Guests coo admiringly at joint, which slices off in tender pink-brown strips nine inches long. There is loads of it, lying there as if fulfilling its destiny, longing to be consumed, dying to be eaten.Human restraint can stand just so much temptation. I sliced off a corner of beef and popped it between my teeth. Smell, taste, heat and texture embraced me all together like a father’s arms around a prodigal son I closed my eyes and chewed. It was fibrous, musky, yielding, seriously juicy, impossibly complicated, better than sex.It was the most brilliant food in the world.We were back together.I kept up with the non-meat regimen for two more days, after this moment of weakness, and what did I learn? That eating meat isn’t a habit we all picked up somewhere and can easily abandon.

It’s an absolutely inbred, genetically programmed necessity of life, like arranging your tongue into words. That without it, you are about half yourself ­ a spindly, weak-willed, underpowered, querulous, trembly version of who you really are. That you can go quite far down the non-meat road without actually dying ­ you may lose pounds on a meat-free diet, you may find grilled aubergine dishes you love ­ but you’ll suffer chronic flatulence and your breath will smell like condemned asparagus. That, with meat, your life gets more empowered, more vital, more heroic. And that without it, life appears unfinished, indistinct, frustrated And you go around in a terrible temper all the time No wonder Chrissie Hynde always sounds so hacked off.. A convicted rapist was allowed to work as a doctor in England after concealing his criminal record, a court was told yesterday.

A convicted rapist was allowed to work as a doctor in England after concealing his criminal record, a court was told yesterday.
Peter de Bruijn, 51, had been a doctor for 19 years when he applied for a job at the Deer Park Medical Centre in Witney, Oxfordshire, but he only admitted to a drink-driving conviction on the form that he completed for his contract, Birmingham Crown Court heard.Vivian Walters, for the prosecution, said that in December 1993 the District Court in Haarlem found it “legally and convincingly proven” that De Bruijn had committed rape and sexual abuse. He was sentenced to 24 months in prison, with a period suspended, and was barred from practising as a GP for four years. But De Bruijn appealed both to the Dutch Court of Appeal and Supreme Court which later cut his sentence to 20 months, with five months suspended.The offences were confirmed in December 1998, by which time De Bruijn had moved to England, Ms Walters said. He applied for the job at Witney in early 1998, taking up a short-term assistant’s post in June 1998 then signing a longer-term contract in September worth £1,700 a month. He did not tell the practice of the Dutch convictions, despite a clause in his contract obliging him to do so, said Ms Walters.After his arrest in 1999, De Bruijn told police he did not reveal the offences because he believed he had not been convicted while his case was going through the appeals process.