My office-mate was up to his usual annoying habits, behaving as if he had exclusive use of our shared room. He’d taken my poster off the door and replaced it with a congratulatory banner for his final year class. He also kept locking me out whenever I wandered along the corridor to the school office.

Then, to cap it all, he suddenly declared that he was a vegan! However, when I invited him back to the house for a kidney bean stew supper just five minutes later, he responded with a request for peas, white rice, and smoked mackerel.