SHOPPERS GET CROSS IN THE MEADOWS

Visitors to the Meadows Shopping Centre can hardly fail to have noticed the new installation, erected outside the Buried Treasures funeral directors at the north end of the mall. 

The piece comprises a free-standing wooden cross with a male figure, clad only in loincloth and crown of thorns, nailed to it. Above its head is a curled piece of parchment which reads: ‘2 for 1 Spring Deal. Bury One, Get One Free’.

The installation was the brainchild of Buried Treasures proprietor, Dominic Restinpiece.

“Business has been dying off recently,” Mr. Restinpiece told the Observer, “so we needed to think of something to inject a little life into things.

“Luckily, we had a cadaver in stock with a slender physique, long brown hair and a beard. It was easy enough to find a bit of cloth to wind around his waist, and there are plenty of bramble bushes on Froghill Common.

“What with Easter approaching, it seemed just the thing to grab the public’s attention. It’s only a bit of advertising, after all.”

It seems that not everyone agrees. In fact, one local resident, retired major Redfers Nuthatch, was so incensed by what he saw that he immediately started a petition calling to have the piece removed.

“It’s an abomination – it’s blasphemy, pure and simple,” shouted Maj. Nuthatch down the phone from his home, “I want to see it taken down and the perpetrator properly punished. We didn’t stand for this sort of thing in the army, let me tell you!”

The petition, which has been online since Monday, has so far gathered over three and a half signatures. It can be accessed at www.petitionsRus/hotcrossban.