Sweets

Will not go off for months. Fact.

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.

Thought I was joking about the squid-coated peas, did you?

However (literally) tasteless, these treats lure a man, like sirens did Odysseus, as he makes his way from his desk to the printer. 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.

There is a priority to these votive offerings. Cambodian crystallised chili tamarind will linger on the counter untouched for weeks while the Marks & Spencer chocolate afghans will be gone in a flash. And 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.