Deirdre Reynolds: Creme Egg sambo signals eggstra peak Easter is here

In hindsight, between office Easter egg hunts (try saying that after a few Mini Egg martinis) and matching lop-eared onesies for the whole family, the signs were all there in recent years.

But it was news of the sickly SubMelt – doled out for free on Good Friday as a publicity stunt – that really sent me tumbling down the rabbit hole of Eastertide trivia this week.

Once an excuse to go full ‘Augustus Gloop’ after forgoing sweets for Lent, these days I’m afraid a couple of Kinder Surprise tossed behind the couch or under the bed no longer cuts it.

Proving bunny is no object for some, now you can embark on a luxury egg hunt cruise, download an Easter Bunny tracker to trace their every hop, or even hire an ‘eggspert’ (sorry) to come to your home to hide the treats – keeping the kids occupied for all of about 10 minutes.

In the UK, some lucky chocoholics could today even be cracking into a €285 filled milk chocolate egg from Harrods or €148 edible gold-speckled creation from Birley Bakery, which you’d have to admit is a pretty long way from the eggs dyed red by early Christians in Mesopotamia as a symbol of Jesus’s death and rebirth.

And even further again from Tesco’s 3 for €3 offer which last year left supermarket shelves emptier than his tomb on Resurrection Sunday.

Somewhere in between, it was the Germans Lutherans who came up with the idea of an egg-laying ‘Easter Hare’, as a sort of paschal Santa Claus who decided whether children had been naughty or nice, and pretty much single-pawedly invented a leporiphobia rivalled only by Watership Down three centuries later.

Technically a painstaking 46 days long (Sundays don’t count), 43 per cent of those who attend church at least once a month still observe Lent, with Lenten sacrifices ranging from sweets to social media.

As a reward, based on previous years, Ireland will likely munch its way through more than 17m eggs and 2,000 tonnes of chocolate over the holiday weekend.

Still, there will always be a professional killjoy on hand to warn of the impending doom of scoffing a gazillion times the recommended daily intake of sugar.

It won’t affect Dundalk man John Gartlan, anyway, who still has the Easter egg given to him as a child by his mother’s cousin in 1978, which somewhat puts 40 days and nights of abstinence into perspective.

Given that science shows how women who eat dark chocolate on a daily basis lead more sexually satisfying lives, due to the presence of ‘love drug’ phenylethylamine, it’s not a risk I’d like to take.

Now pass the Lindt balls – and Happy Easter.

***********************************************************************************************************Hands up if you’d also never heard of ‘findom’ before this week.

The latest episode of The 2 Johnnies podcast platformed a British woman who trousers up to £1,000 a month from the ‘financial domination’ of men.

Describing her role as the “inverse of a sugar daddy”, dominatrix Lauren Tenner (I think she might be underselling herself) explained how she is regularly contacted by fellas who want to “be used purely as a wallet”, paying her to insult them.

“Their whole kink is humiliation,” she continued - and I’ve definitely missed a trick here, as I do it for free.

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Excitement levels are through the roof for the upcoming Barbie movie - and that’s just me.

A trailer for the year’s most anticipated comedy starring Margot Robbie as the iconic doll - also teasing Derry Girls’ Nicola Coughlan as Diplomat Barbie - dropped on Tuesday.

And, landing the same day that former US president Donald Trump was arrested, the viral video proved the slice of plastic, fantastic fun the world needs right now.

Throw in an online Barbie selfie generator, not to mention another feminist hero in Greta Gerwig behind the camera, and sorry Sindy, but I ‘Ken’ not wait for July 21.