Tuesday:

Breakfast: 1 pint porridge, 6 oz bread
Dinner: 1 pint soup, 6 oz bread
Supper: 1 pint tea, 6 oz bread

Look at that! Look at it! There's almost no solid food today!

Now we're onto the home straight, I've found myself thinking a bit more about the realities of what I'm doing. This diet, for me, is a bit of fun, a test to see if it can be done. But I realised today that for thousands of people, this was life. Dull predictability, enough sustenance to keep you living and working to make it worth the parishes while to pay for you. Enough to make it better than starving to death, but not enough to make it the first resort. What happens is you start planning your activities around food - for instance, today I went to the shops first at lunchtime, so that the soup lasted longer into the afternoon. They wouldn't have had that choice.

There's only a few days to go for me before I'm back on a varied, flavoursome diet. What's that line in Band Aid - ''tonight thank God it's them, instead of you?''