Sweets

This will linger on the counter, untouched, for weeks while the Marks & Spencer chocolate afghans will be gone in a flash.

The obscure tropical fruit, digestives, Ferrero Rocher, peanut brittle, unidentifiable gelatinous fruit, dates and the dry and tasteless Asian delicacies that colleagues bring back from business trips and vacations, by way of guilt, to appease their moribund desk-bound workmates.

However (literally) tasteless, these treats lure a man, like sirens did Odysseus, as he makes his way from his desk to the printer. (The man, obviously, not Odysseus, though the idea of Odysseus struggling to get to the printer, lashing himself to the mast of his boat as he floats by the five-week-old dregs of a box of authentic Anatolian Turkish delight, is appealing.</ref> Remorse, regret and guilt is assured. I don’t know how many squid-coated dried green peas I’ve had, but it’s a lot, and I have not enjoyed a single one of them.

It is a curious truth that however many bags of sea-weed flavoured lychees make their way back from the gift counter at the Narita international terminal, no-one ever brings salted fish back from holiday in Portugal. Or mince, or celery. Then again, there’s plenty of that stuff lying around the legal department anyway.