We all know computer geeks. Tom from Poke, our dedicated web designers, introduced me yesterday to some of their bread-and-butter: google analytics. This offers the ultimate pleasure to anyone with a website and loads of time to spare. You can find absolutely anything there: who visited your site, when, where are they there from (in our case, UK, USA and Australia are in the lead), how long they bothered to stay tuned, what browser they used etc. etc. etc.

Talking to Tom it dawned on me that I am also a geek, a cake geek. The amount of time I can spend waffling about cakes is unlimited; I am sure I can rival any IT buff.

And I am not alone. Once a week Sarit, Helen and I meet to do just that. In our regular pastry tastings we spend long hours analysing the minutest and most bizarre and far-fetched elements of a cake, comparing textures and flavours, scrutinizing methods, suggesting alternative components, shapes, moulds, going over recent trends, what’s a must and what’s lost its sparkle, who’s the master of brownies and what makes the ideal cupcake. And we also stuff ourselves with cakes, which is fun and (try to believe me!) an agony.