1st Day at Beauty School

I'm sat there with a pair of tweezers in my hand trying my best to hold them steady, my hands feel a little creaky as i've made a lot of spoons this week, stretching her skin and trying to catch sight of a hair in the light i struggle to get a grip on a little hair. It's only a few mm long but it's thick and black, i pull it taut and then with a quick pull out it comes, no screams or flinches...

Of course she didn't scream because she's dead it's Anabelle my once "baby pig" has now all grown up been killed and chopped up. The small portion of belly with it's mamalian hairy skin and subcutaneous layer of fat was roasted today i had the job of pulling out the last few hairs on her skin so there would be lovely hair free crackling.

I have to admit the roast was amazing and the flavour really was a lot better than shop bought pork. But it did feel a little strange, knowing that i had tickled that belly while Anabelle was alive. And now i was trying to turn that skin which for all intense and purposes is identical to human flesh into crisp bits of crackling.

While we kept the four pigs i wasn't phased by the idea of eating their meat, though it is not something i have done before. i always felt it was somehow undignified for me to pay other people to do it on my behalf, without at least knowing something of the experience myself.

One thing i noticed is that after three pigs were slaughtered i made a much closer bond with the Pig that was kept for breeding, this is in part because of the great weather giving me more time in the pig field and also the guilt of her being left by herself made me visit more often. But i am in no doubt that i bonded less with Anabelle because i knew she would be killed.

It made me think of all the other objects and living things that i don't bond with because of the my expectation of the outcome. Like thinking about the million Children that die each year from Malaria, because if i really thought hard about those children and that stayed on my mind then i would be forced to act upon the feelings. Or global warming just to pick a couple of clichéd examples.

It wouldn't do to go around with the weight of the world on your shoulders because you wouldn't get anything done and that would be of no use to anyone. The fact is most people have enough on their plate as it is with paying mortgages and looking after their own children etc.

We tend to make a lot of these moral decisions as a society through the media, the newspapers are trying to guess what our moral standpoint is on a hot piece of news and then try to serve it up in that manner to suit our moral tastes so that we consume it. We know what our views are on GM crops (they are clearly evil) and at the moment we seem to be deciding on footballers their wives and some women who aren't their wives. 

I wonder if in fifty years time we'll still be eating meat, and i wonder how many children a year will be dying.