FT journalist asks pertinent questions about UK health service

Camilla Cavendish is a staff journalist with the Financial Times.

In a recent article on the NHS she writes:

“The first thing you would notice, if you were parachuted into the NHS is that it is a terrible employer. I can’t think of any organisation of this size where staff have little control over their schedules, and suffer bullying and discrimination despite spending hours in workshops on tolerance.

“... Rigid pay bands mean that the experience and dedication of the middle-ranking nurse, who’s worked for over 20 years, is not properly rewarded.”

Is it a similar story in Ireland?

A quiet space offers staff a chance to relax and recharge

This week’s Mediahuis Irish regional newspapers’  column.

Michael Commane

A cousin of mine, who works here in Ireland for a multi national corporation, received a call from a colleague in Paris, asking what was the possibility of the company having a ‘nap room’.  

My cousin’s initial reaction was that it was a ridiculous idea but he decided to survey other sites around the world. To his surprise he found that several of them had a room set aside for either prayer or meditation, sometimes called a ‘Calm Room’.

Whether it was a coincidence or because it was on his mind, the following day he saw a colleague in a small room roll out a mat to say their prayers facing Mecca. 

The room is usually used for private phone calls and not suitable for much else. 

It dawned on him that this is exactly what the caller from Paris was talking about. And he could see why there was need for a private space, where people can get away from their work,  meditate and yes, maybe on occasion have a short nap. 

I can hear you laughing and saying to yourself that I’m suggesting people should be allowed sleep while on the job. 

I spent eight years working in a hospital, which provides a silent room where staff can relax and take a short break. It is a brilliant idea and is proving a great success for staff. 

I found it a great place to relax, unwind and power up my batteries.

People use it at all hours of the day and I think I can say with certainty that it is not being abused.

How easy it is for something to be lost in translation. Of course the French man was not looking for a place to sleep, he was looking for a space where staff could take a few minutes out, gather their thoughts and relax. And how such a room, besides giving new life to body and soul, also improves a relationship of goodwill between management and staff. A ‘nap room’ is a powerful and positive addition to the workplace. It provides a sanctuary, gives staff more energy and drives us on to do a better job.

Besides that, it helps break down the ‘them versus us’ mentality that can so easily plague the workplace. 

Less stick more carrot always works. When workers are content and happy in their employment they have a far better chance of giving of their best. It has often crossed my mind that companies and organisations are inclined to use HR departments as the mouthpiece of management. HR is what it says on the tin - human resources - and a major part of its remit is to take good care of employees.

When staff feel appreciated and wanted it’s as sure as night follows day that they will give of their best to the job. A chill-out room certainly goes a long way in making staff feel good towards their employer, 

Indeed it will also help give workers a sense of their own worth. But not a good idea to it call it a ‘nap room’. And for all sorts of reasons.

Al Pacino experience on near death and a father again

Al Pacino was interviewed by Colin Paterson on BBC News last evening. It was a most interesting and powerful 30 minutes of television. 

Pacino spoke about his near encounter with death and how it’s fun to be a father again at 84. How he misspends his money and lost it all.

The interview was first broadcast on BBC 2 on October 25 at 9pm.

It’s well worth a watch.

Is it possible for Ukraine to turn the tide on Russia?

In recent days a senior Ukrainian general has criticised the tactics of his president, pointing out that Ukraine is too dependent on Western support. The general said it as the Russians continue to make advances in the east.

On this day, October 4, 1956 Soviet troops entered Hungary to quell the uprising that began on October 23. Thousands of Hungarians were killed and close to 250,000 people left the country.

Without Nato direct intervention is it possible for Ukraine to defend itself against the vast resources of Russia? 

It looks bleak and bleak for the world too.

Today is also the anniversary of the assassination  in 1995 of Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin by an extremist Israeli. A great blow for peace and justice in the Middle East.

Twenty second anniversary of death of John O’Gorman OP

Today Sunday November 3 is the 22nd anniversary of the death of John O’Gorman. Sunday November 3, 2002 was also a Sunday.

John was a friend and colleague of mine.
The appreciation, which is printed below, appeared in 'The Irish Times' some days after John's sudden death in Limerick.

It is the first anniversary of the death of former Dominican Brian O’Neill. Brian left priesthood some short few years after ordination. He was a gentleman to his fingertips, a kind and gracious person.

