mary laid those delicious Cadbury Creme eggs for your sins. And the chocolate didn't even melt!
posted by pracowity at 5:26 AM on April 4, 2017 [2 favorites]

What about Cadbury's no longer knowingly shipping salmonella with their chocolate? No respect for tradition I tell you!
posted by srboisvert at 5:26 AM on April 4, 2017

This is a fascinating story, because it works on so many levels and says so much about Britain in 2017. Let me try to analyse it, for the benefit of future scholars writing the history of The Brexit Years who may stumble across this thread and wonder what the fuck was going on.

At one level, the superficial level, this is a fairly standard 'war on Easter' story, of the sort that comes up every year with the snowdrops and daffodils. For the past few years these stories have been orchestrated by a company called the Meaningful Chocolate Company, which claims the major supermarkets won't stock its products because of the overtly Christian message:

David Marshall, CEO of the Meaningful Chocolate Company, which makes religious Easter Eggs, said: "We are really shocked to see a rival to Good Friday being set up. This is an industrial operation to effectively replace Jesus with the Cadbury bunny while luring children and families away from celebrating the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus."

But at another level this is part of the campaign that the Telegraph has been running for some time, claiming that the National Trust has been hijacked by the forces of political correctness. Like the BBC, the National Trust acts as a lightning-rod for a lot of anxieties and grievances about national identity, so stories about the NT are always worth paying attention to, even though they often appear quite trivial.

This campaign is being orchestrated by a faction within the National Trust opposed to the current Director General, Dame Helen Ghosh. Dame Helen used to be the top civil servant at the Home Office when Theresa May was Home Secretary (a perfect illustration of the way that the upper echelons of British public life are dominated by a tiny elite where everybody knows everybody else). As a former civil servant (a.k.a. 'Whitehall fat cat') she is automatically distrusted by the right-wing press (see, if you can bear it, this classic Daily Mail hit job).

And at another level, the deepest level, this is a story about Britain and the rest of the world. To the average Telegraph reader, Cadbury's is the typical example of a plucky British firm taken over by a foreign giant (Kraft). The Telegraph has been pushing this line strongly in the past few years (see this story, for example). The reason the Archbishop of York was approached for comment is because York has a close association with chocolate via the firm of Rowntree (also taken over by a foreign giant, Nestle).

So the subliminal message of this story is that it's all connected: the secular takeover of Easter, the politically-correct takeover of the National Trust, and the foreign takeover of British firms. That's a very potent set of issues, particularly for Tory voters in the shires, and it's not surprising that Theresa May is trying to turn this to her political advantage. It may be a way of settling old scores with Helen Ghosh, but primarily it's sending a message to her base: 'I understand your concerns and I share them.'

The shorter version: Every story in the British media, even a story about Easter egg hunts, is at some level a story about Brexit.
posted by verstegan at 5:31 AM on April 4, 2017 [57 favorites]

Lungtaworkd, it's like a homonym, but for spelling: two words that are spelled the same but mean different things. (The difference being that in a homograph they may also be pronounced differently.)

Easter, the Christian event celebrating the defeat of death by Christ.
Easter, the secular holiday where you enjoy too much of everything.
posted by oddman at 5:35 AM on April 4, 2017 [2 favorites]

War on the warren!

You wouldn't be so glib if Richard Adams was still alive....
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:43 AM on April 4, 2017 [2 favorites]

To be fair, Joe in Australia, I think it'd be a derail to go too much into John Cadbury's feelings on Easter eggs, especially as they were introduced after his sons had taken over the firm. And obviously the Archbishop of York was going off into the extrapolation Anglicans tend to do. But the Archbishop obviously does feel genuine pride in the Christian legacy of the Fry*, Rowntree and Cadbury families, and knows quite a bit more about their history than looking up John Cadbury on Wikipedia.

Of course the bit of your sentence that upset me was: their shiny confectionery has been magically laid by Jesus's friend, Bunny, because it was clearly intended to be inflammatory.

