More from the Times....

It is a curious fact that no man likes to call himself a glutton, and yet each of us has in him a trace of gluttony, potential or actual. I cannot believe that there exists a single coherent human being who will not confess, at least to himself, that once or twice he has stuffed himself to the bursting point......

unlike pride, envy, wrath � sins we can wholeheartedly condemn, sins that are hard to love � there�s something about the serious glutton (or some serious gluttons) that inspires a respect for the life force � the appetite � asserting itself in all that prodigious feasting. It�s not unlike our secret feelings about Don Juans and Casanovas; even as we understand the compulsive quality of their behaviour and the destructive effects it has on their hapless lovers, we can�t help feeling a grudging regard for so much sheer sexual energy.