THREE IN THE LAND OF COCKS AND CROSSES I magine it's Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, the opening round. Nine other contestants in the circle. Your finger hovering over the buttons. The challenge: put these reli- gious holidays in the correct order that they appear during the year. A: Pentecost B: Feast of the Assumption C: Corpus Christi D: Good Friday Could you get it right? Most people would struggle, unless they are churchgoers or live in a Catholic country. In an effort to become all inclusive, countries like Britain have made pub- lic holidays non-religious, apart from Easter and Christmas, and some would argue that even they have lost their original significance. It's a state of ignorance aided by the state itself. But in Switzerland most public holidays are still religious ones, with their traditional names and meanings. It's not that the Swiss aren't politically correct, though that is somewhat the case, but more that religion has an influence, more notice- ably outside the main cities. There is no national state religion in Switzerland, but can- tons are nominally Protestant or Catholic, though some are much more mixed than others. This amicable separation is taken for granted by the locals, even though it took three cen- turies of bloodshed before the Swiss came up with a solution that lasted. By the way, you might like to know the correct answer: D, A, C, B. The easy one is Good Friday, the day Jesus was cru- 57