The Blunt End of the Known Universe: Road Trips and Modern Fables

This book follows the author's earlier book, The Blunt End of the Grid. It begins with a road trip and ends with a road trip. Neither of them is conventional. In between, Dave presents a variety of memoirs about life in the seventies, eighties and nineties, after dropping out of art college and occasionally making sketchy efforts to drop back in again. Pausing only to spend an entire evening attempting to be the founder of a new religion, he goes on to study, formally and informally, psychology, mind-expanding drugs, and gas welding. He explores the world of being mistrusted by the general public, through driving taxis and selling cheap second-hand cars. The stories are mostly just amusing, but there are also some serious issues discussed, such as the differing attributes of horses and fishes, and the ethics of selling military caps to Idi Amin. You will find out all you need to know about the Theory of Evolution (featuring Buddha's mental struggle and nest engineering), together with the history of the western world in digestible form. The relevance of Christian parables to capitalism is shown, whilst capitalism itself is fully, yet briefly, explained. And the most enigmatic question of all is answered - why do all young people have the same tattoo and what does it mean?