I went out for a cracking Indian meal the other night. Chicken Madras, pilau rice, naan bread, onion bhajis, spicy Bombay potato, poppadums - and let's not forget two coffees and a delicious after-dinner mint. Waddling home I must have looked like a monster from a low-budget science-fiction film. And a fat one at that.
Still, the food was delicious and, since my father had kindly offered to foot the bill, there were copious amounts of it. Yes, it was expensive; yes, it was so excessive that we could have filled a large bucket with the leftovers; but then again, what other meal pleasures those around you with the fragrance of cultured cuisine for the whole of the following day?
The next morning, as I woke to discover that the bedcovers had formed a kind of hot-air balloon that was floating across my room, the words of Proverbs (chapter 23, verse 21): 'drunkards and gluttons become poor' seemed to ring round my head. Quite why, I wasn't sure; after all, I hadn't even been drinking on the previous night. Dismissing the thought just as quickly as it had arrived, I headed downstairs for a full English breakfast.
