There has been much about meat pies in the Letters page of our newspaper recently, not so much about their possible equine content as about the revolting sight, sound and smell of someone sitting next to you on the train or bus and eating one. I can sympathise. Until it closed a few years ago we had a factory along the road, and shift workers made the most of the nearby shop where hot meat pies were served. The ideal breakfast, it seemed, was hot meat pies, and eaten en route to their workplace.

I truly love my fellow man,
    I love the blighter dearly;
I only wish his finer tastes
    Resembled mine more nearly.

Each morning as the sun comes up
    I walk to get my paper
And find myself enveloped by
    The most disgusting vapour.

My fellow man in rolling hoards
    Bears down on me, consuming
Repulsive, boiling-hot meat pies,
    The village air perfuming.

And in the shop are more meat pies,
    Mankind is queuing, waiting;
Meat pies are cooking in their crusts,
    Mankind is salivating.

I try to concentrate on toast
    And marmalade and butter;
But walking home again I see
    Meat-pie bags in the gutter.

I truly love my fellow man,
    I love the blighter dearly;
But does he have to eat meat pies
    Outdoors, and quite so early?