We used to say "any apples or nuts?" before the Americanisation of the universe and anyone who made you sing a song was a c**t.

That sounds familiar. I was lucky that the Da was a fitter so I had a large supply of industrial ball bearings or steelies which, had I actually been any good at playing marbles, would have given me an unfair advantage.

"Steelies are worth more."

And then getting people to pay with their own hard-earned money to have propaganda and lies fed to them. That's the bit that always gets me. Like going into a shop and asking "Can I have some food guaranteed to give me food poisoning please. How much is that?"

I worked in Nimble Fingers in Stillorgan* in the late 70s. We catered to a lot of teachers looking for art supplies. An obviously frazzled, attractive woman came in one day, charged up to me at the counter and asked breathlessly "Excuse me, where can I get felt?" I just walked away.

This is nothing new. When Harry's Game was charting in the UK in 1982, a producer in RTE, Fiach O'Broin, got a call from the BBC who were concerned it might contain some terrorist references. Fiach told the caller it was just la-la-la which kept them happy.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zHT...

Nope. It happened twice in our primary school in the 60s too, Pat, albeit nothing to do with Cocal-Cola. Chap turned up, did a bunch of, it must be said, impressive tricks with a yo yo and then left. Usually it was only priests who came trying to sell us magic.

I heard similar about a well-known Dublin restaurant substituting parsnip for banana to make banana splits when they ran out. Which is, you know, bananas.

"There's only so much storm you can take,
There's only so much tea you can drink in the morning".

Susan McKeown