*Even though he was never bishop of Keynsham, unlike in Birmingham and York
posted by ambrosen at 6:01 AM on April 4, 2017

Very informative comment, verstegan.
posted by Miko at 6:01 AM on April 4, 2017 [1 favorite]

My mistake, it was the AB of Y. As you were.
posted by Segundus at 6:02 AM on April 4, 2017 [1 favorite]

Santa and the Easter Bunny certainly are "religious symbols" just not for your religion.... they are pagan symbols of the old gods, the true gods.
posted by mfoight at 6:07 AM on April 4, 2017 [14 favorites]

they are pagan symbols of the old gods, the true gods.

Yeah. Forget the Archbishop; what does Ēostre think of the National Trust's egg hunt branding?
posted by A Thousand Baited Hooks at 6:13 AM on April 4, 2017 [7 favorites]

I also think it would be nice if non-Christian celebrations were brought into the mainstream, instead of Christian celebrations made into the secular norm.

I had similar thoughts recently when a priest (Catholic I assume, but I didn't ask) came to work on Ash Wednesday to mark the foreheads of anyone who wanted it. Perhaps part of the Ashes to Go program? Since I work at a hospital that is a (state) government entity, it struck me as inappropriate that they were showing deference to Christianity in that way. I certainly have never seen them bringing Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, or God forbid, Muslim religious leaders in on their holy days to perform religious rituals (they do on other parts of the school with which we are affiliated, but not the hospital). In the latter case, I can see some people going nuts screaming that Sharia law is taking over. Hell, a lot of people around here would probably think that even if it wasn't Muslim, as all non-Christian beliefs get conflated with Islam to some folks.
posted by TedW at 6:23 AM on April 4, 2017 [2 favorites]

What is Ms. May's mailing address? Perhaps she needs some nice Easter cards from The Onion to cheer her up. (The Onion really needs to put those back on their website. Does anyone know why they were removed?)
posted by TedW at 6:26 AM on April 4, 2017

verstegan, I've no idea how much Stephen Bush is reaching here (it's a gossip/diary article, not a proper New Statesman article), but he's got a civil servant emphasising the pure vindictiveness to Helen Ghosh. On the other hand, maybe The Telegraph's race to the bottom will leave it setting less and less of the agenda in the future.
posted by ambrosen at 6:31 AM on April 4, 2017

I think one of the many terrible realisations associated with the outcomes of brexit is we now have a prime minister who engages in this ludicrous tabloid simplicity

She drives me crazy. She'll happily sit quiet for 24 hours while utter barking insanity like the idea of war with Spain is being floated, then pipes up at the first thought of Easter being not accorded the proper respect.
posted by bonaldi at 6:31 AM on April 4, 2017 [12 favorites]

Santa and the Easter Bunny certainly are "religious symbols" just not for your religion.... they are pagan symbols of the old gods, the true gods.

Well, Santa is good old Christian bishop Saint Nicolas, and we're keeping him, but yeah, Easter, celebrated with bunnies and eggs, is obviously derived from pagan fertility celebrations and for decades now I've thought it was beyond weird that churches willingly regale the kiddies with pagan symbols on the anniversary of the resurrection.

I also grouse annually at churches who call their October 31st party a "Harvest Festival" because they think "Halloween" sound too pagan. What could possibly sound more pagan than a harvest festival, or more Christian than Halloween (Hallows' Eve--the evening before All Saints Day)?
posted by Pater Aletheias at 6:40 AM on April 4, 2017 [10 favorites]

I also think it would be nice if non-Christian celebrations were brought into the mainstream, instead of Christian celebrations made into the secular norm.

I was genuinely quite pleased last Ramadan to see my local Asda showing offers on food tailored to Ramadan (can't remember what the food was now) prominently at the store entrance (and IIRC some weeks ahead of the start of Ramadan itself, much like Easter eggs arriving in February). Crass commercial exploitism absolutely but somehow good that non-Christian religious festivals are also being brought into the tradition of exploitation.
posted by *becca* at 6:43 AM on April 4, 2017 [7 favorites]

Dame Helen used to be the top civil servant at the Home Office

She was also the top civil servant at Defra
posted by Myeral at 6:43 AM on April 4, 2017

Mary laid those delicious Cadbury Creme eggs for your sins. And the chocolate didn't even melt!

Mmm, still warm
posted by Existential Dread at 6:44 AM on April 4, 2017 [1 favorite]

'...bunnies and eggs, is obviously derived from pagan fertility celebrations...'