JOHN James O’Gorman was born in Blarney Street in 1945, attending the North Monastery Christian Brothers School in Cork. He was one of their brilliant young men, obtaining a scholarship to UCC. But John instead of going on to university joined the Dominican Order in September 1962. He was professed the following year and ordained a priest in 1969.
John O’Gorman stood out as a shining light. Most of all he was a man of absolute integrity. But he was also endowed with brilliant intelligence.

After priestly ordination he did post graduate theology in Rome and remained on at the Irish Dominican community in San Clemente as bursar.

He spoke Italian like a Roman, at least so said his neighbours on the Via Labicana. But he never lost his Blarney Street accent.

John was not happy with Rome and the Roman scene. His first love was always science and mathematics. He began postgraduate work in Maths while in Rome.

Fr John Heuston, a brother of the 1916 man, himself a fine mathematician, admitted that he had never before met someone with such mathematical talent.

John came home to Ireland in 1976 and moved to the Dominican Community at Newbridge and did his H.Dip at Maynooth.

Without any formal degree in Mathematics, he blazed a trail of brilliance through Newbridge College. What were just normal results, John turned into spectacular performances. And by the time of his last year at the school, there were two streams in sixth year doing Higher Level Maths in the Leaving Cert.

But he was also there for the not so clever. Anyone who sat at John’s feet in Newbridge will remember him as a brilliant and fair teacher.

John was endowed with both a practical and speculative intelligence.

In the early ’80s he began to develop an interest in Computer Science and did a PhD in computing at the University of Limerick.
This led to a career in lecturing at the college, a job he much loved.

He was meticulous in everything he did. While Mathematics and teaching were his first love there were other sides to this faithful son of St Dominick.

He walked every by-road of Ireland, climbed to the top of every mountain and had a knowledge of roads and rivers and mountains that was just simply breath taking.

John also took his theology seriously and had a profound knowledge of the Bible and was familiar with modern theological thinking.
But he was never at home with his priesthood. 

It might have been his Roman experience, it’s difficult to say. In the mid eighties he requested permission to resign from priesthood while remaining a Dominican. As he expected Rome found it difficult to put its head around such an idea and John’s request was placed on a shelf somewhere and forgotten. But John, the man of faith and logic that he was, retired himself from all sacramental ministry. The Order granted John his request.

But most of all John was a dear friend, someone who was always there to give the best of advice and help.

He had absolutely no time for show or pretension and lived the most simple of lives.
He carried his intelligence easily but never used it as a tool to lord it over anyone.

He was a member of the provincial council of the Irish Dominicans and took his responsibility in a most serious fashion.

John, the man of integrity and vision, had no time for bluff or show. But above all, any signs of obfuscation annoyed him intensely.

He had little time for people in authority who attempted to take short cuts and he had no mercy for Dominican superiors whom he felt were not living up to their responsibility.

He was a true democrat, moulded by the constitutions of the Order, so when he felt superiors or communities where lack lustre in their living out their calling to St Dominick he had no problem letting people know his views.

He was in some ways a private man but was always there for his friends and he would go to any distance to help and support. I know.

John was a physically fit man, could walk up to 20 miles a day. He took good care of himself. And yet, John died in his room in the Dominican Community in Limerick on Sunday evening of a massive heart attack.

He is survived by his brother Andrew, sister-in-law Emer, niece Fiona, nephews, Rory and Mark, and his Dominican brothers.
I have lost a dear friend.
May he rest in peace.
Michael Commane.

Halloween is gaudy but not an intoduction to paganism

The Irish Catholic of October 31 carries a number of articles on topics including The re-paganising of Ireland; No country for young people; Halloween being a wasteland of tack and pointless gory imagery; Simplistic to present the 1980s as a dark and repressive time; Love in the age of anti-Catholicism, Halloween and the worship of false gods.

Is Ireland really as bad and nasty as this? Unlikely.

Yes, Halloween has become a commercial  tawdry event, where silly skeletal figures are placed in shops and houses are festooned with gaudy vulgar plastic. It is nonsensical, making a lot of money for the grocery and other trades. Children are persuaded to indulge in the worst of food and waste money on ugly plastic rubbish.

There may well be  something about it all that is not right but is it not an exaggeration to argue that it is a sign of our returning to paganism?

There are many questions to be asked, reality is always nuanced.

