in he mid 1980s (1985?). I was at school at the time, and could see the formation forming up in the distance and a Lynx flying all around them, but the bell for the end of break went before they came close to the school and all I heard was the sound of them flying overWhat's the most disgusting thing you've ever put in your mouth? Never mind the kangaroo testicles and witchetty grubs pushed before jungle-strewn celebrities: earlier this year I met a man who has tasted a substance that seems to trigger the gag reflex in most people.

Willem van Eelen is an 86-year-old Dutchman who survived five years of near-starvation as a PoW in Japan to become the self-proclaimed "Godfather of In Vitro Meat". He now holds the patent to a food technology that repulses and excites people in equal measure. In his Amsterdam apartment he admitted to me, with a mischievous smile, that he once placed a small quantity of in vitro meat – muscle cells grown artificially, rather than in a living animal – in his mouth: "I once