A Good Life for some, as long you can say: ‘it’s Veganuary!’

“Belgian Edward de Gernier’s decision to begin selling chips as a fast food in Dundee in the 1870s

D disruptinguring the Second World War, Britain was asked to “dig for victory”.

The UK relied heavily on imported food and, with German U-boats shipping routes, people across the country were asked to do their bit by growing food wherever they could.

By 1942, half of the civilian population was producing their own food.

Every spare bit of greenery, from school playing fields to the moat at the Tower of London, filled in and turned into vegetable patches, was transformed into an allotment.

Once again the country is being asked to dig deep, only this time there is no clear victory in sight.

In fact, given the twin disasters of Universal Credit and Brexit, it is more fitting to say we are being asked to dig ourselves out of a hole we dug for ourselves in the first place.

In the year that will mark the 80th anniversary of the outbreak of the Second World War, Dundee City Council has announced it is to spend £20,000 investigating the merits of using parts of Camperdown Park to grow fruit and vegetables to feed the needy.

Regardless of the benefits of such a scheme, it is a miserable state of affairs that it even needs contemplated.

The problem now is not food shortages but that for many people food, particularly fresh fruit and vegetables, is becoming increasingly unaffordable, as the rise in the number of people dependent on foodbanks has demonstrated.

If, as expected, food prices rise once the UK leaves the EU, then the situation is likely to get even worse.

Diet, as we know, is crucial to good health but those living in our poorest communities don’t just suffer from a lack of vitamin C, they are more likely to be afflicted by a host of other social problems, from substance abuse to poor housing, poor health and, ultimately, reduced life expectancy.

In the 1940s growing food was part of the war effort, a drive to help the country defeat the forces of fascism.

By the 1970s, when the TV sitcom The Good Life ran, it was a lifestyle choice, taken up by those virtuous souls, as epitomised by Richard Briers and Felicity Kendall, who eschewed the trappings of consumerist society.

Now, 40 years later councils are considering a return to allotment-style farming just to help feed those most in need.

It’s a desperate state of affairs. Community growing schemes are already popular in many parts of the country and incredibly worthwhile.

But they are a symptom of endemic poverty, not part of the cure.

THE START of 2019 hasn’t been all doom and gloom when it comes to vegetables, however.

Bakers Greggs launched a vegan sausage roll which caused an enormous amount of excitement and, in parts of the country where the plant-based snack was unavailable, consternation.

A cynic might wonder if Greggs’ limited roll-out was not designed to keep the chain in the headlines once the initial “excitement” of its new offering had passed.

Veganism, which requires people to forego all animal-based products is very much in vogue these days, even if the slight desperation to ape meatbased foods – last year also saw the launch of a vegan burger that “bleeds” beetroot juice – suggest the diet may not be as tasty as it is ethically satisfying.

January has even now become Veganuary, when people who want to trump their friends giving up booze for the month commit to a vegan diet for its duration instead.

However, for the Veganuary pun to really work, you have to pronounce Vegan with a soft g, which is not something I could ever get behind, even if I was willing to forfeit my bacon rolls.

FANS OF Manchester miserablists The Smiths will, of course, know that Meat is Murder. But going by the Christmas TV schedules it appears quite clear that murder is festive meat for the BBC.

This Christmas and new year we’ve had kinky psycho-sexual murders in Luther, Dalek murders in Doctor Who, the murder of comedy in Mrs Brown’s Boys and, best of all, John Malkovich’s PTSD Poirot solving various grisly offings in The ABC Murders.

Malkovich abandoned the moustache-twiddling flamboyance of other Poirots and instead portrayed a run-down and beaten up, but no less resolute, version of the character.

Even better, the series made a throwaway mention that at some point Hercule had visited Dundee.

Given the huge influence Belgian culture has had on Dundee – specifically Brussels native Edward de Gernier’s decision to begin selling chips as a fast food in Greenmarket in the 1870s – then surely it’s a no brainer for the Beeb to devise some sort of Poirot mystery in the City of Discovery. Death on the Miley, perhaps? It’s what Agatha Christie would have wanted. Clockwise from main picture; A Dig For Victory poster from the 1940s; a scene from the 1970s T V sitcom The Good Life; Baluniefield Road chipper; John Malkovich as Hercule Poirot in BBC One’s adaptation of Agatha Christie’s The ABC Murders.