Anyone who saw Leathered on RTÉ 1 Television on Wednesday evening would realise that our State was a sick place when children were systematically tortured in the classroom, many of them by religious sisters, brothers and priests. The State allowed it to happen. Provincials and bishops turned a blind eye to the bad behaviour of their members. Our schools are a much safer and healthier place today. Today children like going to school. In ‘Catholic Ireland' they were frightened beyond belief as a result of the savagery that was meted out to them.

Ireland is a far better place today under the law of the State than it was under the control of Canon Law.

All words of kindness are much more effective, far more convincing and authentic than condemning and criticising the  vagaries of the day.

Self-respect is a central key to democracy

Most likely it was ‘the deplorables’ that finished it for Hillary Clinton. Will it be Joe Biden’s ‘garbage’ that will ruin Kamala Harris’ chances of being US president.

Is democracy nearing its use-by-date? It seems as if it has passed its best-by-date.

"To safeguard democracy the people must have a keen sense of independence, self-respect, and their oneness.”

- Gandhi

Surely the same rules should apply to all of us

Yesterday’s blogpost criticised the grammatical error made by England’s Prince of Wales. The previous day’s post was equating the wearing of all forms of clerical gear with virtue signalling.

Might it be fair to say that correcting the Prince of Wales for his poor grammar was virtue signalling?

It was not the intention.

There seems to be something in the ether, which allows certain grammar errors to be acceptable by the middle classes and other grammar errors that are taboo and completely ‘out of  order’.

The Prince of Wales would never say ‘I done the school run today’. If per chance he did, not even he would avoid criticism. But  saying: ‘My father visited John and I’ has been given an imprimatur by the middle classes so that makes it okay.

Both are incorrect. Why should one be acceptable to so-called cognoscenti and the other not acceptable? Has it a something to do with social class, accent, address, occupation?

It would seem to be the case.

England’s Prince William not too strong on King’s English

Below is an extract from a report in yesterday’s UK Independent. 

“Meanwhile, Prince William publicly mentioned his brother, Prince Harry, for the first time in in eight years.

"He shared a poignant childhood memory of their mother, Princess Diana, taking them to visit a homeless shelter, marking a rare moment of reflection on their relationship.

“ She took Harry and I both there. I must have been about 11, I think probably at the time, maybe 10,” he said.

"Surely it should read: 'She took Harry and me..'

So much for the King’s English. I doubt the prince would have said ‘She took I....’

Why did the newspaper not include (sic) in the story? Not possible with a future monarch?

The prince is confusing nominative and accusative cases. It’ll be ‘I done it my way’ next. Why not?

Clerical gear could easily be seen as virtue signalling

This week’s Mediahuis Irish regional newspapers’ column

Michael Commane

When I joined the Dominican Order in 1967 we were given a list of items we were to buy, including a black suit and a black hat. On completion of our initial retreat we were vested in the Dominican habit in a ceremony attended by our families. A lot of water has flown under many bridges in the intervening years.

After just one year in the Order we wore the roman collar, we were still almost children. But change was beginning in Ireland and in the church. I think we shedded wearing clerical gear long before priestly ordination.

 

People can wear what they like. Groups within society have uniforms, the Garda, the Army, nurses, pilots, ambulance drivers. And then there are groups, where some do and some don’t, bus and train drivers, bank staff, shop assistants. Some schools have uniforms, others don’t. Nurses do and doctors don’t. 

People in favour of wearing clerical gear point out that gardaí do, so why shouldn’t clerics. Another reason given is that clerics are different. I’m not too sure what that means. 

More say that by wearing clerical garb one gives witness. I’m not too sure about that either. I would never want to set myself apart from the rest of humanity. I know one thing for sure, I’m not fit to tie the shoelaces of my mother or father.

It seems wearing clerical gear is becoming the in-thing these days with some younger priests, nuns and sisters. Maybe cynical I, see it as a new-style fashion accessory. One certainly does stand out wearing clerical clothing these days. Is it a statement, saying I’m different, I’m better?

Last week I saw a young woman wearing a white habit. I presume she was a religious sister. She stood out in the crowd. 

The habit was immaculate, the woman was perfectly groomed and probably was the most elegant and stylish person in the crowd. In a nearby cafe a woman collapsed, falling over the table where she was sitting. The religious sister was right beside what happened. What did she do? Nothing, walked on.

Maybe when she saw someone else attend to the woman she felt there was no need for her to stop. But wouldn’t a kind, supportive word in her ear have helped?

I can hear you ask what about Muslim women. They don’t stand out as being different in their own communities. And there are issues with that too.

