Tall tales: Cutting it fine

I have recently learnt that there are few things in life as satisfying and likely to lift the spirits after a trying morning than slicing through flesh with a whetted blade. Apart, perhaps, from wielding a reassuringly hefty meat cleaver, or to use its suspiciously pedestrian-sounding alternative name 'chopper', and cutting cleanly though bone, feeling it part with a gratifyingly loud crack. I'm not sure this was a life lesson I was meant to take away from my afternoon being taught butchery at The Parson's Nose in Fulham, and I did learn a great deal about the anatomy of the pig, but, my word, the cutting felt good.

The three-hour butchery lesson began with an introduction to my friendly sow, who was hanging by a trotter in the shop's walk-in fridge, an Aladdin's cave of flesh. Duncan, the cheery butcher who was acting as my tutor for the afternoon, expertly threw half her carcass over his burly shoulder and slammed her onto the block, where she lay expectantly, waiting for me to start inexpertly hacking in.

Although I have always been an avid carnivore - it's a running joke among my family that I like my steak to moo - I was concerned that being presented with an actual bloody porcine cadaver to dissect would make me squeamish. Indeed, the first step, removing the trotters, felt too much like shaking hands with the poor swine, and I started to long for the pre-cut shrink-wrapped, meat at my local Tesco.

But once you get down to the actual butchery, the animal quickly ceases to bear any resemblance to Babe and I began to forget I was even dealing with meat. In fact, the cutting is something of an art form, albeit a bizarre type of surgical art; Damien Hirst meets Gray's Anatomy. As Duncan kept reminding me, 'Butchery is all just seams' - just like sewing but with muscle and bone in place of cross-stitching and hemming.

Duncan was extremely informative, and was even kind enough to pay me the odd compliment during the one-on-one class, although I could tell by his winces as I sawed my way through the ribs that I was making a real hash of things. In fact he was so encouraging, and I was having such a brilliant time, that I was about to offer my services as his permanent apprentice, until I made the mistake of asking him about the possible injuries in his line of work. He breezily catalogued a terrifying range of accidents, from lost fingers to falling meat hooks disfiguring faces.

However cathartic and exhilarating my afternoon at the block was, I think I'll stick to the desk job, but never again will I take it as an insult when I am told I've butchered something - it's a lot harder than it looks.

£220 for three hours, including meat (parsonsnose.co.uk)