Via Libby Purves:

The £125,000 sculpture is the work of Norfolk artist Colin Self and shows [a Buddha] with a food-offering - a metal banana and two eggs arranged - well, work it out for yourself.

It has been at the Royal Academy. But DC Dan Cocks of Norfolk Police hate-crime unit wants it out. Self says "One of the points of the work is to highlight how, in a global village where different cultures collide, you cannot help but upset somebody, somewhere, somehow."

"Cannot help but upset" people? How dishonest: I'm not saying he can't express himself, but let's be clear: this was an intentional effort to go out of the way to provoke, not an accidental cultural gaffe. :-/

(And I'm sure Buddhists were so upset they were threatening his very life.)

DC Cocks is threatening impoundment and arrest. The gallery owner is standing firm for artistic freedom. The exhibit also features the Hindu god Ganesh under a Nazi helmet and Christ crucified on a flying bomber.

So: Which major world religion were the artists apparently afraid to parody?

Well, Judaism obviously! ;-)

Or wasn't that the one you were thinking of?

(The Jesus parody barely warrants a mention: Anti-Jesus blasphemy? Yawn. Oh, a Buddha too?)