If there’s one thing I’ve learnt from a decade of nibbling chocolate at my desk, it’s that it can be a messy business. You chomp into the bar and depending on consistency, chocolate splinters can go flying. Some might land on the desk itself, some might embed themselves into the gaps in the keyboard, and some might fall onto your clothing.

The desk is straightforward, just brush them off into the bin (or into your mouth if the desk is clean enough, you’re hungry enough, and the splinters are sizable enough to make a difference to your hunger… and there’s nobody else watching). The keyboard can do with a whack every once in awhile, which will bring tumbling onto the desk a wide variety of little bits of food and other stuff you never realised lived in your keyboard. Horrible, isn’t it. Really horrible. This is why people vaccuum their keyboards, so they don’t have to look at this kind of residue.

But clothing? Stop right there. What you don’t want to do is the reflex action — to wipe it away with your hand. Why? Because you are not a reptile, and your hand is almost certainly warm. Try and brush away chocolate in an office environment, and you almost certainly end up with a chocolate smear on your clothing instead.

My strategy, after years of trial and error, is to stand up and shake the chocolate off my clothing. No human contact, no melting onto my newly drycleaned trousers, no mess, no fuss.