Just under a year ago, I wrote that I was thinking of going vegetarian – and that, morally and environmentally, it was tough to argue otherwise. I stand by this, but you won’t be surprised to know that I have failed abysmally. Yes, I eat a bit less red meat, but the day I tell you that sausages are a half-forgotten memory and that aubergines and tofu are just as good as steak remains as far off now as it was then.

As my history teacher told me all those years ago, I have a lack of moral fibre (and probably a lack of dietary fibre too).

Still, it’s not all bad veggie news chez Proud. My sensitive eldest son has always had vegetarian leanings and now, aged eight, he’s about 90 percent of the way there. His mother (a veggie) and I have tried to talk him out of it on the grounds that animal protein is useful for growing children, but I know he’ll go. And when he does, chances are his sister will go too. It’ll be just me and the four-year-old left.

I don’t have a problem with this. As I say, it’s the right thing to do. Perhaps, in five years or so, we’ll be one big happy, smiling vegetarian family, with me relapsing occasionally and blaming my meaty German ancestry.