I always thought the egg was a symbol of the rebirth or resurrection of Jesus
posted by Myeral at 6:47 AM on April 4, 2017 [1 favorite]

Atheist household in England here - We celebrate Easter and glory in the commercial excesses thereof... and I'm happy to report that this year (as most) there has been bugger all about Christ on display anywhere.

As in the case of Christmas, I have no problem, as a practicing Christian, with these kinds of hedonistic consumer excesses--all right, actually, I find that they have evolved from cute pastimes for rewarding small children for sitting through a boring church service in their best Easter clothes to stridently tasteless consumerist orgies for perversely childish adults--but I think whoever wanted to remove "Easter" from the name of this event was wise, considering the rather un-Christian behavior of participants at past similar fêtes across the Atlantic.

This is what I just don't get about these ridiculous holiday "culture wars"--one would think that true conservatives would be fighting to keep the secular and pagan out of their religious celebrations, rather than screaming bloody murder when they don't get corporate sponsorship.
posted by tully_monster at 6:47 AM on April 4, 2017 [2 favorites]

Eh, Santa is just some bastardisation of Saint Nicholas applied to an already existing character.


I also think it would be nice if non-Christian celebrations were brought into the mainstream, instead of Christian celebrations made into the secular norm.

Amen. One thing I am quite impressed with my shitty little posh Midlands spa town is the fact that they do the town centre up with Diwali lights as well as Christmas lights each year. Granted, this just involves leaving the Diwali lights up and replacing the "happy Diwali" bit for something referencing Christmas when the time comes, but it also helps keep the Christmas lights tasteful, rather than the mad decent into red, green, and Santa shapes and all that. No, nice simple yellow light arrangements will do lovely, thank you.
posted by Dysk at 6:49 AM on April 4, 2017 [4 favorites]

It's the Trumpification of UK politics. May has learned from the masters across the Atlantic how to get anything odious passed by virtue of having something obnoxiously stupid as a smokescreen.
posted by acb at 6:54 AM on April 4, 2017 [2 favorites]

I suppose that means we'll see the snoopers' charter rushed through? Or did you have any of their other heinous plans in mind as a coverup candidate?
posted by Dysk at 6:57 AM on April 4, 2017

Since I work at a hospital that is a (state) government entity, it struck me as inappropriate that they were showing deference to Christianity in that way

So at a hospital where people will be living and often ultimately dying, turns out it's super important to have a place people can go for religious services. Most hospitals have chaplains present, of multiple religious faiths, and patients who have non covered religions can request the presence of a religious leader of that variety. It applies to everyone, not just Christians.
posted by corb at 7:06 AM on April 4, 2017 [5 favorites]

I suppose that means we'll see the snoopers' charter rushed through?

It got signed into law last year. One of the things they're planning this year is mandatory registration for access to “adult web sites” (which are very broadly defined), though that may be part of the smoke screen to distract those who might otherwise protest about other things.
posted by acb at 7:18 AM on April 4, 2017

Post snoopers' charter (at which point I changed my internet provider to one with a clear pro-privacy perspective), the government did start talking about banning end to end encryption after the Westminster car attacker was shown to have used WhatsApp, so that's a risk.
posted by ambrosen at 7:32 AM on April 4, 2017 [3 favorites]

Yeah, it was the encryption talk I had in mind. I'm not good with names.
posted by Dysk at 7:33 AM on April 4, 2017

It's the Trumpification of UK politics. May has learned from the masters across the Atlantic how to get anything odious passed by virtue of having something obnoxiously stupid as a smokescreen.


Have you read tabloids and their agenda for the last 50 years in England? this is the latest salvo in very long war of attrition.
posted by lalochezia at 7:34 AM on April 4, 2017 [4 favorites]

Yeah, it was the encryption talk I had in mind. I'm not good with names.

