‘I am quite sure the pasta saw its life flash past from seed, to sunshine-baked fields, to harvest, to pasta, to my pot’

“Arrggh!” Imagine Basil Fawlty screaming curses not suitable for print. That was me. Standing in my girlfriend’s kitchen, the lasagne sheets had stuck together in a vain attempt to make cannelloni tubes: my naivety precluded the possibility of buying the tubes already made.

Idiot.

Right, that was that. In my kitchen – now court room – the pasta was tried, convicted and executed with a large kitchen knife. Well, I tried. I missed completely which further fuelled my rage to the point of hurling the flaccid pasta at the bin. What should have been an easy shot missed by a good metre, above the bin and straight out the window. Falling a graceful, ballistic arc, I am quite sure the pasta saw its life flash past from seed, to sunshine-baked fields, to harvest, to pasta, to my pot as it fell three storeys.

Not wanting to panic, we salvaged dinner, put on spaghetti and nice green salad and welcomed our guests who mentioned nothing about a steaming pile of lasagne sheets out on the street. Wine ensued, laughter and – through gritted teeth – Spaghetti ala Ragú. Not the cannelloni stuffed with a beef ragú topped with sun dried tomato and Mascarpone sauce that I had planned: cursed sheets and their stickiness.

Home time for my guests: escorting them out of the locked front door I looked for my pasta. Well, I should clean my mess shouldn’t I?

Ah. It was gone, no where to be seen either taken by a kindly soul who felt my pain and deposited in the nearest bin or by the local tramp who got a free dinner.