Low life | 29 October 2011

A big mouth, fewer taste buds and a wider gullet than normal means I’m a fast eater. If golloping your dinner was an Olympic event, I’d be knighted by now. Last week I equalled my personal best with a plate of roast pork, apple sauce, roast spuds, mashed swede and runner beans. We were four of us gathered round the table: me, Stanford, my new brother-in-law, and our two old mums, both in their eighties. Stanford and I had spent the morning bleaching and filling in the cracks of an outside wall, prior to whitewashing it.

When I looked up from my plate, having polished mine off, I saw that everyone else had barely started. Stan and his mum were making tentative exploratory cuts around the periphery of their respective heaps, still trying to negotiate a way in. Visible on their faces was the polite horror they felt at the amount of food they were being expected to eat.