It wouldn't take you long to come up with a list of cushy gigs to appeal to a bog-standard middle-aged man. Monica Bellucci's mirror holder would be up there. Sofa tester, perhaps.
But at the top of the list would surely be 'judge at the British Pie Awards'.
That's why, when he was invited to become a judge by the organisers of British Pie Week, this bog-standard middle-aged man bit their hands off. And why he found himself on a freezing cold railway platform at stupid o'clock in the morning on one of the coldest March days since records began.
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This is because the British Pie Awards take place every year in the pork pie capital of Britain, Melton Mowbray. That's unless you're from Wigan, which considers itself to be the pork pie capital of Britain. (We're not going to get into it here, but Wigan's various rivalries with other pie-producing towns would take up a book that made The Lord of the Rings look like a pamphlet.)
Melton Mowbray is in the dead centre of England, which, of course, means that the train service is abysmal, with one train per hour to and from Birmingham, in theory, and fewer in practice. So if you want to get to Melton Mowbray from the north west in time for the judging, you've got to be up early.
As the March snow fluttered down, I arrived at the medieval St Mary's Church, which towers over the centre of Melton Mowbray, and which traditionally has hosted the British Pie Awards since the initial ceremony in 2009.
The night before, judges had been warned that heating in the stone church had gone kaput, and thermal underwear was required. It was clear that this, like the inaccessibility of Melton Mowbray from anywhere other than Melton Mowbray, was just another obstacle to weed out the fainthearts from the line-up of judges. Only the true pie lover is good enough to judge.
This year, more than 900 pies were entered for the competition, with decent representation from Greater Manchester. Among the entrants were Little Saddleworth Pies in Oldham, the Crown Hawk Green and Ate Days A Week in Stockport, Cake Loves Cake in Greenheys, The Vegan Picnic Basket in Old Trafford, and HM Pasties in Bolton, the project for former offenders which won the vegan pie category in 2022 for its chickpea curry pasty.
But Wigan, perhaps surprisingly, had only two entrants in the contest: Baldy's, creators of the lamb and Uncle Joe's Mint Balls pie, and J McRobb Butchers in Standish. It's hard to understand why there's so little participation from Wigan given, well, everything we know about Wigan, but it's been speculated that the town's piemakers are reluctant to enter the belly of the beast. Or that they're not having a bunch of stuffed shirts in the midlands tell them what they already know: that Wigan pies are the best. You decide.
We judges donned our aprons, listened to our instructions, and set to work. There were 80 of us, across 23 categories, and this year, I was judging chip shop pies - a category in which I have a long, if amateur, interest. I will never forget the disappointment of the time I ordered a Hollands meat pie, without chips, from the Lobster Pot in Liverpool city centre, and the woman behind the counter put salt and vinegar on it to my shock and disgust. Those things take root.
It turns out there are basically two types of chip shop pie: sublime and substandard. The former included a pie filled with salmon, haddock, prawns and potato, a "steak and chips" pie with ox cheek and fondant potato, and a braised beef pie that tasted like boeuf bourguignon. On the other hand, to show that it's not all gravy, there was one pie, that was, well, pretty much all gravy. I don't want you to think that I am fussy, but I just don't think you should need a straw to eat a pie.
But the big dirty secret about judging pies - and, in many ways, the greatest disappointment - is that you never get to eat a pie.
Oh, you examine it all right, in minute detail. You poke it, you prod it. You see if it's had too much boil-out (when the juices from the pie bubble out and caramelise on the pastry) or if it's got a soggy bottom (and you don't have to be a regular Bake Off viewer to know that's not good). You check the thickness and doneness of the pastry - a band of grey pastry is proof that it's been underbaked. You determine the amount of filling - in many mass-produced pies, you could park a bus in the space between the lid and the filling.
Only then do you get to sample the pie. Even so, you can't just take a bite out of the pie, as if you're at the match. You take a small amount of pastry, checking it for seasoning, flavour, and texture. And then you take an equally small amount of the filling, and decide if it's any good.
At that point, you give the pie a score out of 100, with marks awarded for appearance, filling, pastry and the overall bake. At the end of the session, each judge will have blind-sampled between 10 and 25 pies over three hours, and therefore eaten the equivalent of two or three pies, but in the way a whale eats plankton. You get all the downsides of having eaten three pies in a row - the bloating, the cholesterol, the deep, deep self-loathing - but none of the benefits.
Nevertheless, it's important work. The British Pie Awards have been responsible for a significant improvement in the quality of pies available across the country. And winning an award is a badge of honour, as well as a mark of quality, for pie makers, raising standards across the board.
But it's not as cushy a gig as you might think. After all, sofa testers are martyrs to piles, and even Monica Bellucci's mirror holder's arms get tired after a while.
PS Oh, the winners! Supreme champion was a steak and stilton pie from Brockleby's Pies in Melton Mowbray. None of the Greater Manchester entrants won their categories this year, but Ate Days A Week in Stockport was commended for its Lamb Pie of the Tiger, as was Michelle's Chicken Carbonara Pie from Baldy's in Wigan, and the Crown Hawk Green in Stockport also got a nod for its chicken, ham and leek pie. One from Wigan, and two from Stockport? Wigan, you're going to have to raise your game.