I wonder how long until they're drawing parallels between GCHQ's access to everyone's communications and HMRC's access to everyone's income.
posted by acb at 7:45 AM on April 4, 2017

The archbishop of York is also well known to be very far right, and is the go to qoute machine for these causes.
posted by PinkMoose at 7:53 AM on April 4, 2017 [1 favorite]

The fact that the marketting people and all those arguing don't care a toss about the religeous festival has totally been forgotten.
posted by Burn_IT at 7:58 AM on April 4, 2017

So, are Easter egg hunts in the U.K. like they are in the USA? Which is to say, toddlers wandering around in the grass, occasionally bending over to pick up a neon-colored treat that catches their eye while their parents/grandparents are on their hands and knees, vacuuming up every treat they can before the 4 year old who knows what an Easter Egg hunt is can get there?
posted by Big Al 8000 at 8:14 AM on April 4, 2017 [2 favorites]

The national trust easter egg hunts aren't really hunts at all. You wander round the grounds of the castle/stately home/old mill for a bit, where you mark down the answers to a series of questions that line the clearly marked out route. There's usually then a final question which involves making an anagram out of the first letters of the previous answers.

Then you go back to the beginning and every child gets a chocolate egg regardless of whether you solved any of the problems or not at all.
posted by dng at 8:41 AM on April 4, 2017 [3 favorites]

So at a hospital where people will be living and often ultimately dying, turns out it's super important to have a place people can go for religious services.

I don't have a problem with chaplains or chapels in hospitals; I agree that there is a real need there. I do have a problem with Christians getting catered to in a way that other religions are not.
posted by TedW at 8:57 AM on April 4, 2017 [1 favorite]

The especially odd thing about this kerfuffle is that many of the British Christians who actually want to talk about Christ and the resurrection would ALSO be roundly rejected by May’s version of “Christianity”, which tends to be in love with comfy “Christian” rituals, but finds sincere talking about the faith itself to be gauche, “happy-clappy”, and embarrassing. So the self-styled “defenders of the faith” in all these headlines are the same people who get blustery and uncomfortable when someone talks about their faith as a real, 365 days a year thing instead of a solid and entrenched national institution (and weapon to be used against foreigners).

(It is very similar to the enormous number of Victorian etiquette manuals that are full of hundreds of pages telling English housewives that the nation's Christian identity is paramount! It is why we rule the earth! You must raise your children to be good Christian soldiers! It is what makes us civilized and the best of all possible nations! Do everything while keeping in mind your Christian virtues! But never forget that talking about religion on a personal level is embarrassing and you will be rightfully shunned forever as a weirdo if you ever mention it even once at a social event, the end.)

It's like it's a talisman, but people who take it seriously are viewed as superstitious and weird.
posted by a fiendish thingy at 9:57 AM on April 4, 2017 [14 favorites]

So, are Easter egg hunts in the U.K. like they are in the USA?

No, quite different. There is a period before Easter where various villagers are accused of being an egg for various rumored crimes or behaviours. Once a consensus is reached, the possible egg is put to trial, then finally ceremonially poached. I think it barbaric, personally.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 10:07 AM on April 4, 2017 [9 favorites]

Guys, I found the eggs, they've been in my local Co-op since January.
posted by mushhushshu at 10:14 AM on April 4, 2017 [4 favorites]

'Do everything while keeping in mind your Christian virtues!'

Puts me in mind of something I came across in Charlotte Bronte's Shirley with the Jew baskets - a means of bringing Christian 'salvation' to the infidel dog
posted by Myeral at 10:20 AM on April 4, 2017

So, are Easter egg hunts in the U.K. like they are in the USA?

Easter eggs tend not to be hunted, as they don't give much of a chase and the hounds aren't allowed chocolate. The Easter Bunny on the other hand...
posted by Grangousier at 10:57 AM on April 4, 2017 [6 favorites]

Liam Fox has Shared values with Duterte's Brutal Regime
posted by lalochezia at 2:26 PM on April 4, 2017

The egg hunt discussion just reminded me of the glorious "Videlectrix" classic Where's An Egg? which I haven't played in years, so this non-news story was at least good for something.
posted by comealongpole at 2:59 PM on April 4, 2017

Steve Bell tells it nicely.
posted by adamvasco at 5:51 PM on April 4, 2017 [3 favorites]

Liam Fox has Shared values with Duterte's Brutal Regime

Well, of course he does.

He also believes that Brexit will liberate Britain to reject all those burdensome safety and environmental regulations in favour of a laissez-faire regime like India's (see also: the Bhopal disaster). He's the one in the government wearing the hat labelled BAD COP.
posted by acb at 5:57 AM on April 5, 2017

Give him his full title, the disgraced former defence secretary, Dr Liam Fox.
posted by adamvasco at 8:07 AM on April 5, 2017 [4 favorites]