When I see priests meticulously turned out and discussing what style liturgical vestments to wear I just think it’s all a far cry from the ’60s and ’70s when the church was alive with ideas and new ways. 

I’m reminded of Pope Francis telling us that the church should resemble a field hospital and encouraging priests to be ‘shepherds, living with the smell of the sheep… as shepherds among your flock.’ 

Shakespeare again: ‘the apparel oft proclaims the man’. 

US Politicians abuse elderly and dementia sufferers.

Last evening CNN threw light on how political fundraising is exploiting the elderly, misleading them into unwittingly giving away millions of dollars.

While both parties are doing it, CNN points out that the Republicans are by far the bigger culprits.

People suffering from dementia are being specifically targeted by the parties before the November elections.

‘Assisted dying versus assisted living'

Whatever one’s views are on the

current debate on euthanasia or 'assisted dying', this letter surely is worth reading.

It’s also worth noting how glowingly we speak of the dead. Do we praise the living with the respect they deserve? Another aspect to the mystery of our lives. And doesn’t the term ‘assisted dying’ remove all aspects of the cruelty of killing someone?

Why no hospitality for the people of Gaza and Lebanon?

The moment the Russian Army invaded Ukraine, the European Union rightly opened its doors to the beleaguered  Ukrainian people.

Why are we not offering similar hospitality to the people of Gaza and Lebanon right now?

'Sinn Féin leaders like puppets for unseen controllers'

Michael McDowell’s column in The Irish Times on Wednesday.

In the last few weeks, there has been much publicity concerning internal disputes and disciplinary processes in Sinn Féin. Now that we are in an election run-up, some consider that these controversies are sure to damage the party’s prospects on election day. But the cause of a major decline in support for the party is longer and deeper than these recent problems. After the 2020 election, Sinn Féin was preparing for the role of leading party in the next government. Buoyed up by the results of that election, it began a campaign that took its voter-share dominance for granted.

It began to interact with financial, commercial and professional business organisations. Meetings were sought with the major legal and accountancy practices. TDs were directed to wear jackets, collars and ties. The aura of a government-in-waiting was assiduously cultivated, with opinion poll ratings consistently hovering around 30 per cent.

But suddenly the bubble burst. In the European Parliament elections this June, Sinn Féin secured 11 per cent of the first-preference vote compared with 20 per cent each for Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. In the local elections held the same day, it again secured only 11 per cent of the first-preference vote, with FF and FG each getting 23 per cent.

Something deeper happened

What had happened? Not the recent scandals. Something deeper happened to the party’s public perception and support base. The departure of Leo Varadkar may have been one factor. Likewise, the party’s wobbly and ineffectual support for the ill-fated Yes side in the family and care referendums in March, despite its difficulties with the wording and its promise (or threat?) to rerun the vote, damaged its credibility.

Add to these factors the failure of the party to capitalise on the Government’s mishandling at Irish and Europe level of the refugee/immigration issue (which is a matter of real concern to the Sinn Féin voting base, as distinct from party ideologues). Now you have some insight into the possible factors in the slump in Sinn Féin support.

On the issues of housing and health, where the current Coalition is vulnerable, Sinn Féin just isn’t scoring points – let alone knock-out blows. Its housing policy proposals, which end with the State owning an ever-increasing proportion of Irish houses as ground landlords, with diminished rights of home occupiers to dispose of their homes, smacks of thinly disguised far-left socialism. These proposals reflect the ideology of the leftists in Belfast rather than addressing the actual aspirations of Irish people to own outright their own homes.

There is still an open political battleground on matters such as childcare services, disability services, GP services and hospital services. No party has as yet managed to stake out the high ground on such matters in the minds of the public. And all of these issues could be game- changers between now and polling day in late November.

My own take on Sinn Féin’s apparent blowout is that the public are increasingly sceptical of the party’s core agenda. It aspires to establish a 32-county socialist republic. And when it says socialist, it means far-left socialist. Its connections and sympathies with Farc, the Colombian Marxists, the Cuban government, ETA, the Basque Marxists, and other world revolutionary movements as well as its far-left fellow Left group members in the European Parliament, all speak of a movement out of tune with the centre ground of Irish politics and thinking.

Post-Brexit, most voters in the Republic want Northern institutions to bed down rather than polarise the North with a Border poll for which there still is no likelihood of a majority for a decade at least. Rekindling smouldering constitutional and sectarian questions in Northern Ireland at this point is counterproductive; slow and steady reconciliation and positive mutual engagement in the North is what is needed by both parts of the island.

