Apparently the classic fairytale of Three Little Pigs is now "too offensive", and the use of pigs raises cultural issues to the extent that the story should be excluded from important Government events.
Sometimes you need to take offence, though. This is yet another attack from the brigade fighting to strip life down to smiling at your neighbours on the street and apologising profusely if a blade of grass from your lawn lands on theirs. It's another attack from the brigade that wants to sterilise children's toys to the extent that they are not prepared to encounter bacteria in real life once they've left the safety of their own home. It's yet another attempt to soften up the world into a big, mashy pile of jelly (no offence to vegetarians intended).
Life doesn't work that way, and it never will.
If the "V" symbol were a greeting gesture in another country, I'd accept that and not take offence to it. That never works over here, though, for some reason.
Besides, one of the specific critisicms raised by award judges was, "is it true that all builders are cowboys, builders get their work blown down, and builders are like pigs?" Yes, I suppose three-year old children really pick up on false stereotypes like these when they see pigs with saws building wooden houses, and wolves blowing them down with nothing but their lung power. If anything, the imagination is wide enough at that age to see that the analogy of pigs and wolves is based purely on the rivalrous relationship between the two creatures.
But never mind, we'll add pigs to the list of things we're 'recommended' to not write stories about in this country any more. All this judgement has done is give further credibility to anyone attempting to unfairly alienate or even criminalise someone who does want to write a story about pigs.
