To think that this is political correctness gone mad???!!!

[rdmommy]

elc have removed the pig from the happy land farm set as it may offend some religious groups!- i.e muslim and jewish. so am i wrong to suggest that maybe we should not have farm sets because it could offend veggies, the cows could offend hindus and maybe the sheep could offend the welsh???

this is bloody stupid... our town renamed christmas as fucking winterval!!!!!

oooh this morning man as just said cows for hindus too.. get me!

YABU to imply that sheep could offend the Welsh, why would they?

YANBU.

you are surely joking at both the pig and 'winterval' ,please tell me you are

What? I'm Jewish and I love pigs! Just not to eat. I'm offended by them being taken out!

YABU It's ELC's product selection team going a little mad... nothing more. Almost every time these stories crop up there's some misguided fear of causing offence behind them. And the people supposed to be offended are anything but. Relax and read better newspapers :)

Things like this really winds me up. Sick of it really. I would complain

TBH, I seriously, seriously doubt this has actually happened. Sounds very like the "OMG we cnt evn sing ba ba blk shep anymoor cos of the pakis an that!!!!!11!1!!1!" brigade.

should stop reading the sun!!! but it was just on this morning does that make it viable???

yes it is winterval here in the midlands, for our town anyway altho i think the conservative council may have stamped that out this year!

Nice bit of publicity there for ELC then, eh, skeleton?
They never had to change a thing, just a couple of press releases.
And so close to christmas too.

I refused to belive it ever happend, except in Daily Mail gone mad land :o

I agree with EvilEye - it just sounds like another way to vilify Muslims and Jews. Not only do Jews drink the blood of Christian children but they keep them from playing happy farms too!

If the pig has been removed it is probably so that the company can sell their product to Muslim and Jewish parents more easily - ie: it is a straight up and down commercial decision. Not as a way of avoiding "offence." The manufacturing has to make some decisions about which animals to include or not so why not make those decisions based on want animals would or would not be more increase sales.

YANBU

Complete and total utter madness.

And it is true but they have now agreed to put said pigs back again!

I like the idea of Winterval, TBH. Like Festivus in Seinfeld.

Festivus - doesn't that include the ritual airing of grievances? I like that :)

I really don't understand why people still believe these stories unless they really want to. I will bet my bottom dollar not one single Jew or Muslim has complained. Its just an excuse to bash minorities and I'm sick to death of it. If the pigs have been removed its because of a commercial decision in that they are ot selling well etc not because the 'effnicks' have an issue. Get a grip.

Chaya i find it very difficult to explain the religious symbolism of winterval to my 3 year old. because there is none and the public holiday of christmas is a religious festival. we would not dare feel it necessary to change the names of other religious festivals that are not chrsitian so that other children from different religions can feel involved, instead we embrace them for being important to those religions.

Ha ha - it doesnt fit into your worldviews so it never happened :)

I'm sure it did happen but whatever PC liberal drone made the call obviously wasnt acting on company policy, thus the retraction.

i take my dds to a fram once a week at least where they see pigs, if i buy them a farm to play with how do you suggest i explain the absence of the pigs? Its like buying them a toy garage without the cars

Without wishing to out you, the winterval thing was a bit of a right-wing myth from about ten years ago

meant farm

"maybe the sheep could offend the welsh"

What the JEFF?

Link to story if interested

Winterval is just a portmanteau word to cover the whole season of winter festivals - it is no more re-naming Xmas than it is renaming Diwali.

I agree with other posters - ELC is international, isn't it? So presumably the set sells better in other countries sans pig.