OPINION - What you can tell about my state of mind by my sandwich

For as long as I can remember — or as long as I’ve had untrammelled access to a fridge and cutlery — I have used lunchtime sandwiches as both a yardstick and a corrective for my own mental state.

I will concede that, in the earliest days of this measurement system, the malady I was looking to correct was just ‘hunger’, in that petulantly direct and short-sighted way that a child goes about such things. As soon as my still-forming. Dinners ruined, sure; arguments caused, every now and again, but I’d fixed the issue I came into the kitchen to solve.