Easter took on a slightly different resonance for me this year. Something happened around Easter time some years ago, which has left it slightly lower in my pecking list of favourite seasons. The days around Easter become reflective in a slightly different way.

As if there has not been enough of that. The one thing Easter does have is that, at its roots, it is about rebirth. Someone should have moved the Budget a day or two nearer to Easter and a day or two further away from April Fools day.

We were presented with a budget, which was more about how it would look to the potential investors abroad and less to do with stimulating growth and rebirth in our own economy. We have determined to place ourselves even further down the list of countries that will be first to rise out of recession. We have yet again become totally dependent on the whims of others at a time when we have never been less self-sufficient.

I did not get an Easter egg this year, I got a chunky bar of chocolate that weighed twice the weight of the egg I would have got, cost less than a quarter of the price of he egg I might have got and in my opinion had three times the chocolatiness. We change our habits and we move on. We are a resilient people.

I was thinking about chocolate when I visited the bank. I was attempting to develop a business idea in the attempt to keep things afloat and in the hope of creating initially one more employment. The bank wanted collateral and testimonials, all I had was chocolate and a severe pain in the testes. They had me by the testimonials.

I went home determined to write a recession song or poem. I sat down and threw some ideas to paper. I knew what I wanted to say, loads of rhymes appeared before me but the muse did not visit me and hopefully these words will take better shape in a few weeks time. What I did find was some interesting poems and recession songs that did strike a chord and for now I will share those with you.

Joe O’Connor went into Ian Dury mode with a few reasons to be cheerful, and boy don’t we need them right now. I am sure if you google it you will find the podcast from the Drivetime programme where he read it, definitely well worth a listen, even if it is a few weeks old at this stage.

We do need to find the reasons to be cheerful. Otherwise, we are truly caught by the testimonials. Thanks Joe, you made Easter for me.

ED: Apologies but due to constraints of space in this month’s Advertiser we were unable to publish the poem our Bored Bard refers to in his musings. Rest assured it will have pride of place next month!