Life’s too short to make mashed potato!

As Mary Berry admits she’s too lazy to use a whisk, what else is simply not worth the bother?

BAKE Off queen Mary Berry may have doubled her fanbase with her frank admission that life is too short to make fresh pasta or whisk anything by hand. So what do our top writers think life is simply too short for . . .?

SANDRA PARSONS: I HATE MASHING SPUDS

MAKING your own mashed potato — the peeling, the boiling, the smashing, the endless quest to beat every last lump into submission, the anxious deliberations over how much butter and milk.

Forty-five minutes from peeler to plate. Is it worth it? It is not. Because even if you think you’ve produced the dreamiest, fluffiest clouds of mash known to Man, I’m here to tell you that it’s not true. Because someone does it better, or at least just as well: Marks & Spencer. For around €3.

And don’t get me started on pastry. All that angst — mixing it, chilling it, rolling it, getting it stuck on the work surface, desperately adding flour . . . and for what? For unless your name is Delia or Mary Berry, any fancy ready-made brand you can pick up in the supermarket will do just fine.

Now I’m over 50, I realise life is too short for so many things. Leg-waxing (shave them in the shower instead). Persevering with a badly written book or boring film. Social media of any sort — pick up the phone instead. Don’t wash your car by hand when a nice man in the supermarket car park will do it for you. Don’t iron bedlinen — in fact, be brave and don’t iron at all.

One of the smartest mothers I know, with three children, a job and a perfectly run home, told me only the other day that though she owns an iron she has never taken it out of its box.

‘I just smooth and fold,’ she said. ‘I send my husband’s work shirts out to be ironed at €2 a time.’

No ironing at all, for just €10 a week. That’s what I call a real Superwoman.

QUENTIN LETTS: NO MORE WEB BARGAINS

I HAVE finally given up trying to find cheap deals online for my family. Instead, my wife Lois goes to our local travel agent and books something in half an hour. Phew!

You know the theory: a few minutes online will save you hundreds of euro on villa hire, flights, car rental. A few minutes! Hour after frustrating hour of precious time at weekends, more like. It reached the point that I dreaded starting the hunt for next year’s holiday — which seemed to start the moment we got back from the last one.

And yes, it was always Muggins who had to do the searching. Lois does not ‘do’ the internet. She has only just acquired an email address and certainly has no intention of staying up into the wee hours looking up cheap villas in Croatia on Google. Even if you can find suitable holiday accommodation (trusting the villa owner’s dodgy photographs and wondering how far Pula is from Dubrovnik airport — answer, many hours!), that is but the start of the nightmare.

You need to find flights to a nearby airport, involving the usual ordeal of jumping through Ryanair’s endless hoops. Each one involves yet more money. You book the flight, return to the villa website and find that the page has expired. And then discover that the villa has been bagged by someone else. Next comes car hire: do El Cheapo Autos, or whatever they are called, really exist? Once I booked a car online and we landed to find that the company had long since gone out of business. I was staying up later and later, crouched over an iffy wi- fi connection, drinking whiskey, swearing at the keyboard as I tried to meet everyone’s requirements (sun for the daughters, local disco for the testosterone-bulging son, a pool for me, a pretty garden for Lois).

Finally I screamed: ‘We’re not going on ruddy holiday!’ So Lois walked into a travel agency and found us a fortnight in Greece. Simples! And cheaper than anything I could ever have found online. Bliss!

KAY BURLEY: STUFF STUFFED TOMATOES

THEY look lovely and are a brilliant addition to a barbecue plate, but seriously, don’t waste your time. When I moved to London in my early 20s, I was determined to prepare fancier food than the tasty but l ess glamorous meals my mother had served up to me. I took a course in cookery, where I learned how to make everything from wild mushroom feuilletee to venison casserole with Vichy carrots — or, as my son calls it, Bambi stew with posh cut carrots.

We were also schooled in stuffing cherry tomatoes. What a boring task that is. It’s up there with preparing prawns for a dinner party starter. Peeling the shell, then cleaning their digestive tract is about as time-consuming as watching a box set of House Of Cards, and far less gripping. Plenty of recipes are much more satisfying, including handmade pistachio truffles.

They look beautiful and sound difficult to make, but aren’t. You can knock out a batch in no time, then freeze them. Presenting half a dozen wrapped in cellophane, tied with a ribbon, always impresses.

I took away valuable lessons from the cookery school, including that you don’t need to be the world’s best chef to impress your guests.

Have confidence that anything is salvageable — and life is too short to stuff cherry tomat oes. Buy t hem from the supermarket and spend the time making chocol ates, t hen eating them in front of the TV.

SARAH VINE: I CAN’T STAND TWITTER

I JOINED Twitter because, like everyone else, I was told it was essential in order to become a fully functioning member of the 21st century — and because lots of my friends were on it.

To begin with it was great fun. A superb time-waster, ideal for an incorrigible procrastinator like me — dropping in and out of conversations, spying on celebrities, surfing the wave of public interest.

I met some very nice people on it, too. Readers, fellow dog lovers, make-up fanatics, friends of friends.

Then, about a year ago, I began to suffer from a terrible troll infestation. Everything I wrote or tweeted became an excuse for people to post vile messages about me and my family. The nice people all backed off, presumably scared away by the vitriol. My words would be twisted and deliberately misinterpreted

Every time I refreshed my feed it was full of hate. So I’ve decided I’m going to follow Stephen Fry’s example and quit. It’s no good for a human being to be told on a daily basis that they are a pox, scum and should be shot in the head. It’s like deliberately dunking your head in the toilet on a daily —or in my case, hourly — basis. Goodbye Twitter, and good riddance.

BEL MOONEY: KEEP COOL, DON’T ROW

I HAVE a deep dislike of quarrels. It’s not that I’m a pussy cat with no opinions, just that I don’t value those opinions enough to argue over them — and certainly not to let them ruin relationships.

I can count the big quarrels in my life on one hand.

I once had a row with a close male friend who defended pornography, but confess I wouldn’t have become so loudly enraged had I not consumed quite a few glasses of wine.

His wife took my side, which made it worse — but we all made up the next day.

I don’t recall a single fight with my first proper boyfriend, and even maintained a superficial calmness years later when my first marriage was breaking up.

Things are said in anger that can fester for years, so my rule is not to say them.

But I don’t do the quiet, punitive sulk either — passive-aggressive quarrelling.

Life really is too short to make yourself so miserable.

Small spats with my daughter are soon healed; one or the other of us quickly picks up the phone, because neither can bear to feel cross with such a beloved person.

One of the first lessons we should teach our children is how to control feelings.

As adults, we need to put ourselves in charge of turbulent emotions.

On the (rare) occasion when a friend has done something that hurt me, I tell myself: ‘Ah, she didn’t really mean to.’ Because we’ll all be dead for a long, long time.