Every so often, amid the debate of if a green bum bag is better than an orange bum bag between a group of German people, the debate of eating human flesh comes up (if it comes up more than once every five years then I suggest you seriously think about who you make friends with). I am talking about the great film ‘Alive’, of course. This debate always intrigues me, mainly for two reasons: 1) It never ceases to amaze me how many people say “I couldn’t do that” before biting in to some animal flesh—essentially the same thing we are made of, whether you like it or not. 2) How surprised people are when I say “I’d do it, I wouldn’t even think twice”. The party usually then goes very quiet. Lots of nervous laughter and the sliding of chairs on floor—in any direction which is not mine.

But I have thought a lot about it on occasion, and I have come to the conclusion that in reality you do what you have to do. Because that’s the basic rule which drives our survival instinct: the fact that we drive cars, buy our food in the shops and watch TV doesn’t mean we are any less screwed when we get stranded.

I suppose it makes you stand out if you admit that you’d do it ‘no problem’, and most people don’t want to be expose their ideas to be so grim. From what I know about people—and this is all from comparatively my experience as one—they don’t much like you to think bad things about them, as that might mean you think other bad things about them too.