The Pig Book. That’s how I always thought of it. The Resident IT Consultant gave Son (a younger sort of Son than the present one) a book with this ugly pig on the cover. I never liked it, but surprisingly Son seemed to think it was interesting and fun. So, nearly all was well.
It seems that it was only half a book. I know this, because I now have the whole book, and nothing but the book, and it’s got no ugly pigs on the cover. At all. (Had to go back and check again, just to be sure. No pig.)
The Complete Philosophy Files by former postman Stephen Law. This former postwitch never really ‘got’ Philosophy at school. Before starting, I used to think it sounded interesting. And then it was all a lot of formulae and peculiar stuff and the teacher was weird, and I never knew if that had anything to do with the subject or not. So, I came away from it feeling stupider than when I went in.
But this complete pig book; it’s not bad. Quite interesting, in fact, and with a great cover. It asks lots of hard questions about the universe and eating your fellow plane passengers and that kind of thing. And Stephen doesn’t give you the answers. He philosophises and sort of shows that whatever opinion you have, you might be right. Or wrong.
There is God. And there are feet that hurt, even though you no longer have a foot. Time travel (again, sorry) and the Big Bang, although not necessarily at the same time. I’m not sure postman Law would believe in bookwitches. He could probably argue the case against.
You can kill people. Either to punish them for doing that very same thing to someone else. Or to eat them.
The chapter on vegetarianism made me feel sick. I’ve thought most of the arguments before. And it’s ‘ew’ all the way. But as with most things, no one side is totally right.
Curried cat, anyone?
(It’s National Non-Fiction Day today. Just so you know.)
The Occasional Bookwitch 