Have you seen the little piggies?

What is it with pigs? Have you noticed how they worm their way into everything? "Have you seen the little piggies?" wrote John Lennon (a reputed reference to the law and order brigade - the policeman or 'pig'). Less controversially, we hear of pig-sick and pig-headed! What does this say about the little porkers? Do we malign them? What have they done to deserve all this negativity?

If pigs had wings... pigs might fly! Always said with an air of suspicion. Poor piggies. Probably they would enjoy having wings, floating over the pigsty, zooming over the clover fields and soaring into the blue, dreaming their little piggy dreams and landing headfirst in the mud for a quick wallow. Why not?

One may not be able to fashion a silken purse from a pig's ear, one may not be able to buy a pig in a poke or even a sou'wester, but a pig may roll in the mud after a morning's flying and pamper himself... like a pig in clover, as they say. And at the end of the day, one may buy a fat pig and jiggety jig all the way home again. 'This little piggie went to market, this little piggie stayed at home, this little piggie ate roast beef...' What nonsense we all talk about pigs!

Finally, unless anyone else can think of other piggy references, we may finish by gazing in wonder as red-hot molten iron is poured into moulds and ask ourselves why - why pigs? Did they really resemble pigs? Or piglets? Why pig iron? Or are we just pig-ignorant? No doubt someone will put me straight...