Matthew sent me an article from the Guardian (click headline below) with the note, “Greggs is a cheap and cheerful UK bakery chain known for its pasties, pies and – praise the Lord! – sausage rolls”.
Unfortunately, they substituted a sausage roll for Jesus in a nativity scene. BAD move!
Greggs’s £24 Advent calendar (that’s an expensive calendar, but it contains discount coupons) shows the three Wise Men worshiping a sausage roll:
Christians complained:
The Rev Mark Edwards, of St Matthew’s church in Dinnington and St Cuthbert’s church in Brunswick, said Greggs had been disrespectful. He told the Newcastle-based Chronicle: “It goes beyond just commercialism, it’s showing a total disregard and disrespect towards one of the greatest stories ever told, and I think people of all faiths will be offended by this.”
Daniel Webster, a spokesperson for the Evangelical Alliance, said: “Putting a sausage roll in the manger of a nativity scene seems to be manufacturing a scandal to sell baked goods and neglecting the real scandal of Christmas. Every year some company creates a Christmas controversy for commercial gain; it seems to get earlier each year.”
But #NotAllPeople:
The advert also triggered debate on the Greggs Facebook page, though most posts welcomed the product.
The comedian Bob Mortimer tweeted: “Come on KFC … show Greggs the way … put a miniature Jesus in all your Christmas buckets.”
The agony aunt and therapist Philippa Perry joked in a tweet: “ANYWAY who cheated and opened 24th Dec BEFORE 24th Dec to find this out?”
Greggs apologized, saying that they were “really sorry to have caused any offense, this was never our intention,” but they didn’t withdraw the calendar. Good for them! I’d rather worship a sausage roll than Jesus any day. At least sausage rolls are real!
‘And as they were eating, Jesus took the sausage roll, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body. But the cheese pasties are better…’
KJV, Mathew 26:26
What he actually said was:
“Cop ‘old a tha’, me ol’ mate, an stick it in thee gob, That there’s me actual body, but them cheese oggies are reet tastier”
That reads like an uncomfortable mix of Yarkshire, Stokie and Cockernee accents!
That’s about right: not much Cockney: where I am (30 miles north of Stoke), they say ‘mate’ quite a lot. The offending roll comes from the other side of Sheffield:
“Thee’re wuz ne’er anything good coom out of a pie shop in them parts”
Bit yeev no included Scoattish, we dinnae mind a Greggs an aw
Nain eh that cheese pish mind, just s Scoatch pie or a steak bake fur tha likes eh me
NOOOOOO! Sausage rolls are better!!!
They eat them by way of preparation for the afterlife. By comparison an eternity in Hell is chickenfeed.
The best sausage rolls in the world come from Gear Meat Butchery in Gisborne, NZ (assuming they still exist – I haven’t had one for about 30 years!). Eating one of them is all the heaven I need!
perhaps they would post them to you ! 😉
Real, and likely delicious! At least it wasn’t a shai hulud roll. Blasphemy!
https://kitchenoverlord.com/dune-week-spice-filled-sandworm/
Because of course there is such a thing.
I’m tempted to make it for thxgiving.
Me too. The recipe notes are hilarious.
Believe me, Yazikus and Jerry, if you had tasted a Greggs sausage roll you’d never worship it. Unless you were a Satanist.
They’re not that bad.
Agreed ,and while we are on the subject of xmas adverts, Tesco a British supermarket chain (like Walmart but without the warmth and human compassion )have been running a xmas ad for Turkeys with a Muslim family in it .
They are only on screen for a few seconds .
A Muslim author wrote in the Independent newspaper about it ,something about Hlala
turkeys not being available ,not that they were bothered about it .
It has received about 700+ comments .
Can there really be only three wise men in the world, only one manger? Give me a break! It’s not as if they claimed the sausage roll was the Lord’s only begotten son.
Well, Paultopping, if it were a hamburger, you could maybe claim it to be the lord’s only begotten bun.
+1!
+1
Which raises the question as how Mary got the actual bun in the oven
This of course makes me think of many blasphemous things about celestial sausages, if ‘ya know what i mean [nudge nudge wink wink].
You don’t know? Let me explain
When a Mummy and a Daddy love each other very much, they get together in a special way…
tl;dr she had sex.
What Mummy and Daddy?
What special way?
What’s sex?
Apologies, but your comment (and Kevin’s) reminds me of the dreadful old gag:
Why wasn’t Jesus born in France?
– Because they couldn’t find three wise men or a virgin.
