The millennia-long fascination with the Christian resurrection story has been eclipsed as the greatest Easter mystery by a Retford man's inexplicable interest in the World Championship Snooker tournament on TV, his exasperated wife has confirmed.
Mike McBride will spend at least 12 hours each day for the next fortnight watching players he has mostly never heard of and has little interest in, hitting balls of different colours around a 12x6 table.
'Explaining how a mortal could feed 5000 people with a couple of loaves and some old bits of pollock, and how someone can emerge from a locked tomb after being dead for 3 days are a piece of piss compared to comprehending Mike's interest for 2 weeks in the 'green baize' said his wife Sarah.
'He never mentions snooker all year, ut suddenly on Easter Saturday, he's telling me how Barry Hawkins is always difficult to beat in matchplay and how the nap of the table at the Crucible Theatre makes it hard to judge stun with the spider....I mean, what the hell does any of that actually mean?'.
'Miracles? Let me tell you, if I hear John Virgo tell me one more time that Ding Junhui has a 'shot to nothing' here, it will be a sodding miracle if I don't go up to Sheffield and shove a cue up his baulk cushion. He'll be needing snookers after that.'
'Oh, did you just see O'Sullivan caress that long blue into the corner pocket playing left-handed?', said Mike excitedly from his settee. 'God really does move in mysterious ways'.