The Irony of Thatcher, Reagan and Easter.

It's a funny old thing isn't it; irony. Pronounced like that, by the way with the 'r' used; I heard so many mispronunciations when I was in America such as using the first two syllables like you would say iron – the thing that comes with the ironing board.

Some people say that the Americans don't know what irony is but the ones I knew did and in fact I'm not sure if I know for sure as the dictionary explanation says the use of words to convey a meaning that is the opposite of its literal meaning.

I mean that's sarcasm isn't it?I mean isn't it?

Irony to me is when someone tries to do some bad deed to somebody and . . . . well let's invent a little plot.

Let's say that a man is so poor that he mugs someone on the street.

He waits around a corner and pretty soon a little man with a funny hat comes along so he jumps on him and beats him up; injuring him very badly. But when he goes through the man's wallet he finds that there is nothing of any value in there; just some papers and cards. In a rage he tears the papers and throws the wallet into the river.

So he has beaten the man up for nothing.

But when he gets home, feeling miserable and a failure, he finds his wife jumping for joy for she has found that her late father's collection of baseball cards could be worth a lot of money; he has always known this but it's always been one card short.

She tells him a man with a funny hat is coming around with the missing card and they will all be rich.

That to me is ironic – the meaning in the dictionary is wrong.

Those kinds of things happen in real life and the story of Christ is the same; it's always been known as the greatest story ever told which is what it is and which is why a lot of people believe it and other stories have been written based upon it.

A great movie called Cool Hand Luke is a kind of Christ story complete with miracles, (the eggs), a crucifixion (he gets shot) and he rises from the dead in the shape of his photo being put back together with the shape of a cross across it and the prisoners worship his memory.

In real life President Ronald Reagan emptied the mad houses of America and, I am told, stopped funding research in to Alzheimer's Disease – he ended up with the disease himself.

Margaret Thatcher did the same in Britain and she has ended up with dementia.

And the Christ story; well his father, the father he had on earth, Joseph was a carpenter; he made all kinds of things and Jesus's brothers - yes he was supposed to have had brothers – ran the family business.

One of the things they made were crosses.

I think those stories are ironic?

Happy Easter and Passover.