After a brief writing hiatus, ladies and gentleman, I hath returned. I knew it was time to call it a day for the blog when my Mum deleted me off Facebook. She reckons she did it because I kept texting her demanding to know why she's flirting with men on her statuses, but I know it's really because she couldn't stand seeing this blog pop up now and then. Not to mention having to see the picture of her son in a pink jacket and god awful hat, thumbs up looking like a complete penis. Why did I choose that picture anyway?

I hope i'm not the only one that gets scared by eating out at a new restaurant. I have a crippling fear of unfamiliar menus, and it's often what sways me to decide against a fancy new place and settling for Nandos instead. Fucking hell, this is all in French, how do I know what I'm ordering without getting google translate up on my phone? And how much of a gorm am I gunna look trying to pronounce that one to the waitress?

It becomes especially difficult when you're on holiday, as I have recently discovered. I've just come to the end of a wonderful week in Rovinj, Croatia. It's a pretty amazing place. It's a fishing town and it's close to Italy, so you're either eating pasta, pizza or fish. Me being the man of the world that I truly am I thought i'd try a bit of fish, lovingly captured in waters nearby and placed carefully onto my plate. What I was actually presented with was an actual animal, with eyes staring deep into my soul as if to say "why, James, why?" or whatever the Croatian translation is. Probably something with way more z's than seems necessary.

First I checked if he had a pulse and then I pondered whether his name would have been Paulo or Francesco. And that's when I knew I had a problem, and not just a mental one. Morally, where do I stand on this one? It's no different to having a fish cake at home, so why am I so repulsed by what's on my plate? Don't get me wrong, I still enjoyed picking him up, putting on an Italian accent and getting him to plead my girlfriend for mercy, but I was never about to eat the little chap.

That's it, I thought, i'm gunna have to turn into a veggie. If it's good enough for Paul McCartney and Lisa Simpson, it's good enough for me.

Surely, in this day and age, we don't need to kill animals to survive? There's so many alternatives, aren't there? The truth is that most of us are hypocrites. Not many would have eaten Francesco, and similarly we all get outraged upon discovering we've actually been eating horse meat, or them pesky Muslims have conned us into eating Halal. Or when we find out some mental country somewhere is eating cats and dogs with their chips.Yet we think nothing of munching into a maccies or getting the barbie out while summer's *actually* happening. My morals seem to lead me into only being a vegetarian when I can give my meal a name or if I could envisage it being my pet. Nobody gives a fish finger a name do they? And if they do, they want sectioning. Although now i'm thinking about it, I doubt i'll ever be able to eat a fish finger again without naming it first...Roger, perhaps?

So James, you rambling fucking fool, what are you going to do about it? Well, maybe i'll have a stab at being a veggie, but I know it's never going to last. As humans we naturally want to develop, evolve, gain more intelligence etc but I reckon once i've moved on from my ordeal in Rovinj, i'll be back to burying my head in the sand and pretending to believe that somehow another beings life is of less value than mine. So I do apologise Frannie me old pal, but I sincerely hope you're resting in peace up there in fishy heaven. Away from little dishy's, and boats that come in.