Abu Hamza...

[Jamie123]

... vs. Gregor Samsa!

(My money's on Gregor)

[Jamie123]

*Sigh* Oh well I thought it was funny. Bad taste I grant you, but the funniest things often are

I remember vividly the first time I read the story of Gregor Samsa. It was about 30 years ago, when I was sharing a house in Preston with a bunch of other students, someone left the book lying around the sitting room. I was so intrigued by the picture on the cover that I had to read it. I was not so far from childhood as not to have a faint dread that it might happen to me too - though I obviously knew it was impossible. (I was still - the truth be told - still in the habit of looking under the bed before I went to sleep in case there were any monsters hiding under there. I would doubtless have checked the closet too if my room had had one!)

People always seemed to be leaving books and leaflets lying around in those days. Perhaps I'm being paranoid but I suspect some of them were meant for me: I remember once - shortly after revealing myself to be a "dangerous liberal" willing to give Darwin a fair hearing - a copy of Jack Chick's "Big Daddy" appeared mysteriously on the mantelpiece. If it was intended to "convert" me it backfired: even at the tender age of 21 I thought it was a disgraceful muck-raking pamphlet whose best place was in the trash.

Incidentally, it was during that same period that I first saw a copy of the Book of Mormon. An associate of mine had it on her desk (I think she must recently have had a visit from the missionaries) and though I flipped through it, neither she nor anyone else was willing to talk about it much. In fact quite a number of people I knew in Preston made muttered references to "The Mormons" but would refuse to elaborate. It was another four years before I spoke to the missionaries myself and got a clue what it was about.

Edited May 19, 2016 by Jamie123

[Blackmarch]

LOL