First they came for the smokers...

Now that the smoking of cigarettes is about to be made close to illegal in the UK (except in other than 'public places'), it's time that right-minded folk came together to oppose the insidious creep of political correctness.

While surfing the internet today, I discovered that Lea & Perrins, that fine bastion of English cooking, has been the subject of intense lobbying by vegetarians to remove all traces of anchovy from their product. Such has been the scale of the problem, that Lea & Perrins have rushed to respond, publicly, via their website, to re-assure anchovy lovers the world over (by which I mean those who love to eat them, not those who 'love' them in the sense of merely wanting to prolong their lives just because they are fish) that they will not be altering their recipe.

I'm with L&P on this one. And I suggest that anyone who shares my views writes, or e-mails, in support of the company.

It's a brave man who accuses Bill Blunt of being stuck in a rut. But Mrs Blunt's toad in the hole would not be the same without a little splash of Lea & Perrins in the mix. Without the essence of dead anchovy, it simply wouldn't be the same.

More on what the world is currently saying about anchovies here.