How much of your day is spent talking about work? In our office, we occasionally discuss PR strategies, but the main topic of conversation is food and drink. We have many animated discussions over what type of tea and coffee we like best (mine’s a latte, thanks for asking), but sadly these often degenerate into fights over whose turn it is to fetch the damn drinks.

Here are other discussion topics that can get heated (cooking pun intended) whilst avoiding our PR jobs:

1. Last night’s dinner. There is a competition going on over who is the best cook. Each day someone shows off by describing the amazing meal they conjured up using the most unusual ingredients. The bits of animals you don’t want to think about for example. To give you a taste (this food pun is intended too), check out this blog from a former colleague, which is just about what he makes for his tea each night.

2. Who has the smelliest lunch. This can cause a lot of friction. Some people believe that you shouldn’t be allowed to have whiffy lunches in the office (from microwave curries to egg and onion sandwiches). I try not to get involved in these fights, and concentrate on eating my fragrant meat pie instead.

3. Which is the best restaurant for journalist lunches. This depends on the eminence of the hack. Those that get taken to Spaghetti House should feel insulted. Though, frankly, they are lucky to get a free lunch out of us at all.

4. Whether it’s okay to eat all day. Apparently the constant munching of some people in this office (well, work makes me hungry!) can be irritating. Some colleagues believe it should be restricted to lunch time and elevenses. Is it just coincidence that these killjoys are the slimmer members of our office?

5. When is it warm enough to go on an ice-cream run? When it’s over 10 degrees in my opinion, but again, some (slim) killjoys like to wait till it’s at least 20 degrees. So I guess I’ll have to go out and get a hot chocolate instead …