Horse meat-gate has gone on a bit, hasn't it? And cyberspace joke-writers (who ARE they?) must have given up day jobs to tackle the weight of comedic opportunity (see pic below).
It reminds me, I was vegetarian once, a long time ago.
For almost three years my fridge was devoid of dead flesh of any variety, equine, bovine or porkupine or poultrine (are they words? If not, they should be and I should receive worldwide renown for inventing them).
I stopped eating meat for all the right reasons in my early 20s. Let's face it, squashing, prodding and killing animals isn't exactly nice is it?
All went well through three Christmases; not a single turkey got it in the neck on my account.
But, like a quitter having a sneaky fag, my resolve started to slip and fish gradually wormed, or should I say swam, their way back on to my plate (yes, I'm aware dead fish can't swim, but I liked the worming / swimming sentence).
Things really started to slip in America where vegetarian options were as rare as their steaks (bear in mind, this was the early 1990s - a fact I've clarified due to reader feedback about how veggie-friendly the Yanks are these days apparently).
I had been on my soap box (me, can you imagine that!?) for three years and I didn't want to lose face by slipping off the wagon (or soap box.....hey, don't judge me, it was very slippery up there!!).
So, the secret snacks started. I'd nonchalantly wander into Tesco, buy a pound of loose ham, dash out (discard my balaclava), crouch behind the wheel of my Nova Flair and scoff the lot!
Then I would head home and knock up a lentil casserole.
I also became a regular at my local kebab shop where I would skulk behind over-sized shades, a la VB (did you see what I did with the topical French connection there, hey, no flies on me I can tell you), and adopt my usual position in the car.
Eventually I came clean, tired of the fruitless hunt for restaurants which offered other than vegetarian lasagne, served 20 minutes after everyone else had finished their well-done sirloin (all you vegetarians out there know exactly what I mean don't you!?).
All this talk of horse meat and otherwise reminds me of the time I got salmonella......but that's for another day, another blog.....keep reading.......