It is now four years since Colm Keena’s admirable exposition in these pages of the true nature of Sinn Féin. That fine piece of journalism needs constant rereading. The facts have not changed. The Army Council still exists. Sadly, none of our broadcast media has the courage to deal with the realities uncovered by Keena. Sinn Féin is not a conventional political party; it is a tightly controlled revolutionary movement still in the grip of a very small group, many of whom were active in the IRA’s campaign of violence.

It brooks no open dissent. It controls its TDs, Senators, councillors, MLAs and abstentionist MPs with a vice-like grip. Its elected public representatives take policy and instruction unquestioningly from its Coiste Seasta and ardchomhairle. They are all liable to arbitrary deselection by the unelected party centre. TDs and councillors are notified of their political fates by back-room messages – not by voters. Their leaders are not really leaders but more like glove puppets for unseen controllers.

Sinn Féin’s recent controversies and cover-ups are but the symptoms of its underlying reality – not the cause of their decline. Nor the real reasons to be wary.

Debating euthanasia or ‘assisted dying' in parliament

"If you don’t stand for anything, you’ll fall for everything."

-Michael Healy-Rae talking on RTÉ Radio 1 yesterday about euthanasia or ‘assisted dying’, which sounds much more polite and easier on the ears.

'SF reacts to child abuse scandals as the church used to'

Fintan O’Toole in The Irish Times yesterday. Worth a read but it’s a pity he did not refer to the ‘heart reasons’ excuse, which the church tends to use on many occasions.

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Child abuse scandals are submersibles that plumb the murky depths of an institution’s mentality. They take us fathoms down into its otherwise unfathomable instincts. So it was with the Catholic church – so it is now with Sinn Féin. And where these probes land is in the same place: the mental abyss in which it is impossible to think of cruel acts from the point of view of the victim.

Tempting though it is, this is not a moment for smug satisfaction at the travails of a party whose default mode is moral superiority. Like it or not, everyone on the island has an interest in Sinn Féin becoming a better, healthier, more open and democratic organisation.

It is likely to be the largest party in Northern Ireland for a long time to come and, even if its (always presumptuous) expectations of forming the Republic’s next government are now effectively dashed, it will remain a formidable presence in the political life of the State.

For the good of our democracy, we need a lot more than trite “learnings”. We need Sinn Féin to engage with its own collective ID. It must investigate the impulses and assumptions that made it possible for two party officials to write job references for Michael McMonagle, who had been questioned about (and later admitted to) sex offences against children, and for Mary Lou McDonald (in effect) to cover up the reasons for the resignation of the party’s leader in the Seanad, Niall Ó Donnghaile.

I fully accept that most members of Sinn Féin are genuinely repelled by the revelation of this continuing pattern of behaviour. But if they are, they must ask themselves the most searching and uncomfortable question: what is it about our organisation that perpetuates those patterns?

The answer cannot be delivered in bureaucracy-speak. Responding to the revelation of the McMonagle affair, McDonald resorted to the language of management consultancy. She has asked the party’s incoming general secretary to “immediately initiate a complete overhaul of governance procedures”.

We’ve been here before. Six years ago, in August 2018, after several of the party’s local councillors had quit over what they alleged to be a culture of bullying in which unelected officials sought to impose their will on elected representatives, The Irish Times reported that “party leader Mary Lou McDonald has now assigned a senior figure in her team to carry out an examination of the party’s structures and to report back to the ard comhairle”.

Remind me what Albert Einstein (and Roy Keane) said about doing the same thing while expecting different results.

Structures and procedures matter, but not nearly as much as mentalities and cultures. Governance in Sinn Féin is hierarchical and driven by obedience. Which is why it responds to child abuse within its ranks more or less as the Catholic hierarchy did.

The offending party official, like the abusive priest, is one of us and therefore to be treated with compassion and understanding. The victim is a problem to be managed with the least possible damage to the trust of the believers whose simple faith must not be eroded by scandal.

What McDonald should be instigating is not just a review of the party’s governance. It’s a complete and honest overhaul of the habit of mind in which every act of abuse by an insider must be seen first and foremost from the perspective of the perpetrator. That habit is not casual, and it is not unconnected to Sinn Féin’s past as the political wing of the IRA.

Deep in its DNA, and still implicit in the way it thinks about the Troubles, is a reflexive minimisation of the suffering of victims. Victims, in its grand narrative, are an unfortunate inconvenience.

