Due to my wife’s recent fall I have had to acquaint myself with the kitchen, for decades almost terra incognita to me, save for the sink and the kettle. Still, one good thing that came out of it was that I found that I was quite a dab hand at cooking pies. Mind you, I’m not sure I’m ready yet to attempt an assault on a world Record established recently by a group of chefs at the Madinat Jumeirah resort in Dubai.

In an event organised by the Emirates Culinary Guild and USA Pears, the group of culinary wizards baked 2,209 pear pies and put them all in a line. The previous record of 1,608 pies set in Australia in 2016, crumbled in the wake of such a concerted effort.

And what happened to the pies? They were donated to a food charity, Sahem for Hope. Let’s hope the recipients like pears.