It would be quite easy to develop a phobia of anthropomorphised rabbits around here.

No sooner had my memories of all the malevolent clowns unleashed during Carnival faded than someone decided to send in the Easter Bunny. FOIL WRAPPED.

Can you imagine buying your grandson one of these instead of a nice Chocolate Buttons Easter Egg?

If he didn’t eat it all at once, it would sit grinning at him from his bedside table, waiting for it to get dark so it could chase him around the house and stab him in the heart with an, um, egg. A very pointy one.

Aaaaaaarrrrrrrggggghhhhhhhhh.

Easter is with us, and Germans seem to be making up for their rather feeble offerings to the great retailer in the sky at Christmastime by entering into an orgy of consumption. Of course, if this were orgiastic consumption of Cadbury’s Creme Eggs I would be right there with them, but as we know you can’t get proper chocolate in Germany, so the shelves are shuddering instead under the weight of aforementioned bunnies, rubbish praline eggs and a veritable smorgasbord of pastel horrorphernalia for the home and garden. Y’know, pale yellow egg-cups, mint-green baskets, pink sawn-off shotguns (probably). There’s no sign of Jesus, just legions of creepy porcelain rabbits dressed in overalls or pushing prams… They are coming to kill us.

I do hope England hasn’t submitted to this craze for Easter rabbits in the same way it has bowed down before The German Christmas Market. Not that I’m averse to a bit of folky Black Forest tat, yuletidedly speaking. I mean, my life’s ambition is to live in a wooden chalet surrounded by gingham material and wooden spoons with hearts carved out of them. That’s the only reason why I’m here. But foil-wrapped bunnies made from inferior chocolate are another matter altogether.

I shall be eating my one remaining tin of Heinz spaghetti hoops this weekend in protest. Happy Easter!

nb: The full Osterhase horror show is at the Reber confectionery website. And don’t think that the hands of Messrs. Milka and Lindt are clean over this matter either, no sir- they are decidedly chocolatey from their work fashioning evil bunny voodoo dolls.