Shall I compare thee to a steak slice? The pastry is an orange the shade of Donald Trump’s wigless, racist scalp while the filling on its own wouldn’t look out of place in an abattoir, but there is nothing more perfect in this life. So why, in this centuries-old city where perfection is the minimum requirement, are we denied such joy?
The smell of freshly-microwaved pastry, the queue of tired workers fumbling for their loose change, the rows and rows of identical little parcels of fat and grease and unidentifiable meat – these are alien sights to Oxford. I miss the aggressively blue signs and the worryingly high concentration of pigeons loitering outside. Even for a soft Londoner there are few more comforting sights than a Greggs.
A beacon of hope in the night, a warm orange glow of happiness. The vacancies on our streets are being filled by more and more Taylors or sushi bars, but the people do not want more sushi! What is rice and seaweed to a foot’s worth of sausage and pastry, toasted and bagged in seconds? We want meat and bread and gravy and we want it now.
Without a Greggs in Oxford soon I’m going to start to lose hope. There are only so many trips to Hassan’s in my pyjamas I can handle. And what about when Hassan isn’t there? What do I do between 4am and 7pm? Nowhere in this city is there a substitute for it. Wherefore art thou, Greggs?
Disclaimer: this article has not been sponsored by Greggs in any way, I’m just desperate.
