Vegetarians get slim pickings at my table

Joni came round for dinner the other evening. I've known Joni for years. She used to work at a menswear store I frequented and we soon found our mid-morning coffees upgraded to lunch. Our friendship developed and soon we dined together of an evening. Joni's great in every way; in every way but one. She is a vegetarian.

I don't mean to be rude or controversial, but cooking for vegetarians is an utter waste of time and energy and dinner party music. I have no idea what to cook for non-flesheating friends. If the salad starter option was removed from my already limited repertoire I would be well and truly humped, as my wee brother would say.

At this point I need to clarify and codify the various interested parties in this debate. I will do so in a factual and non-partisan way:
1. Vegans Ironically, these are the ones I have most respect for, and whose food stance I best understand. Vegans are the hard-core followers of food belief. Somewhere amid their smell of incense and soya milk I can detect and respect their logic. It is a logic that makes them look peely-wally and smug but at least they are clear and concise in their proposition. Although they are highly unlikely to enjoy any sort of repast at my table, they will carry with them my respect and their empty bellies.

2. Vegetarians Similarly, fully-formed vegetarians enjoy some sort of sense, if not three full courses at my dining table. Their eating habits are definite if a little tricky to provide for. But the mayonnaise option is always a home banker, a dish lost on the non-dairy vegan. Home-made mayonnaise with anything is surprisingly successful.

3. Piscitarians It gets much easier to cater for fish eaters, even if I might struggle with their dubious moral standpoint. I mean, why is there one rule for creatures that immerse themselves in water and another for those that glide, trot or shuffle in the open air? Where is the logic in that?

4. Sentimentarians These are the irrational eaters who base their meal choices on sentimental nonsense, and for them I reserve most of my vitriol. I knew a man who wouldn't eat duck because he thought they were sweet. Another woman eschewed lamb because she loved what she called "the gambolling fluffy white clouds". One woman's fluffy white gambolling cloud is another man's perfectly cooked main course with roasted Jerusalem artichokes and a Beaujolais jus.

Vegetarianism is simply not the Scottish way. And while we are not perhaps renowned for the healthiest of world diets we are certainly celebrated for the quality and distinctiveness of the flesh we have available to eat. From the finest steak and seafood to the infamy of the Scotch Pie and the unsurpassed delight of haggis.

I have no problem with people choosing what they want to eat and opting to forgo meat. But we are built to consume meat. That is why we possess canine teeth and why we invented spears and stuff. We are hunter gatherers, not just gatherers. Nuts and berries will only get us so far. But we evolve and people apparently feel the need to decline a delicious plate of meat. That's fine. Just don't expect a dinner invitation from me.

An icy blast from the past

I saw an old friend from Glasgow University, below, the other day and it was a wonderful feeling to see a face from the past and recognise it instantly. And he looked straight back at me and he too knew who I was.
I strode over looking forward to a wee reminisce. However my 'friend' didn't seem quite so keen to chat to me, averting his gaze as he saw me coming. I was in a Catch 22. I was standing right over him intending to say hello but he had made it quite clear that he didn't wish to reciprocate. It was too late. Before my mind could process the thought I had my hand on his arm. He looked straight at me, his eyes dead to me. "We used to go to university. I know." And then he turned his head.

I was devastated. I remembered the words of my mum who told me that if you have nothing good to say then say nothing at all. Or maybe just say "hello".

So close, but a million miles from home

There are few fiercer and more passionate advocates of the joys of Glasgow than me. I am forever boring folk with stories of Cafe Gandolfi, Byres Road and Castlemilk. I feel I am an expert on every component of Weegie life, save for one: recommending a hotel to stay in. I have no idea which are the good ones.

I'm coming home to Glasgow for a few weeks. It's for work and given how gruelling the days will be I have opted to stay in a hotel rather than at my folks' house or with my wee brother. It's pragmatic. The last thing I need after a day of talking keech in a TV studio is an evening of subjecting my family to the same. And I will be spared from being handed the phone by my father to have a conversation with a friend of his from college who now lives in Derby. Or having to eat yet another absolutely delicious bowl of my mum's lamb curry, moments before they have to demolish a wall to get me out of the house.

It will be strange living in a hotel in my home town. I will feel dislocated, disjointed. I've had to do it a few times before, the odd night here or there. But this time it will be for the better part of two weeks. I intend to have a party on the last night and trash the room. You're all invited.

Only a third as sad as a real train-spotter

I've always found trains a pleasant and interesting way to travel. I do not, however, like them enough to stand on the end of a platform in the pouring rain wearing a slightly oversized anorak and scribbling down numbers as I squint through the droplets of rain on my glasses. That is sad.

What is not sad is my appreciation of a train being based around its buffet offering, the comfort of the seats and the length of the journey. I considered those perfectly good and sufficient criteria. That was until Thursday of last week when, for the first time in my life, I fell in love with a steam train. I am now sad; but in a good way. Locomotive love is not the sort of thing a fully grown, bearded man should admit to, but I'm afraid having spent the day around several beautiful examples of engine I find myself pining for them.

The day itself was spent in New Romney, Kent, in and around Britain's smallest public railway. Perhaps the attraction was borne out of the fact that these 1920s engines were a third of the size of a regular train. They just looked so damn cute. All the little knobs and wheels and gauges and handles and whistles and everything were a third of the normal size – the smallest public trains in the world.

They were fine examples of Stevenson's innovation. My pride burgeoned to such a point that I found myself rocking on the balls of my feet, hands in pockets, telling anyone who would listen that "trains were invented by a Scotsman".