A very dodgy veggie curry

Having misread timetables and found myself still in Edinburgh for one more day (and not blowing up Royal Avenue in Belfast), the evening stretched out looking like just any other Saturday evening in Edinburgh: drinks, friends, entertaining blather. But sometimes life takes a canter down some really lurid side streets.

Time will not permit me to tell the whole story now, but let me whet your appetite as assuredly as mine was blunted last evening. In a vegetarian curry house, first the manager did an impression of a suicide bomber to encourage my dining companions and myself to clear our plates ("eat up or I'll blow!") and then, for further entertainment, showed us a video clip on his cell phone of a man having his penis chopped off for committing rape.

As we fled into the night howling with laughter and horror, it occurred to us that we had all had a nibble at something which another waiter had described as "vegetarian black pudding."