Sometimes it strikes me that I live in a world of which I understand almost nothing. Do you ever get that? It's like those times when you lie on your back, drunk in a field, and you shiver, suddenly, as the Earth becomes a sphere beneath you, and the stars seem not above but straight ahead. I had it just the other day, but differently. I was in Sainsburys. I looked at the Cadbury's Creme Eggs. I looked at the Fairtrade Easter Eggs. And then I looked deep into the opaque, unknowing eyes of a Lindt Dark Chocolate Decorative Rabbit, and I was lost.

Easter eggs, fundamentally, I think I get. Back home, in Edinburgh, they roll eggs down the slopes of Arthur's Seat at Easter, and I've always understood that, vaguely, as being connected to the way that Christ was supposed to have rolled away the stone from his tomb. Eggs are all about birth and new beginnings, and in a mixed-up, messy, pagan sort of way, I suppose this all makes sense. Only, why make them out of chocolate? And why, of all things, entrust their delivery to a rabbit?

Let us ignore, for a moment, the fact that you are supposed to eat the rabbit, too. Within the confines of this crazed narrative, what is supposed to hatch from these eggs? More rabbits? Seriously? What the hell is a rabbit doing with eggs? How does a rabbit even carry eggs? Who ever thought this was a good idea?

This, now I think of it, is often my worry with gift-giving anthropomorphisms. It's like the stork that brings the babies. Have you ever seen a stork? An eagle could carry a baby. A pelican, in a Flintstones sort of way. But a stork? Never. They haven't got the neck muscles. Also, I remember a Swede once telling me that, instead of Santa, the Swedish have a Christmas Goat. “He is bringing our presents,” she said, Swedishly. “What in?” I demanded. No decent answer.

I wonder if there's a temptation to miss the lunacy of this sort of thing when it is staring you in the face. I remember visiting Western Guatemala once, and being struck by the mishmash of Mayan and Catholic influences in all the churches. At Easter, added our guide, people also worship a plank of wood called Maximon, whom they ply with tributes of booze and cigarettes. “Excuse me?” I said. Pre-Christian tradition, shrugged our guide. These things evolve.

On the side of the IMAX cinema right now, down by Waterloo, there's a huge picture of the Caramel Bunny. Big, red, sensuous lips. And hands, even though she's a rabbit. She's obviously related to the Easter Bunny, because they both bring chocolate.

Although this one doesn't have anything to do with Jesus. Honestly, we're as mad as anyone.

Uncivil liberty

There is a big hole in the debate about the policing of the demonstrations around the G20 summit, and it is the shape of a harrumphing retired colonel from Tunbridge Wells. Well, them and their ilk. Maybe I had the wrong end of the stick, but I thought that, these days, civil liberties was what made these people tick. And yet, right-wing columnists are not unleashing seething polemic. David Davis has not found anything, at all, from which to resign. On the letters pages, the Home Counties do not seem particularly aflame.

Even before we knew about poor Ian Tomlinson, you'd think that your passionate advocate of civil liberties might have something to say about “kettling”, or the routine photographing of protesters. But now? I genuinely don't get it. Why would you make a fuss about ID cards and CCTV and TV licensing and speed cameras and about council snoopers going through your bins, but not make a fuss about a man being beaten by masked police and then dying while trying to get home from work? Isn't that also a bit of an intrusion, into the everyday life of an Englishman? What am I missing?

Male deficit

I once asked a group of Italians how it was possible that, in a country filled with such poise and grace, they could have repeatedly elected a Prime Minister who was such a gambolling buffoon. I was in an art gallery at the time, having lunch with four stick-thin, black-clad woman, who were all chain-smoking pretending to eat tiny salads. This is how you have to be, if you work in an Italian art gallery, possibly by law. How could such people be governed by Silvio Berlusconi? You might as well put a cow in charge of cats, or Homer Simpson in charge of the ballet.

When I heard about Berlusconi telling the Italian earthquake victims to think of their displacement as a “camping weekend”, and that they should cheer themselves up by going to the beach, I thought of their reply. “We have had lots of prime ministers,” they said, basically. “Almost 20 since you elected Margaret Thatcher. None of them last, and so none do any harm. All men, and all fools.”

Then they smiled, mysteriously, and went back to smoking their cigarettes and not eating things. And I felt I understood Italy a little more.

Times Recommends

• Britain doesn’t need a dose of shock therapy
• Why the sea eagle has no right to land here
• Let older women have a voice at the BBC