A FEW months ago, a friend of a friend told me about this great idea for making T-shirts, with Hindi phrases written across the front, to sell to friends.

She thought that, if it went well, she would eventually design a web-page and begin taking orders for customised messages from the public.

The idea behind it was that the T-shirt would inspire interest from curious strangers as the wearer would have to explain what the individualised Hindi logo said.

Anyway, I remember saying at the time what an interesting idea it was as you could get away with having really rude messages written across your chest, which looked cool in an ethno-Bollywood sort of way. Let me know if you need any help in making them, I added, imagining the two of us having a bit of a play-around with a couple of fabric crayons, some old T-shirts and an iron.

She took me up on the offer a few day ago but had a very different idea about how the "business" should be run. It didn't help that she happened to phone me just when I couldn't spare much time or the money, but I met her to discuss it anyway.

She arrived for our lunch in a smart suit, armed with a price list and a business plan. When she started talking about buying an industrial printing machine and devoting every weekend this summer going to festivals across the country, I began to do a radical backtrack. I had obviously misjudged her playful tone when she originally told me about the idea.

She had great ambitions for her T-shirt company, had already decided what its name was going to be and ultimately wanted to sell its copyright for a large sum of money.

"I'm doing this because I want to make some serious money," she said as a closing gambit, looking like a female Charlie Sheen in Wall Street. Either she has delusions of grandeur or I lack initiative, I thought, but I just don't want a hobby that's going to give me sleepless nights. I already have a job that does that.

The final turn-off was the sample T-shirt she produced from her bag. It was average as T-shirts go, not the work of a clothing wunderkid who had found a gap in the market.

By this stage, her manic list-making and pro-active attitude had totally alienated me. We were only talking about selling some T-shirts but she made it sound like we were in the middle of a boardroom business coup.The more excited she got, the more I knew I wanted out before I was even in. One business meeting had taken all the fun out of selling T-shirts with silly logos on the front.

The main thing, she added, was to have some fun with this. Yes, my thought exactly! I had mentally composed the email telling her I had other commitments by the time our bill arrived.