Brian Rogers Rogers Rabbits www.sunlive.co.nz

It's a strange world we live in. Celebrating 12 years of Rogers Rabbiting, we've covered a lot of ground in the roughly 600-odd columns. And some of them are very odd.

This column has conveyed some fairly fanciful stuff, including the odd notion that the weather changes, pretty much of its own accord, with only a smidgeon of regard for what humans do and the Greenies say. (See Dr Ian's letter putting us in our place this week) but our fantasy yarns can never match some of the true stories that have punctuated the Weird World in the past decade or so.

If we'd predicted a few years ago that a legless man would become an Olympic running legend then shoot his girlfriend dead… you'd have said I was balmy. Or that a ship could fail to miss Astrolabe reef, we'd pay $90,000 a year to house prisoners but expect pensioners to live on $16,000 (see Rob McGuinness' letter), that Alison Mau would bat for the wrong team, or that we'd have a shortage of Marmite but an overdose of Ridges… I'd have been sent back to the ward.

Now we have the bizarre situation of one of the country's most iconic landmarks, the Christchurch cathedral, to be replaced with a cardboard version. I still cannot get my befuddled head around that. It's origami gone rabid.

Still, it's not nearly as weird as celebrating an immaculate heavenly conception with a fat old man in a red suit who gets stuck in chimneys; or in the case of this weekend – marking the death and resurrection of the son of God, with a stuffed bunny that somehow lays eggs. How did mankind ever make those giant leaps of warped reasoning?

Remember, if you want to celebrate the real reason for Easter, check out our Easter church services on pages 62-63.

One question that does bother the RR researchers is the dilemma of cards.

We have Christmas cards, celebrating the son of God's birthday. But seriously serious Christians will tell you it's not his birthday that really counts, but his persecution and resurrection that is the important time. Which, as well all know, thanks to the chocolate egg-laying bunny, is Easter. It was really inconsiderate of Jesus to go get himself killed at Easter, and confuse a perfectly good public holiday. If he'd done it sometime earlier, say between Auckland Anniversary weekend and Waitangi Day, we could Mondayise the lot and almost string together a whole month of four-day weeks. That would be divine intervention.

So why do we have Christmas cards, but not Easter cards? And could they all be recycled and turned into cathedrals? Hallmark is missing out on a whole new market here.

They've been beaten to it, by the chocolate companies and the vested bunny and chicken interests, and missed out on the lucrative 'died one day, resurrected a few days later” phenomenon. They should have taken a leaf out of Brendan Horan's book. Persecuted and kicked out of the party one day, resurrected as an 'independent” a few days later.

Talk about born-again politicians, they could show our biblical characters a thing or two about how to make a second coming.

And if Jesus was born again today, (most likely a local SunLive news event, since we have Bethlehem just up the road) Mary will have a tough time getting the name registered. It wouldn't surprise me if someone has tried to trademark it.

Some biblical monikers are off limits. Apparently you're not allowed to call your sprog: Messiah, Christ, Bishop, Saint or Lucifer.

He certainly wouldn't be allowed to be called King, Prince or His Majesty. New Zealand law prohibits the naming of babies containing any royal title. If Elvis was resurrected he would not be allowed the title The King. He'd have to settle for 'A Notable Person of Rock n Roll”.

And the Internal Affairs Department won't let you call your kid Justice, either. Or trendy spellings such as Juztice or Justus. In fact, the department has declined 350 names in the past decade.

They've outlawed all the royalty labels, including Prince, Princess, Knight, Queen, Lord, Baron, Duke and Lady.

Think again if you want your kid to pull more rank in life with a first name of President, Emperor, General, Sergeant or Chief (tough if you thought it might give him a head start in a regional rugby career.)

If you know anyone with cool names, send them in and we'll share the fun. brian@thesun.co.nz

In the meantime, good luck persecuting all that chocolate, we hope your diet is resurrected soon.