Not a scrap of dodgy meat in sight

A favourite meal

Well. Three, actually. All guaranteed free of unspecified and unwanted meat products:

On your travels, keep an eye out for an Indian restaurant, with a big open shopfront window, Formica topped café style tables, and plenty of people having some lunch.

Go in and get a glass of water and the following:

A main course chickpea curry (look for 'chana' on the menu) and a chilli naan. Spoon up the chickpea curry, mop up the plate with the naan. Mindblowingly simple and delicious.

Repeat the first step above, but look for the word 'dosa'. Order one. A masala or special or house special, it'll not disappoint.

You'll receive a large, rectangular stainless steel plate with one large and three small indentations. The large one will contain a light, airy and crisp rice flour pancake. Often these are quite surprisingly huge. Inside will be lightly but nicely spiced mashed potato and a mixture of vegetables. In the three small indentations there will be a white (coconut), an orange (hot and spicy), and a green (mild corriander) sauce. There will also be a small metal bowl of sambal. Use your hands, tear of scraps of the ends of the pancake, where there's little or no filling, and use them to pick up the thick sauces or to soak up the sambal. Then pick up the fork and spoon and attack the fat, stuffed middle bit, and finish off the sauces and the sambal.

Ask for the bill. Hand over the £3.50 (or thereabouts) and wander off amazed at the value this represents.

Last, use your nose. When you smell a chippie that smells like chippies used to smell, don't hesitate. Nip in and have some fish and chips. Plenty of salt, loads of vinegar.

Plates are not allowed. Walking along is recommended. Tomato sauce is right out. If there's a sitting area, then tea, bread and butter are also recommended and some tartar sauce is permitted, and a couple of big juice wedges of lemon to squeeze over the batter are a must.

It was him too, sir

The 1974 Lions touring team had a superb idea. Faced with South African teams that took fierce competitiveness over the edge into violence, and match officials unwilling or unable to do much about it, they came up with the '99' call. On hearing the call, all fifteen players either joined in the scrap that had started (if they were near enough to do so) or simply thumped the nearest opponent (if they weren't). The thinking behind this: they either send no-one off, or send off all fifteen of us and finish the game then and there. It worked a treat. They didn't have a man sent off all tour.

It's a bit similar with the horsemeat thing and the supermarkets. They've all been rubbish, so there's not any one of them in the spotlight. Not any more than any other.

A never ending supply

All you have to do, instead of waiting until it's past too late (particularly now MM isn't here to ponce off), is pick up some deodorant before the one in use actually runs out. Magically, this makes the dregs at the bottom of the one in use last for ages.