Hot ‘tick’ buns: when did ‘cross’ become so controversial?

I ask you, how far wrong can you go with a hot cross bun – a Good Friday treat decorated with a cross to represent the crucifixion of Jesus Christ? Very wrong indeed. Standing in Waitrose, several of us reeled from the abomination that is white chocolate and lemon hot cross buns. Yeuch.

Then came actual sacrilege. Iceland launched a hot cross bun with a tick instead of the Christian symbol. “When I survey the wondrous tick.” Doesn’t have quite the same ring, does it?

These Frankensteins of Easter tradition are getting more and more monstrous. In Australia, Coles’ Vegemite and cheese variant unleashed a torrent of “not cross buns”: an orange burger bun with cheese and paprika; sticky date hot cross pudding bun and even hot cross bun porridge.

The torture it neverendeth. Yesterday, my friend Maggie texted from Waitrose. “Brace yourself. Hot cross bunettone.” Hopping mad, I tell you.

Iceland claims that a fifth of customers prefer their Easter buns to have a tick instead of a cross. So what? Drooling idiots might prefer Kim Kardashian in a thong to the Virgin Mary with the baby Jesus, but Kimmie is not yet the accepted symbol of Christmas, thank God.

The point of tradition is reassuring sameness, I reckon, delighting in doing the things our forebears did, not indulging an unappeasable hunger for novelty.

Fortunately, Christ’s good news to the world – Jesus’s resurrection after such suffering and doubt means that there is always hope – stands the test of time.

Just nobody put a chocolate egg in a fruit-laden bun, that’s all I’m asking. Happy Easter to you all.