As she goes back to a spare station, she imagines some of the others are looking at her keenly, wondering why she is closeted with the editor. From a carrier she takes a box of beautiful, brightly coloured macaroons bought in Piccadilly, and offers them around. She wants a taste test for her blog. They are from a little shop which has walls of beaten and shaped gold foil and displays these macaroons in exquisite rows of pistachio, coffee, fruits of the forest, salted caramel, orange blossom, two strengths of chocolate, raspberry, wild strawberries and some she’s forgotten. The colours are screaming, but in a curiously tasteful French way, like French fabrics or lacquered furniture.

What are they? They are the latest thing in London, try one. They bite. She doesn’t tell them that these little roundels of French sophistication cost her nearly a pound each. She notes the comments. She can see the caption: Multicoloured Macaroon Mania Hits Cornwall. She wonders what it is that makes people in capital cities prize good pastry and baking. Down here the pastry looks like something your mum could make, or not even that good. The height of sophistication is to stick a few Smarties on to the icing.

She sits down and starts her blog.

Yes, it’s all out there somewhere. A couple of days ago I went up to London – shoppers’ express – and I discovered macaroons. They are absolutely the latest must-have-munchies. They come in fourteen flavours and each one is as brightly but as delicately coloured as the wing of a tropical bird. Think macaws, think humming birds. These macaroons look less like something to eat than miniature works of art. An unscientific – and uncultured – taste test in the newsroom produced these comments from the hungry hacks: ‘Bloody fantastic’ (crime reporter), ‘An orgasm on your tongue’ (sports editor), ‘Utterly, utterly divine’ (fashion and leisure), ‘A small explosion of taste’ (farming and business), ‘Beautifully designed’ (graphics and layout), ‘Utter rubbish’ (unknown delivery driver).

For myself, I’m completely hooked. Heaven knows how they produce that intense colour or the extreme subtlety of taste or the astonishing lightness of texture. One moment you are chomping down, the next the whole thing has vanished, hardly a calorie in sight – I hope. Brace yourself, Cornwall, it can’t be long now before the macaroon invasion kicks off.

I’m starting on a diet today, and I would like you to send in your diets, but only successful ones. By the way, remember the Cornish pasty scandal? Well, Naples have been granted protection for the name pizza by the EU. What have they got against Cornwall and our pasties? What do you think?