Meetings are definitely part of modern life.

Actually, I suppose they’ve always been part of life, both modern and ancient. And probably every generation and every culture has had its own rules about how they should be conducted. But I’m sure there’s always been a split between ‘business’ and social meetings.

In my time and culture you can certainly tell a work meeting, can’t you?!

You would never meet a friend like this. Over a table with stacked white crockery, a milk jug covered with cling film and pots of coffee and water no doubt filled several hours earlier.

A friendship built round that kind of meeting would probably fall apart as soon as the coffee went cold.

Perhaps it would be a dangerous thing to make work meetings more like social occasions. The two worlds might get muddled.

And that would never do!