Poor Pigs

If this story is true, it confirms my view that some very wacky people work at OUP. Other publishers should rub their hands with glee and hog (pun intended) all the porky stories.

There are some marvellous pig stories that OUP would ban, one of them, Dick King Smith's The Sheep Pig, a favourite in my family. They are being very silly!!

Why is a pig considered "unclean" anyway? I know it was on the original list of unclean animals but I don't think anyone really knows why - unless it was because pork could cause food poisoning quite easily in hot countries. I don't eat it anyway because I'm vegetarian but I like pigs in stories!

Surely this is someone having a laugh? So it's ok to have a 'cartoon' supposedly of Mohammad with a star on his bottom but we have to ban Peppa Pig and Babe?

Sorry, this just cannot be serious!

Oh of course Money!! Silly me, that answers everything!!!

Ahem.....my nephew works for Oxford Press. He's getting lots of ribbing on Facebook and we're all having a good laugh. It's nonsense, of course. His young daughter has a Peppa Pig bedroom and plenty of books with pigs in. Someone has been over-enthusiastic in advising authors and publications about cultural sensitivity. It belongs with the other silly PC dictats we've all rumbled over the years.

What are Pigs and all associated with them to be called? Bearing in mind 'A Rose by any other name' etc whatever is chosen will mean the same thing, or are all swine to be wiped off the face of the earth and simply not exist any more?! Can any of these clever men/women from Oxford tell us this.

As I understand it, these were guidelines issued so as to maximise overseas sales.

Have any significant Muslim or Jewish organisations in the UK requested/demanded pigs be omitted? Probably not - they don't hate pigs, they just don't eat them!

I'm sure that traditionally, Muslims have seen dogs as impure, so does this mean we can have no more references to dogs in children's books?

Where are we going with this? It seems ironic in the light of current discussions about the importance of free speech. Don't we have far more important issues to consider in that area than whether a child might be offended by a reference to an animal that shares our planet?

Tegan I must have typed exactly the same a minute or two ago and not posted it (telepathy? )

I thought Hindus couldn't eat beef so should cows not be portrayed either?

Clearly OUP don't mind making total fools of themselves! Certainly loss of credibility big time

Exactly POGS but this was Oxford University Press so I would have thought there might have been a tiny bit of common sense.

Gilly you have heard of that saying: 'All brains and no commonsense'

So what about the sacred cow in the Hindu religion?

I know there are more Jews and Muslims in this country but the Hindu population is quite sizeable.

Will the Thought Police be coming round to seize my Peppa Pig DVDs?

If you ban references to pigs, logically you should also ban references to all other animals except cows sheep chickens etc. Because they're the only ones that can be eaten.
There's nothing different about pigs that makes them less halal/kosher.

My GC have two guninea pigs camels Gillybob

This is utter nonsense

Surely any parent whatever their beliefs etc. deems what is and what is not appropriate for their child to read. This is the responsibility of the parent not the country in which they live.

Definately making a 'pig's ear' re this decision.

Pigs are animals. all children know that, whatever culture they are in.

People in non-muslim, non-Jewish cultures eat pork - which is pigmeat - and sausages - made of pork - or beef. children in Muslim or Jewish cultures are not being harmed by knowing that.

In fact, it gives an opening for their parents/teachers to say "of course we don't".

No-one has any need to be offended or disgusted - in fact a spokesman for the Jewish Leadership Council added: ‘Jewish law prohibits eating pork, not the mention of the word, or the animal from which it derives." and Muslim Labour MP Khalid Mahmood called the ban 'absolute utter nonsense'

Yukk.

If you want an emoticon for comfused, just type Galen! It's my middle name. Confused that is in case you're confused as well!

Galen

I guessed that. My emoticon should have been a wink or smile to have put that point across. That ruddy confused emoticon.

well I shan't hog all the applause.

Sausage, that is.

Oh you are a silly one Galen

Thought of changing mine to sausage

That's how it was meant! Stupid OU press decision.