He's as nutty as a vegan T-bone.

The words were clumsy in my mouth, like typing with hammers.

I was wary of my sister's cooking, which invariably consisted of a tubular pasta and economy cheese, charred black on the surface, with either tinned tuna or lardy mince lurking beneath the molten crust ... So that evening, in a tiny flat in Tooting, I was pushed into the tiny kitchen where sixteen people sat crammed around a tiny trestle table designed for pasting wallpaper, one of my sister's notorious pasta bakes smouldering in its centre like a meteorite, smelling of toasted cat food.

My chest bumps like a dryer with shoes in it.

When interacting with people, I’m always aware that I might be the first vegan this person has ever met. So I try to be a good ambassador for the movement and show that I am grateful for whatever they are able to serve me, even if it’s just some boiled vegetables.

Even in dying, a Thennanin ship was reputed to be not worth putting out of its misery. In battle they were slow, unmaneuverable—and as hard to disable permanently as a cockroach.