Do you believe in fate? Surely it’s a load of rubbish that things can be preordained; that no matter how hard you try, you’re not going to be able to affect the final outcome and things will still follow a predetermined course. Isn’t it?

Of course I’m not in the least bit superstitious. Just because I salute magpies is no reason to consider me illogical. If I avoid walking under a ladder it’s only because it’s common sense, even if there’s obviously no one and nothing up it.

Throwing salt over my left shoulder is not unreasonable just in case there might possibly be even the slightest truth in the idea that if I didn’t, after spilling some, I’d suffer a horrible experience.

I guess despite not being superstitious I’m just being pragmatic. Aren’t I?

It’s interesting that there are many very successful people who are superstitious; people who know that they manage to affect the world around them and achieve their objectives and goals, even if they must believe that the fates have decreed an alternative outcome.

But it’s quite nice to believe in things such as fate because it gives you something in common with nearly everybody else. However, my fear is that if I believe in some external factor that’s already got my chart marked, I won’t be as positive in going for whatever it is I want to achieve. What’s the point if it’s preordained? And if it is, surely I don’t have to bother working so hard because it’s going to happen anyway. Or not, depending on fate.

But, in my more inebriate moments, sitting with friends around a dinner table, enjoying a good heated discussion, I’ll definitely argue that fate’s rubbish and anybody who believes in it is obviously potty, so there.

But just to suggest I’m definitely wrong, fate has frequently worked in my favour, or so it appeared. When we opened our last restaurant in Newcastle, I decided to do a bit of research into the building into which were moving and the space within, which we were converting.

I found that the multi-storied Edwardian edifice called Milburn House, on the bottom of Dean Street, near the quayside, was the first office development of its kind in the UK built speculatively for rent. Office blocks had been built before with guaranteed tenants but the fabulous ship-like Milburn House had money poured into it before anyone had signed a lease and, one could suggest, its success or otherwise was very much in the hands of fate.

And the architects back then – the plans were drawn up in 1902 with the building being completed in 1905 – decided that the ground floor should be a very large restaurant to serve the building itself and the surrounding area. As a result they designated two specific rooms as a scullery and kitchen and painstakingly covered the walls with high quality, close-fitting ceramic tiles.

But it seems nobody wanted to open a restaurant there back then. As a result, an engineering company moved in three years later and stayed put for 70 years. These days they’re known as North British Tapes and while they moved out over thirty years ago to Killingworth, they’re still going strong.

But the great thing was that, soon after we moved in, they celebrated their centenary with us. So, spookily enough, they were eating in the place originally designated, a century before, as a restaurant with some of them sitting in the tiled scullery and kitchen. We even put copies of the original plans framed and hung on the scullery wall to remind them.

It took over 100 years to come about but finally, the space originally designed as a grill room and restaurant with accompanying kitchen, was used for the purpose for which it was originally designed.

So, was this all down to fate? Or was the fact that we never did manage to make a success of it anything to do with fate too? Or was it the horrid recession thingy? Or, more likely, was it just just our own fault?