Don’t Take ALL the Clothes Off!

Went on a bit in the last ‘Blog’, didn’t I? Sorry about that.

There was yet still more to write about Sudan but every story has to come to a close somewhere. Sometimes the things that are left unsaid are the things that are the most important.

I do try, when writing novels, not to be too graphic. Some things need describing in detail either to make a point or for effect. There are other things that should be left with just a suggestion or not at all.

The reason for that is that the reader has an imagination. If a reader has no imagination then that person would not be a reader of books, they would turn to films and role-playing games for their entertainment.

Before you get up on your hobbyhorse and start chanting voodoo mantras at me I should point out that there is nothing wrong with either films or role-playing games. My point was trying to reflect on the possibility of someone ignoring books altogether and focussing entirely and exclusively on those other options.

There are such people. I know several people who have said, “Oh, I don’t read books,” with that fleeting look of ineffable boredom sweeping across their face at the very thought of doing something so incomprehensibly, mind-numbingly, stupefying as opening a book

A book, for heaven’s sake. They are so ‘yesterday’; so old-fashioned! Why, they even smell old-fashioned.

Except e-books.

Now we have people arguing about what is best. Is it more satisfying to read an e-book or turn the pages of an actual, real book?

White eggs or brown eggs?

Here, in Malaysia where I live a life of utter bliss away from the snows and bland food of Europe (there will be, no doubt, objections to that in due course), we are able to purchase, at certain locations, fried chicken

This is not, I hear you say, a big deal. Fried chicken is a staple of the Deep South in the US as it is in many places Worldwide where it goes by the name of ‘KFC’.

But.

Here there is a very slight difference.

Here you can purchase fried ‘Virgin Chicken’.

Yes. Precisely what I thought. It took, possibly, several milliseconds for the idea to flash through my head on sighting the banner that hung over the roadside food stall.

Can you imagine roadside food stalls in Europe? The EU Committees would send police around to shut it down in the blink of an eye—unhygienic, don’t you know!

Back to the ‘Virgin Chicken’.

What I want to know, and this is something that, it appears, nobody wishes to tell me, is what is the difference between the flavour of a ‘normal’ chicken and one that has yet to be... er... deflowered?

I strongly suspect that there is no difference. It is a marketing ploy. Men prefer virgins, they tell me—I have no idea why, but that is just me. So why not carry this idea through to food.

It is just the name, for certain.

Thus we come back to the ‘real book’ versus ‘e-book’ argument.

Why is there an argument at all?

Both books have their purpose. Both book systems are equally valid.

If someone wants to read lots of books stored in a compact tablet while they are, for example, travelling, then that is fine.

What is equally fine is that somebody should wish to turn the pages of a physical book and derive satisfaction from the feel and smell of it along with the words in it.

People argue over really stupid things, do they not?

Films, role-playing games, books and e-books all have a place in our personal entertainment world as does ‘Ludo’, ‘Monopoly’ and TV series.

I just believe that people who read books like to imagine some of the story, they do not like every detail pressed into their heads.

Sometimes it is best to leave a little left unsaid to add to the mystery.

Like the time I went to look for something for beloved in Khartoum and found a loofah plant instead!