'Here's a message for Faggot-lovers everywhere.' So said Rodney Bewes in one of my favourite ever bygone commercials. That might not be a verbatim quote, but he at least said something equally fantastic. Here's one especially for our American friends, although I doubt that even people who were alive in the days when faggots were popular will be unaware of the word's more modern connotation. Faggots are balls of low quality pork, a kind of 'English haggis', probably intended as a way to make the grossest animal parts seem edible. They are reasonably tasty, if you keep your eyes closed, but the ingredients show that the pork contains more pork liver than pork and a disturbing flavour at the back of the palate suggests the presence of even more offal. Indeed, the second most abundant ingredient is 'pork rind', the exact nature of which I dare not comprehend. West Country sauce seems to mean gravy. In the national consciousness, Brain's Faggots are THE faggots.