29th June Death On The A94

A pheasant made an error of judgement this morning that proved fatal, turning right instead of left. There was a slight bump indicative of contact with the sump of the Daihatsu. I glanced in the mirror and the once proud cock was motionless on the tarmac apart from a flurry of feathers. Any attempt at an avoidance strategy could have caused the derailment of the whole caboodle and a head on collision with oncoming traffic. The underlying assumption is that the loss of a human being would be a far greater loss than a bird that was only going to be shot around October time.

My life is worth more because of a subtle difference; I'm doing something useful like shoving flexible liners up chimneys, instead of just eating barley and periodically going Graaaarrrr!

Still, I regretted cutting short its life. Why? Because it was happy enough? Because it was an individual that hadn't fufilled its true potential? Because it didn't deserve to die, not like that? Because it was a thing of beauty (perhaps it was ugly on the inside)?

Or maybe it's just because I like birds?

Neural networks, aren't they amazing? You see its all down to the compartmentaIisation of thought processes, that's why I could simultaneously feel bad about killing the pheasant, whilst feeling nothing at all about the recently deceased pig whose flesh I had just grilled.

When business was quieter the death of the bird wouldn't have been entirely pointless, from my point of view. For the simple reason that I would have ordinarily pulled over to retrieve what would later cook for 30 mins in a medium oven.