Well , it seemed great. If I do away with oil or sprinkled flour on the baking trays whilst cooking pizza, I reasoned, I could do away with washing the trays, cycle the equipment faster between groups and, by writing initials on the paper, could identify the pizzas more easily.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Great in theory.

In practice I did avoid any washing up, so that was a plus.

But the green marker pen I originally used (because you never really use the green one do you?) proved unequal to the job. I’m tempted to say it faded badly, but that would be unfair because it actually faded really well. In most cases it disappeared or left a faint green shimmer.*

The black was far better. Not sure whether to try the blue or the red next time, or stick to black.

Not that it really mattered because we had a 100% identification rate for the pizzas anyway. No arguing, no tears and no tantrums (from me or the kids). It’s all going too well.

Meanwhile, back at the photos, I can’t get titles on them. It shows pizzas, black writing, green writing and a pizza in the shape of Italy. That would have been really imaginative wouldn’t it. Then he spoilt it all by telling me it was a football sock.

Ah well!

*This is similar to the rhetorical question I often heard asked on campsites in the days I fought with the Sealed Knot. Some broken wreck, usually male, would shamble past groaning “Do you know what’s good for a hangover?” to which I would perkily reply, “Fifteen pints of bitter and a kebab usually does the job for me.”

It didn’t go down well.

What the poor addlepated coxcomb meant, of course, was “Do you know what’s good for getting rid of a hangover?”

Sometimes we can be very unclear in our meanings.