Do sea urchins really live forever?

[miss_squiddy]

Today I shall be wasting my time at the Museum of Hoaxes, where I was searching for Jonathan Swift's 'A Modest Proposal' (a fantastic piece of satire where Swift suggests that farming babies as an alternative source of meat would help to eradicate poverty) but they didn't have it and now I've got carried away...

A Modest Proposal

"I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout."

"Those who are more thrifty (as I must confess the times require) may flay the carcass; the skin of which artificially dressed will make admirable gloves for ladies, and summer boots for fine gentlemen."

"The constant breeders, beside the gain of eight shillings sterling per annum by the sale of their children, will be rid of the charge of maintaining them after the first year."

Comments

[ex-pipistre.livejournal.com]

we had to read that at school in the US; of course 98% of the class took it literally and came away with the idea that Britain is a country full of cannibals!

[miss_squiddy]

Hahahaha! We studied it for A-Level - along with loads of source material on the outrage it caused at the time. I looked it up for Delyth, who is working with people on a very pikey housing estate.

[lucien-dark.livejournal.com]

Good old Jonathan Swift, he's related to me y'know, the lucky feller.

[toxicpixie.livejournal.com]

It's not satire; it's based of my manifesto for change once I rule the world after the revolution.

Yes.

*nods emphatically*

Nathan, The Toxic Pixie