Today is the 13<sup<th December – yet I saw my first Creme Eggs of the new season in a shop I was in.

Easter is not until the 9<sup<th April, 2023.

Sadly, this sighting is not even a record.

The BSFA’s annual booklet containing the nominees for the various awards for 2017 publications arrived on Thursday morning 29^th Mar.

The deadline for postal votes is (was!) Mon 26^th Mar and for electronic submissions Wed 28^th Mar. The results will be announced on Saturday 31^st Mar.

Not the BSFA’s fault it arrived late. Easter is about as early as it can be this year and there was precious little time between the close of the submission phase for the final nominations and Easter. They’ve done well to get it out at all.

Just as well I’m going to Eastercon this year where I can vote in person.

I’ve got my work cut out to read it all before then though.

My (belated) thoughts on its contents will appear next week.

This morning two women approached my house and rang the doorbell. When I’d opened it one of them said, “I won’t keep you long as it’s cold, but we’d just like to remind you of the anniversary of Jesus’s death,” while handing me a leaflet. Taking the leaflet I mumbled something non-committal and thought, “That’s an odd way to talk about it.” Not only was it problematic that someone whom many people believe came back to life can actually be said to have suffered death at all (which I’ll let pass) but most people would have said “the meaning of Good Friday” or some such. Anyway, they were true to their word and quickly moved on next door.

I suppose I must have been intrigued since, before consigning it to the paper bin, I glanced at the leaflet. Therein it said that “This year, the anniversary of Jesus’ death falls on Wednesday March 23rd.” (I’ll not let that Jesus’ for Jesus’s pass, though.)

Now, I’m no theologian but; Wednesday March 23rd? Wednesday? I’m fairly sure the traditional anniversary of Jesus’s death falls on a Friday. It certainly has every year of my life so far.

Granted, most anniversaries fall on the same date every year, which necessitates a trundle through the weekdays in a cycle which due to the number of days in a year and the inclusion of leap years in the calendar only returns to the same day of the week every fifth, sixth and eleventh year (excluding century years whose first two digits divide by four.) In the case of Christ’s death though (no arguments about the placing of the apostrophe there) the tradition has certainly been to ignore this and commemorate it on a Friday. If memory serves, Easter is celebrated on the Sunday following the first Full Moon after the Spring Equinox; Good Friday always falls two days before that.

So. Do the Jehovah’s Witnesses (for it was one of their leaflets) know something the rest of us don’t? Did Jesus die on March 23rd, AD 33? (Or thereabouts. I believe it is generally accepted Jesus was 33 when he was crucified, though the year of his birth may not really have been 1 BC or 1 AD. The traditional calendar has no Year 0.) [AD, above, twice, would be CE for the more inclusive.] I do know, though, it wasn’t a Wednesday. (There are sources.)

Or was it? Dividing the 1983 years since CE 33 by the 11 of the anniversary waltz of the days gives us 180.27(recurring) cycles of eleven years. That 0.27(recurring) corresponds to 1.9 days. Let’s call it two. Now, do I add or subtract the five days corresponding to the intervening non-leap year century years? Adding would take us back to a Friday. Subtracting leads to a Tuesday.

The Sunday following the first Full Moon after the Spring Equinox suddenly seems less complicated.

Three years ago it was the 1960s, two years ago the 70s and last year it was the 1980s from which we at work were to pick our favourite song as a piece of fun at Easter.

The 80s winner?

A Town Called Malice.

Second was Money For Nothing, both from the beginning of the decade I noticed.

I haven’t bothered doing 80s songs up to now as among other things it was the decade style forgot (at least if Ashes to Ashes can be relied on.) I also wasn’t paying that much attention to contemporary music then.

Mostly though it was because I couldn’t decide which song to go with for the series title.

I’ve opted for Live It Up because that’s what a lot of people purported to do during Thatcher’s time. (A lot more were miserable.)

This particular song always reminds me of Boghead, late lamented ground of the famous Dumbarton FC, the Sons of the Rock. It was a Second Division game when Tommy Burns’s Kilmarnock came calling on their way to promotion. (And thumped us, so ruining our already unlikely promotion prospects.) Live It Up was played over the tannoy.

The group which performed this were (are?) Australian – which also goes along with the Easybeats connection of Friday On My Mind – but their name could be Scottish. Except I suppose if it were, the last word would be much more expressive.

Mental As Anything: Live It Up

I know Christmas starts in about August for some shops (especially with the Children’s Annuals coming out then) but most nowadays have the decency to get at least Halloween, if not Bonfire Night, out of the way before setting out the bunting and the baubles.

(That’s the only bonus about the commercialisation of Halloween. It fends off Christmas for a bit. When I was a lad there wasn’t much “ghostly” tat, apart from perhaps paper masks or witches’ hats, on sale in the run up to All Hallows Eve. Certainly no pumpkins and none of the peculiar orange and black creations that seem to be the marker these days. We had our guising costumes made for us by the sweat of mother’s brow – or sewing fingers.)

In Kirkcaldy, Santa visits the Mercat and the town’s Christmas lights are switched on halfway through November but at least the latter has some point to it, as it brightens up the dark winter afternoons.

Yesterday, though, the 27^th of November, in my local corner shop I saw for sale not Christmas stuff, oh no, but creme eggs.

Creme eggs! In November. The leftovers from last Easter have barely cleared away.

It takes all the anticipation away.

Year round creme eggs. It’s just not right.