Kennedy's Blog

Oh God.... Five hours sleep last night! Three of the kids have contracted some gastric stomach virus, I have a meeting in 45 minutes and my Editor wants this page yesterday...No pressure then.

However, with dubious confidence I announce to the office ‘no worries... it will be done and dusted in just a jiffy’. Of course, I know full well that I simply haven’t got a clue what I am going to write about. But that was when I was THINKING about what to write.

In the end it’s easier to just start doing what you were worrying about doing.We usually think about things so much that we leave little time to actually do them, right? But Candid is an exception, it’s better not to think when you write, or it’s simply not original.

Once again this month’s piece flew onto my lap like a tamed kestrel. I am not short of material because the spirit of Easter (Or Oestara, as I prefer to call it – it was originally a pagan festival of life anyway) is in the arrival lounge and is about to come through those big glass doors any minute.

Easter, of course, is a matter of perception. Some cry, some eat and drink, some party and others do nothing but enjoy the time off work with the kids.

Others do things that, well, I would say confirms my belief that the human race is the most brilliantly stupid animal in the Universe.We all do what we believe Easter represents. Most countries do try to enjoy Easter and most are quite original. In Bulgaria for example, people don't hunt for eggs, they fight for them. The winner is the holder of the unbroken egg and is assumed to be the most successful member of the family in the coming year.

Funny, I would have thought the winner is the one that gets to eat the pieces?

But we are told that we have to think about Christ on the Cross, perhaps suffer a little even, don’t be too happy, this is about a death after all.

Check this one out. Enter - Easter in the Philippines. The Roman Catholics of the Philippines take the celebration of Easter rather seriously. The town of Cutud in the Philippines has become famous at Easter for their re-enactments of the events surrounding the crucifixion of Christ. The rituals draw devout Catholics and crowds of international tourists alike, who make a 30-minute walk to experience Christ's crucifixion. Many of the visitors, who aren't used to walking along dusty roads in the extreme heat, often do not make it to the end. That’s nothing! The really unlucky volunteers are the ones who opt to feel what
its like to be crucified, the first stages anyway. Really, they prefer that to eating chocolate! These misguided individuals volunteer themselves to being nailed to the cross, bit of a bummer if you change your mind half way through.
Schinichiro Kaneko, a 28-year-old Japanese Catholic from Tokyo, is a bit of a regular to the scene, he went up screaming in pain as gleaming five-inch nails were hammered into his palms and feet by Filipinos dressed as Roman centurions. Really (google it!) I’m not joking. Another chap, Roland Ocampo, loves the experience – he goes back for more every year! He decided to be nailed to the cross every Good Friday for the past seven years and vehemently defends his masochistic practice (dubiously sexual) saying that he would
continue to be crucified as part of a vow to God. Strange God, luckily he is the only one with that kind of God anyway.

I can see why we whisked in the idea in of eating chocolate so quickly, thank you.. thank you... thank you... inventors of chocolate, for making Easter about eating chocolate eggs and not about suffering because someone else did. It could all have got a little out of hand that one.

Better to eat chocolate than to nail yourself to a cross don’t you think? I knew there was a reason to eat chocolate.

So...However you choose to celebrate, do have a very good Easter!