Bacon c 7,000 BC - AD 2007

Wage-earners are facing the knowledge they will no longer be able to bring home the bacon, following news that humanity's favourite cured pork product has been singled out for condemnation by the World Cancer Research Fund.

Bacon is thought to have been conceived over 9,000 years ago when a Near Eastern pig farmer tucked into a bit of fatty back meat from his newly-domesticated charges and thought, "This is nowhere near unhealthy enough ... what I need to do is add a whole heap of salt to it and then stick it above the fire to absorb as many carcinogens as possible". What happened to that pig farmer after he made his great discovery remains unknown: some say he died of clogged arteries, some say he died of hypertension, while others claim that his foolish decision to slap a piece of his new-created "Bacon" between two slices of well-buttered bread, thus creating the legendary "Bacon Sarnie" led to him being crushed by a mob of weak-willed vegetarians with a sudden uncontrollable yen for meaty not-so-goodness.

Soon most of humanity was happily bunging bits of pork in vast piles of salt and then slipping it into the chimney, little realising that in doing so they were paving the path for their descendants' anxious journeys to the doors of their cardiologists and oncologists (or, in the case of their American descendants, the even more anxious journey to a lawyer to see if there was any way of getting their health insurance to actually pay out for those cardiologists and oncologists). Only the Jews and the Muslims managed to stand firm against Bacon's savoury allure, the latter group doubtless aided in their resolution by the fact that Islam's prohibition on alcohol meant they never had need of a post-hangover fry-up.

It was in the British Isles, however, that Bacon found its greatest success, becoming - alongside ham - the favourite meat of Britons, who loved it so much they even named leading philosophers and painters after it. In the hands of Brits, Bacon found itself happily nestling alongside sausages or beneath eggs, combining crunchily with broad beans, spicing up smoked eel, braising beautifully with cabbage, giving piquancy to bacon and onion pie and giving spice to many a soup.

All the more distressing then that we should now learn that the mere sight of a single salty sliver of this magnificent meat means certain death (the World Cancer Research Funds survey having conclusively proved that eating bacon is completely incompatible with immortality). With the news that, in its hour of need, the leading defender of a rasher of unsmoked best back turned out to be celebrity gnome impersonator and alleged celebrity chef Anthony Worrall Thompson, Bacon was out of the frying pan and into the fires of eternity.

Bacon will be cremated next Tuesday in front of a large congregation armed with bottles of tomato ketchup and slices of bread. The readings will be from Luke 8:26-39, the casting out of the Gadarene Swine, and Dave 8.30-9am, the preparing of the Gadarene Barbeque.

Bacon will be buried alongside processed meat, red meat, salt, energy-dense foods, sugary drinks and having any kind of fun at all. It is survived by the mung bean.