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Excuse the grammar but the gag doesn’t work otherwise so on today’s National Pie Day let’s say Pie are squared and round.

And we’ll pick out six pies from around the world.

All because we’re an island here of pie lovers in Britain, and Scots up and down the country have grown up on Scotch pies and beans.

Then long before American fast food pork pies were the go-to snack in England, and not just for ploughmen.

Mr American Pie

Eat your heart out Prue Leith: In Colorado

Apple Pie: National Pie Day was started in the mid-1970s by a nuclear engineer, brewer and teacher (talented man) Charlie Papazian.

It was then that he declared his own birthday, January 23, to be National Pie Day and it took on.

So now fast forward to a Can’t Bake, Won’t Bake visitor to Ginger & Bake in nearby Fort Collins under the watchful eye of the ever-patient Deb.

Say it loud and say it stout

More please: Jamie Oliver’s Steak & Guinness Pie

Beef and Guinness Pie: If you’re like me (and the Irish) and feel that drink is the food of life then read on.

You see this variation on the British steak and ale pie in Ireland naturally is enriched with Guinness and bacon and onions.

And it s on every bar menu in Ireland… and inevitably in the ubiquitous Jamie Oliver’s cookbook.

Custard with that?

Bobotie pie: It’s a different world in the one-track town of Cradock in the Eastern Cape In South Africa.

That’s where the owner of the Die Tuishuise & Victoria Manor has put on a buffet of Karoo food that fuses easy.

So let me give you Bobotie pie, a curried raisin-infused Shepherd’s Pie with a savoury custard topping.

Pie Irie

Ruby, Ruby, Ruby: Cooking and baking in Barbados

Macaroni pie: And something from the Old World embraced by the new in the Caribbean.

It is known there just as pie or Bajan Pie in Barbados this is island comfort food.

This tubed pasta with creamy cheese sauce is served either as a main dish in Bim.

Or more likely to the side of their favourite chicken and fish. Irie?

Pizza and understanding

Pizza pie: So when we first got a taste for the Italian staple on this island we would call it pizza pie.

The best pizzas which we know are in Pizza City, Naples.

But a tip here for those who might otherwise be stung dining out near the Spanish Steps or Pantheon in Rome.

Instead pick up the long miniature pezzos from stores scattered through the Eternal City.

Sweet pie

Key Lime Pie: Now just as many pies are sweet as are savoury.

And in the land of American pie there are as many variations as there are numbers after 3.14.

But as it’s darn tasty and the Florida Keys are on the radar.

For a long rescheduled road trip it’s Lime Key Pie for me.

And so whatever your pick it’s good to know pie are squared and round and make the world go round.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s most enduring legacy will surely be that his name has become part of our lexicon… and, like many a graduate, I’m proud of my Desmond.

Desmond, who has passed away at 90, was very visible in the Eighties and especially among the student community.

And while student buildings across the UK were renamed after Nelson Mandela his great friend Desmond was honoured at graduation ceremonies.

Where a 2:2 was (and still is) a Second Class Honours Second Grade.

Graduate with honours

The third of four pass grades your Tutu student mixes work, pleasure, uni societies and politics.

The name caught on too in the world of soccer where naturally it has become shorthand for a 2-2 scoreline.

The anti-Apartheid icon’s passing will be marked by national mourning across South Africa.

And particularly in Johannesburg, the next nearest big city to his hometown of Klerksdorp in the Western Transvaal where was Bishop.

Where, of course, you can visit the Apartheid Museum, and learn what life was really like then in South Africa.

And Cape Town where he became Archbishop.

Freedom fighters

Tutu’s South African brothers and sisters will turn his memorial into a carnival.

But he and Mandela were the first to admit the debt they owe to the men and women freedom fighters on the Long Road to Freedom.

Men such as Amos who works as a waiter in Cradock grandee Lisa’s hotel Die Tuishuise & Victoria Manor in the Eastern Cape.

But who fought the good cause.

And did jail time and suffered under the yolk of the police.

But who humbly declared: ‘We weren’t afraid to die as long as we died in the struggle.’

The township

Or Xhanti, who was South Africa’s Birdman of Alcatraz in solitary confinement.

But who now chases birdies on golf courses when he’s not showing tourists around the New Brighton township outside Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape.

And the most challenged part of it, Red Location.

And, of course, it was Port Elizabeth when we visited but has now been Africanised as Gqberha (pronounced Kberha).

Of course that doesn’t do it nearly enough justice as it’s Xhosa, the Eastern Cape’s distinctive clicking language.

And a tongue our old friend and guide Seseko treated us all to on our travels throughout the Eastern Cape .

And which Mandela himself spoke.

The angel Mandela

And then there were three: With Siseko and Madiba

Madiba will have been the first angel to greet Desmond at the gates of heaven.

They were great pals… they just clicked.

Rest in Peace, Archbishop. I’m proud of my Desmond.