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Nice Baps!


Today's Gospel reading in the lectionary is from John 6: 1-21; the Feeding of the 5,000. In John's version the people completely miss the deeper significance of the miracle and focus on filling their bellies. The following dialogue has a sense of this. It is my adaptation of an older CPAS skit called "Nice Rolls" which I adapted to add a little local colour. For the uninitiated "baps" in Northern Ireland are bread rolls, and a slang term for a significant part of the female anatomy.


(Young man and an older woman are standing eating baps)
Man: Nice baps Mrs!
Woman: I beg your pardon young man!? (folding arms over chest) How dare you !?
Man: No, sorry… (holding out bap) I meant these… They're great... I'm on my second one...
Woman: Sorry… I thought you were being rude…
Man : No… Not at all… Have you any idea what’s in them, Mrs?
Woman: I’m not sure. Fish I think...
Man: Do you know what time it is by any chance?
Woman: (Looks at watch, then holds it to ear shocked) I don’t believe it.
Man: What’s wrong?
Woman: It’s nearly half eight. I should have been home ages ago… My husband will be raging that I didn’t have his dinner ready…
Man: Nearly half eight! Never! That means we’ve been here over eight hours... No wonder I was ravenous before we got these baps.
Woman: I thought it was only 4.
Man: Me too! Mind you! Shows what a good speaker he is!
Woman: What?
Man: Well I mean, there’s not many people I could listen to for eight hours.
Woman: Certainly not the man I listen to every sabbath.
Man: I really like his stories. What about the one about the farmer sowing seed! Never thought of myself as a bit of soil before. Have you Mrs?
Woman: Can’t say I have...
Man: Mind you I wouldn’t believe everything you hear about him...
Woman: Like what?
Man: You know, all that stuff about him touching people and making them well, turning gallons of water into wine... That sort of thing!
Woman: Oh yes! I had heard that!
Man: There’s even talk he brought someone back to life. Dead as a doornail they were, then he talks to them and up they get. Ridiculous! A load of rubbish...
Woman: Yeah, ridiculous. Mind you, these are good baps...
Man: Yeah, I wonder where he got them?



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