I thought that was an Irish joke. Ah well…
cr
I always heard it as Irish, too.
That’s Essex, isn’t it?
Joseph and Mary were in a stable Relationship.
Don’t blame me ,it was on the cover of the 1988 xmas issue of Private Eye .
And exactly who is assisting them by ensuring there is a “controversy”?
a spokesperson for the Evangelical Alliance, said: … “Every year we find something to complain about to get us in the media”
The usual religious attempt to exploit what should be a purely commercial transaction in this season of gluttony and over-spending, namely the sale of an enormous sausage roll to three Persian entrepreneurs.
Isn’t private enterprise sacred any more. Oy Veh!
A slight variant on the “Look, he’s hitting my foot with his ass” gambit.
When the world mirrors a Monty Python skit….
It’s not the messiah, it’s a very naughty sausage!
I love baby Jesus, but I couldn’t eat a whole one. A sausage roll, on the other hand . . . .
Gold, Franken sausage & the wise geezer in the middle – he’s hogging the mustard in that jar!
The only thing wrong with it is one bite already gone.
He was Jewish.
🙂
A Kosher sausage roll ,now there’s a thing.
It took a minute (or two), but I finally got that.
It was the Holy Spirit: as a fully signed up member of the Trinity, he was entitled to his 33.3%.
Holy crap… I thought 10% was the deal.
Maybe so. Wasn’t Gilgamesh supposed to be one third god?
This all happened about 50 miles from here. If I get peckish, I could nip across fro a visit.
I could murder a sausage role.
Beats eating one.
Actualy, I’m perfectly happy with a sausage roll – even a Greggs’ one. But as the wife described one on her first encounter with British fast food, “This,” [disdainful prod at thing on plate] “is not sausage.” Which I cannot disagree with.
I agree with you concerning the average fast food type sausage.
Better types are found however:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumberland_sausage
Should contain chopped meat, not minced.
You should try Australian sausage rolls. They have more in common with a loaf of bread than anything containing meat.
Cumberland Sausage – particularly if you’re doing a full metre-long coil of the inch-thick stuff – isn’t fast food. Unless you like it carbonised on the outside and still bleeding.
The best I’ve had is from the butchers near the viaduct in Settle – obviously not in Cumberland – but i’m not sure if he makes his own or buys it in. I’ll detour 30+ miles to pick up a couple of coils and have a fat-neck session at Steve’s Greasy Spoon and Caving Equipment Emporium if I’m driving up or down by day.
Yes Cumberland sausages are nice ,so are Lincolnshire ones .
When i was in London in the 90’s there was an Irish sausage shop on the south bank of the river ,near the Blackwall tunnel if i remember right ,anyone know if he is still there ?
Their real concern is probably the sausage part. Sausage traditionally has been a bit of a mystery meat whereas Jesus would only contain the purest ingredients.
Meat? Meat? What? In a sausage?
Lard, cereal, sawdust ground-up teeth and a few bristles there may be, but definitely no meat.
There’s more meat in a homeopathic hotdog.
I thought the recipe for making Jesus using only Mary was one of the central mysteries!
Sausage rolls are unclean as they are made with minced pork, but add little spice they are a Saviory treat.
In the beginning was the Wurst. And the Wurst was with God. And the Wurst was God…
I love the wurst with a good beer.
“Take, eat — for this is my body,” so it goes from the Latin Mass and the Last Supper. But here it’s paedotheophagy, and the Church has a lot to say about that!
Whatever, better sausage with beer than hosts with wine.
Definitely. This craft beer advent calendar might be the perfect complement. https://honestbrew.co.uk/christmas-gifts/advent-calendars/
… and of all the different sausages in all the world (which I’ve sampled – German, Russian, Tanzanian, Polish, Spanish and I think French (though that may have been a horse’s penis) …), British “sausage” is very definitely the Wurst of the Wurst.
Very funny. But a proper Wiltshire banger is pretty decent, and all opposition wilts away if I mention the true, the one, the only…black pudding!
There. Ecky thump wins again!
Ecky Thump (for the trans-Pondians, the Lancastrian martial art of incredible ferocity) is far and away the best use for a black pudding. Beats eating the stuff, by a long chalk. Actually, eating a long chalk beats eating a black pudding.
Cookery pro-tip – don’t lose control of the car due to stirring the 5-gallon bucket of warm pigs’ blood on the passenger seat when taking it home to make your own black pudding. It upsets the ambulance drivers and police. And makes the carpet sticky and smelly.
This is a British sausage roll so any actual meat content less likely than a virgin birth.
