Of course everyone can eat (or not eat) what they want. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the idea of being, for example, vegetarian or vegan. You don't want to eat meat? Leave it. You think drinking milk is stealing from cows? Fair enough. The trouble with vegans, however, is that they have a habit of forcing their views on everyone they come across during their (presumably very healthy and hence very long) lifespan. Preaching to the converted is one thing. Preaching to someone who has no intention of being converted is another. Vegans don't seem to care about the latter though. Their veganism seems to dominate all aspects of their life, social life being one of them. 'Hi, pleased to meet you. My name is Bob and I eat vegan'. 'Oh hi there. My name is Julia and I don't eat cauliflower!'. Precisely, that is more information than anyone would want. For vegans, being vegan or not is turning into something quite like the famous Gretchen question in Goethe's Faust. Only that the Gretchen question was about religion, not 'to eat or not to eat'.

Is what you eat or not eat really that important? Does it really make us who we are? Along the lines of 'show me your shoes and I'll tell you who you are' etc. For god's sake, wear whatever shoes your comfortable in, but stop telling everyone about it. The same applies to vegans. Have your soya burger, I hope you enjoy it, but can we please move on to a different topic now?

I won't even go as far as the Alka Selzer ads, where they label a group of Yoga fans 'freaks', but have you ever been down the pub with a straight edge victim. Now I couldn't give a toss whether they drink alcohol or not, if it wasn't for those people making you feel guilty whenever you make your way to the bar and return with yet another pint. I drink, you don't. Who cares? Not me, anyway. Then they produce a home-brewed bottle of filtered tapwater and slam it on the table. The impression on their face says 'see, I'm going to live much longer than you' and suddenly you feel about as healthy as Keith Richards before he checked into the Betty Ford clinic. Great. Thanks a lot.