What we see with both McMonagle and Ó Donnghaile are kindness, care, consideration – for them. The instinct with McMonagle was to ensure that his life was not going to be ruined by the mere fact that he was being investigated for attempting to lure a child into having sex with him. The party helped him to get a good job with the British Heart Foundation.

In the case of Ó Donnghaile, he was allowed to resign with no reference to the reason – his sending of inappropriate text messages to a 16 year-old member of Ógra Shinn Féin. McDonald praised his political contributions and expressed the hope that he could “overcome the health challenges that he has had to deal with over the past number of months”.

In her responses to the revelations last week, McDonald continued to express her concerns about Ó Donnghaile’s mental health – while saying nothing at all about the “health challenges” of the boy he subjected to unwanted attention. She declined to enter what the boy called, in a statement to the Sunday Independent, the “dark spaces” of a teenager struggling to deal with a deeply unsettling situation.

The sense of deja vu is dizzying. McDonald spoke on Morning Ireland of her job in all of this as “managing human behaviour, failures, mistakes” – rather than crimes against or damage to children. Ó Donnghaile’s target wrote on Sunday of his feeling, when he tried to get the party to act in early 2023, of being left to confront “a titanic power dynamic that made me feel as if I had no chance of having my voice heard”. Dress Cardinal McDonald and her bishops in episcopal robes and it’s a movie we’ve all seen before.

McDonald isn’t stupid – she’s extremely smart. So how do she and her senior colleagues end up reinforcing a “power dynamic” that is Titanic as well as “titanic”: crushing for the victim but also a metaphor for the party’s self-destructive hubris? Because of a habit of celebrating perpetrators as heroes while keeping their casualties as far from the surface of collective consciousness as possible.

If you teach yourself not to think too much about those your movement killed and maimed, you have also learned not to see things as they look and feel for the victims of your comrades’ unfortunate “mistakes” and “errors”.

Eating in public and on the go seems to be de rigueur today

This week’s Mediahuis regional weekly newspapers’ column

Michael Commane

Since Monday, October 7 it is forbidden to carry an electric scooter on any public transport in the State. Transport for Ireland (TFI) made the decision on safety grounds, saying that there is a concern about the batteries on the scooters. 

A similar rule applies in a number of other European cities. There has been considerable discussion about the electric scooter prohibition, the usual hullabaloo and outrage.

I am ‘outraged’ about something else. Alas, not a word about it, not a whisper. I was on a crowded Luas last Sunday, sitting down minding my own business when this ever-so-polite young woman sat beside me. She was well turned out, dare I say sophisticated, maybe refined too, whatever exactly those words mean.  

Within two or three minutes of sitting down she produced a sandwich, a bap, a roll. These days there are a zillion names for such products. It certainly wasn’t a sandwich-style item that we took in our packed lunches fadó fadó. But no matter, leaving that aside, a person can eat whatever they like, whenever they like but must they to do it on a crowded Luas, especially when the sight of this food item and the smell from it was disgusting, at least to my nose and eyes. 

There is a sign on the Luas explaining that it is forbidden to eat or drink on the tram. Had she any idea of the smell that was emanating from the food she was eating? I covertly looked at it a few times to see greasy particles, crumbs and assorted food-stuffs falling down on to the greaseproof paper in which it was wrapped. 

Am I intolerant? I was surprised no one else on the crowded tram was expressing any annoyance whatsoever. She was obviously oblivious to the smell and sight of what she was eating. I decided to say nothing. I can imagine all I would have done was to upset the young woman. She looked delicate and fragile. When it was all consumed, she neatly wrapped the greaseproof paper and put it in her bag. The hell was over. 

Two days later I am on an early morning bus, in front of me a passenger is eating what looks like a simple old-fashioned roll. This time no smell, nothing. And now I’m wondering is one allowed eat food on a bus. I’ve never seen a sign on a bus saying you can’t.

I’ve discussed the issue with a friend, who immediately snapped at me, saying he has seen me eating on a train. Does the fact that there are tables on trains make a difference, longer journeys too?

Have we all forgotten about good old table manners? It’s something no-one ever talks about these days. 

I’ve asked around and the general consensus is that fadó fadó parents would never have allowed their children eat in public. These days everything seems to be ‘on the go’ on the street. Does how we eat say something about us?

One thing is certain, the times we are living , they sure are a-changing.