I would support the public display of a sausageroll nativity.
I’ve had one. Jesus, are they good.
I’ve had one jesus, are they good.
FIFY
I’ve had one jesus, are they good?
FIFY
Is cynicism preferable to malice, or what? If there were any kind of point or principle to this, it might be tolerable, but frankly I put it on the level of farting in someone’s face, a sophisticated deliberate discourtesy that reflects a narcissistic nihilism and even a kind of despair. As well as desperation.
It’s the kind of thing that your goofball drunk friend does when he’s helping you with the Christmas decorations. You snatch it away before he kids see it and tell him to go home and sober up.
The point would be that this is a bakery that sells pastries and sausage filled pastries and they used a xmas theme. If we can’t make fun of myths, we’re doomed.
How dreary. Remind me not to invite you to my Christmas party.
I didn’t know Ray Little was a German name
” it’s showing a total disregard and disrespect towards one of the greatest stories ever told”
Which version? The bible doesn’t agree internally on what the story is.
Ohhhh, very arch! “Internal disagreements” worked into a sausage roll story.
I see this nativity scene time and again on twi**er and it never fails to make me laugh. It has to be pork too. (I never use Greggs).
Whats next? Easter gingerbread men with frosting for stigmata?
Actually, that sounds kind of good.
I think baby sausage Jesus would go great with a PSL.
“disrespect towards one of the greatest stories ever told”
i.e. Matthew’s nativity story. But for real disrespect, look at Luke’s almost entirely contradictory nativity story, written just a decade or two later, rather than Greg’s 200 year late version.
Oops! 2000 year late.
The sausage roll in question may only be 200 years later.
Proves that god has a sense of humor. Invents pork and then forbids the chosen people from eating it
And a damn shame, too, because it (pork) is very tasty if properly cooked.
When I visit England, I really like a good sausage roll. But based on this picture, I am crossing Greggs off my list of places to look for one.
Hey, at least a sausage roll actually nourishes people! The whole trip to Egypt and the Three Wise men is a fable made up to supply a back story that was desired by early Christians. (Tell us another story about Jesus and this time make it longer! Well, Children, let me tell you about the baby Jesus … It was a dark and stormy night …))
I wasn’t told about the Egypt trip.
Mary and Joseph went to Egypt to avoid the slaughter of the innocents after the visit of the wise men.
Incidentally, the visit of the wise men happened at least ten years before the census for which pregnant-with-Jesus-Mary and Joseph went to Bethlehem.
Hmmm…I always heard it ‘Christ on a Cracker’. Didn’t know he’d branched out to buns.
Well, it’s obvious that Jesus is made of stale wafer. Just ask any Catholic!
Mind you, pork sausage WAS slightly OTT.
I wonder if they’ll use a hot cross bun for their Easter promotion!
Paul S – you win the internet today.
It has been said before, but it bears saying again, the Baby Jesus Butt Plug
They missed a line with the Virgin Mary’s Tears Lubricant.
And the Mother Teresa special edition. Comes with spikes, genuine porcupine quills.
I didn’t know that porcupines could write!
What you need is one of these, lubricated with the finest of fresh chillies and driven home with … gusto.
The betting isn’t whether you’ll travel fast, it’s whether you’ll travel faster than your yoke-mate receiving the same treatment.
Karapan sapi is the name of the “game”, and the … “encouragement” goes under the name of a rekeng.
Under Rule 34, I’m off to register a domain name and holding page : https://holy.mary.mother.of.christ.chilli-enhanced.lubricant.com/buynow.html Guaranteed first million bucks.
Is this written in some arcane code to conceal some hidden wisdom? I got a bit lost after “fresh chillies”.
They should have said they were sorry for offending cannibals but nobody is stopping them from eating Jesus instead of sausage. Haha just kidding Christianity! Don’t get mad at me bros!
The father, the son and the holy sausage?
That is too funny!
“…I think people of all faiths will be offended by this.”
A statement that ought to be untrue if the faithful concerned happen to believe in one of the tens of thousands of religions in which Nazareth holds no special place. But, lo! Behold! The vicar is probably right, as believers of all stripes tend to follow the doctrine of ‘my enemy’s enemy is my friend’ and it doesn’t take them long to see that an atheist is a greater enemy than a fellow believer in some other nonsense. Think about it for a minute or two and you realise it is an admission of the falsehood of all religions when they prefer the company of those they ought to oppose to those who simply decline to play the game.
“…and neglecting the real scandal of Christmas.”
????
