COME on, hands up. Which brainiac came up with National Meetings Week – an entire five days dedicated to minute- taking and spending more time in boardrooms?

Who thought, I’ve got a bit of spare time, I should call a meeting to fill it up and, while I’m at it, let’s involve the whole country in a meetings bonanza – bring on the triangular sandwiches and Thermos jugs of coffee.

Perhaps it’s a ploy by the recession busters to get companies spending on British-baked bread and Wiltshire ham and Cheshire cheese.

A cash injection into local industry and free lunches for the workers.

We could meet ourselves out of the credit crunch.

It’s not easy, though, eating in meetings.

Trying to chew your way through a roast chicken buttie before you’re called on to speak.

Longwinded Bryony from marketing has started up the Power Point – quick, gobble at pace and mind the coleslaw doesn’t drip down your tie. Oops, too late.

Anything sloppy, chewy or crunchy should be avoided.

Never venture into the realms of egg or tuna. Even avocado is rarely to be recommended, due to its slippery nature.

It’s simpler to avoid eating altogether and fill your belly with coffee instead, but this does run the risk of you being caught short part of the way through Any Other Business.

For some, life doesn’t get much better than a meeting – free food and people are forced to listen to you, even if your well-prepared speech on strategic out-sourcing revenues is making their ears bleed.

Maybe this is why they’re so popular, providing the human contact that friendly neighbour-hoods and village fetes used to cater for in sepia-tinted times.

The organisers of National Meetings Week, on now to encourage UK businesses to keep communicating, offer advice to prevent your calendar from becoming log-jammed with pointless exercises in bureaucracy.