A doner kebab supper

At conference one ends up eating badly and irregularly.

We emerged from fringe meetings sometime after 10 o'clock, hungry but too tired to find a restaurant and sit down for a proper meal.

At times like this, and after a few glasses of wine, the only thing that will do to it is a doner kebab. And luckily enough there is a kebab shop just round the corner from our hotel.

There is no defending the doner kebab gastronomically. 'Rat meat' I once heard someone call it. It is impossible to eat with any semblance of dignity. Even if it is real lamb rather than rat, it's hardly the butcher's finest cuts. It doesn't even have the dignity, as fish and chips do, of being a great British tradition. After having eaten one, I am always overcome with a feeling of deep shame.

And yet there are those terrible moments when a doner kebab, with a few chips, is the only thing that will do.