We seem to spend most of our time trying to make ourselves feel better about decapitating our bouncy, fluffy animal friends and devouring their flesh. On most food packaging, you will now find words to ease your conscience: 'Free range', 'organic', 'woodland reared'. 'This chicken had plenty of space to scratch around in and cluck. It also enjoyed windsurfing and scale model railways'.
This isn't really enough for me. Eating meat makes me feel guilty, but I know the one thing that would stop me from feeling guilty. That's if I knew that the animal I was about to eat, in its lifetime, was really, really annoying. Example:
'This chicken lived on a farm and was a right dickhead.'
That would work for me. I would even do the killing. Line up some sheep and I'll make my choice.
SHEEP 1: BAA
ME: NO
SHEEP 2: BAA
ME: NOPE
SHEEP 3: BEEEEIGE
ME: THAT ONE.
FX: Gunshot.
If an animal is loud, or has no self-awareness, or too obviously public school educated, or wears designer sunglasses on their head even though it's not sunny, or plays their music out loud on the bus, or shops at Jack Wills, or thinks those 'Compare the Meerkat' adverts are funny...fuck it. Bring me people like that and I'll go cannibal. I'll eat the lot of them. I'll play tennis with their heads. I'll make Idi Amin look like Ben Fogel in a jumper petting a duckling and getting all moist around the eyes because a badger stubbed its toe.
If Idi Amin had ever been put on trial for human rights violations, he could have stuck a 'd' in his name. Idi Admin. Then he could have said "I'm just temping here".
That's the second time I've threatened to become a genocidal dictator tonight. The first instalment came when I was talking to my flatmate about the Liberal Democrat policy of putting a tax on homes worth more than a million.
HIM:
They can't do that. It's crazy.
ME:
Why not? Rich bastards. They can afford it.
HIM:
Yeah, but there are a lot of people who live in expensive houses who aren't rich.
ME:
Then they should sell up and get out of the area. The rich must be ghettoised.
HIM:
But you can't discriminate against people who are well off.
ME:
Yes you can. Put them on trains. Send them to camps. We can seize their assets and dole out the loot amongst us...hey, I've become a Nazi. (Stands and salutes) Zeik heil.
NOTE: My flatmate is black. Ordinarily, I wouldn't salute most people in a Nazi style, particularly not those of an ethnic minority. Fortunately he's Ethiopian, and they have no specific beef with the Fuhrer. In fact, according to Prof. Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis, Ethiopia has a racist education system. I don't know if this is true or not, but I'm not sure if I trust someone whose surname sounds like 'megalomaniac' and who uses two academic titles. It's ridiculous. You don't get it anywhere else do you? In the army you don't get Lieutenant-General or Sergeant-Major do you? Of course not! The British Army wouldn't have been able to defeat the Nazi war machine single-handedly otherwise. No one would know whose in charge. There'd be too much arguing.
"I'm a sergeant major. That's highest."
"But I'm a lieutenant general."
"Yeah, but a major is higher than a sergeant."
"Yeah, but I'm a type of general."
"You're a type of nob."
