Actually, I suspect that the answer may be a lot more sinister.I heard that he was once cast adrift in an open boat with two other people. After a deep sleep he awoke to find one of the others missing but the remaining man offered him some meat, saying that their companion had gone crazy and jumped overboard but that he had managed to catch an albatross and this was Noel's share.


When Noel later tasted the albatross in Madeira, he realised that the meat tasted nothing like that which he had eaten on the open boat.......


Anthropophogy is a terrible thing to live with.