I love eating alone, but I hate being caught. The reversal of esteem when going from gorging on burgers at a bus stop to being joined by a waiting passenger is second in magnitude only to that associated with orgasm. Culinary onanism is a great joy, as intense as the sexual kind, but attached with equal feelings of guilt and insecurity.

If you go on holiday alone like me then you will be familiar with the troubles of eating. I once ordered fifty cheap ‘n’ dirty buffalo wings only to be caught stuffing them on the upper deck of a bus. I had to throw them away and pretend I was full. By the time I could try to relight our fire the relationship had grown cold and soggy.

I have a deep respect and admiration for someone who can eat at a restaurant alone. How can they do it? It is my greatest ambition to one day master that trick. If you can do that then you are at peace. And – which is more – you’ll be a Man my son! Consider this: Pizza Express; Friday; 8pm; a man with a beer and a pizza, who is accompanied by a look on his face as simple as a labrador’s, is smartly dressed. He has actually dressed up to go to Pizza Express alone. He has desert alone. He has coffee alone. He tips moderately! Imagine slipping into a little Chanel suit, putting on a mink fur, and spending an hour applying make up, to wank.

Cheers,