Seems we heathens have started our annual War on Christmas early this year.
Why are people getting upset? The brave man has only designed what was literally written in the New Testament
John 6:51:
He who eats of this bread will live forever. And the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. ”
Meat in the bread = Jesus
Jesus is the meat in the middle? Well, I’m less than surprised – he hung around with plenty of prostitutes, and they charge double-bubble for half the work, so they like it.
I could take exception to what you are saying here. What are you implying when you use the word “plenty”? Eh?
If you say Jesus backwards you get sausage!
Diane Keaton/Woodie Allen:
Luna Schlosser: Miles, do you know that “God” spelled backwards is “dog”?
Miles Monroe: So?
Luna Schlosser: It makes you think.
Graham, I saw on Facebook that Lord Jesus spelled backwards is Susejd rol. I was looking to see if anyone else mentioned it. Maybe it is more of a mirror image ?
Oops. Misread that headline as
“Baby Jesus’ sausage causes uproar…”
There must be something Freudian worng with me.
cr
Well that’s my lunch tomorrow sorted! Thanks jesus!
Such a Host of helpful suggestions.
The chrust has risen.
I offer you the following tribute to the mystic union of the sausage (banger) and the potato (mash) as interpreted for our sustenance and well-being by the immortal Peter Sellers(geniale) and Sophia Loren (che bomba).
I find it *completely* ridiculous to compare jesus to a sausage roll. For one thing, sausage rolls actually exist.
There was a sausage roll number in the Gilbert & Sullivan operetta The Grand Duke. “We’d all be green as frogs, if not for this makeup.”
I thought it was baloney
The Streeisand effect will ensure that the calendar will be out of stock by Tuesday. In fact, t’ll be selling like hot cakes.
The Daily Mash’s take on the controversy:
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/food/greggs-nativity-jesus-should-have-been-a-steak-bake-says-archbishop-20171116139230
Is that missing portion of the sausage meant to represent a circumcision?
See Paul S’ reply to #8 above.
Wow, a food only mildly more appetizing than a communion wafer! How appropriate.
There was an episode of Top Gear where baby Jesus was replaced with the Stig and I don’t recall anybody making a fuss.
Top Gear had Jezza on it. (That’s Jeremy Clarkson). The offence quotient of Stig-as-baby-Jesus kinda pales by comparison.
😉
cr
Courtesy of the drunks at the Hull Beer Festival on Thursday night comes the explanation of Gregg’s substitution:
Reverse the letters of lord Jesus to reveal “susej drol” :-O it’s close!
I have no idea of the source for this, it may be quoted from social media for all I know (no doubt someone on TwitBook can elighten me).
Also, if this is mentioned above please excuse me, I am far too fragile to read all of the comments before posting this… 7.5% perry and 6.9% cider with strong bitter has a deleterious effect on one’s bodily economy (it was the management’s sugggestion to post it).
It is a joke. Jokes are a concept beyond the pointlessly angry, as will be highlighted by some fussy eating fruitloop wanting to know why it was a sausage roll not a lentil based alternative.
This is the answer to the question: What is the least kosher thing in the world?
“… it’s showing a total disregard and disrespect towards one of the greatest stories ever told …”
“greatest stories ever told”? Would that be a sophisticated theology euphemism for “the greatest religious lie ever peddled”?
Fortunately, this idiot reverend clearly states that the non-religious do not have to be offended: “I think people of all faiths will be offended by this”, so at least I’m safe (as though anyone needs this reverend’s permission for anything).
“Can there really be only three wise men in the world”
Actually, the original text makes it clear that those were three *magi*, which is the Latin plural for magicians. Embarrassed believers then reinterpret “magicians” to really mean “wise men”, an extremely common practice among true believers.
I understand that the three “Magi” from the East may have been followers of Uhura Mazda from the ancient Persian Zoroastrian religion (as in “Alto Sprach Zarathustra”).
The word Mazda apparently means “wisdom” and I suppose may be the origin of the word “magic”
and may also account for the epithet “wise man” or Magi.
The dualism that persisted into European Christianity as far as the Cathar period of the last crusade, may have derived from earlier contamination with Zoroastrianism, which still persists in the modern world as the Parsee religion (mostly in India).
Other ideas from this religion may have derived from this religion: the virgin birth of Mithras (who was a god assimilated by the Romans), the demiurge (as the fallen archangel) etc.
I have no idea if they liked sausage rolls.
Other ideas from this religion may have derived from this religion
meant:
Other ideas in Christianity may have derived from this religion