Excess at Easter

CELEBRATING Easter with hotcross buns, simnel cake, roast lamb and even chocolate eggs and bunnies is perfectly acceptable to me. But why is this religious festival becoming increasingly as commercially over the top as Christmas?

Supermarket aisles are laden with massive amounts of Easter merchandise and their adverts are full of “Easter” toys for children? Whatever happened to celebrating by rolling a hard-boiled egg?

JUDi MArTin I DISAGREE with Dr Mary Brown (Letters, 23 March), who appears to fundamentally misunderstand “science”, which is concerned with maximising our understanding of any particular subject or object, and testing it to the point of failure, not content with a single “answer”.

Quoting Erasmus does not counter science: there is no evidence that the soul persists after death; that is merely faith. Personally, I prefer increased understanding rather than the need to resort to such “magical” thinking.

I also quite like the idea that the biochemical imbalances associated with feelings of “being in love” are similar to those found in certain mental illnesses. Not very romantic, though.

neil sinClAir YOUR review of the Great Gatsby (22 March) was disappointing. As I was planning to take a friend to see the show the next day, I read the review with interest. Most of the first part of the review was good; nothing to merit the headline: “Short-changed by a not-sogreat Gatsby.”

Having now seen this excellent production, I feel the show was short-changed by this review.

Joy Moore When is Alistair Darling and the Better Together campaign going to catch on that scaremongering only disgusts? It doesn’t frighten. Scotland and the diminished UK would not “have to agree everything”. What a stupid thing to say. Neither new sovereign country would need permission from the other to implement their respective budgets.

– Black Smack We are witnessing Better Together getting more silly and desperate by the day. France and Belgium are in a currency union, as is most of Europe. Do they have to agree on everything, are all taxes the same between all the members? Of course not.

– Tiny This whole escapade is a waste of time and money at a time when Alex Salmond’s focus should be on encouraging inward investment and governing. The SNP should have had the vote in May this year and got the ruddy carry on over and done with.

– neovantage The UK rating is about to be downgraded further after the loss of the AAA rating recently, the mainstay to vote No according to Darling … hence this load of rubbish with Darling repeating himself, telling Scots that the British pound is not as much Scottish as it is English. There’s your “union” for you in a nutshell.

– Kinghob Methinks that this poll was arranged just to produce whatever the unionists wanted in order to clash with the SNP conference.

– Viewed From Afar Wot, no mention of another poll showing the Yes vote on the up and only a 5 per cent swing required for victory?

– Tiny