I'm sitting on the train to Belfast, eavesdropping on a conversation between two men about "foreign hams" versus "ordinary hams", writes Roisin Ingle.
The first man can't get enough Serrano and Parma - "really different, but awful tasty, so they are" - and as I flick through my magazine he is recommending bratwurst sausages to his friend, who sounds a tad unsure. "I just like ordinary sausages, you know, pork and that," says the friend in a small voice that suggests he feels a bit left behind by his mate's relentless chatter about flavour and texture. You can tell he is wishing they could go back to talking about the football.
I would have happily spent another two hours listening to this conversation, because it was hilarious and zeitgeisty in a way that the makers of RTÉ2's The English Class probably wouldn't understand. Sure, we're laughing at Parma Ham Man and his newly developed culinary nous, but there's an irresistible warmth in this everyday comedy, warmth being one of the vital comedic elements lacking in The English Class. (Having said that I'm still watching. To see how bad it will actually get. I think it's called masochism.)
So I'm listening and smiling to myself when I turn the page of my magazine and spot a familiar face. At first I can't think where I recognise him from. He is a British actor. He looks angry. But not just angry: quizzical, too, as if he can't quite work out what is going on in the reader's, in my, mind. And then I remember with a nauseous thud in the pit of my stomach. I have seen that expression on that face before.
Regular readers will know I don't hold much back from this page, but I do have my secrets. I did some idiotic things when I was younger, stuff I am not proud of, and this photograph of this puzzled, angry man had brought one of the stupidest, most ignorant of those things back.
He was a tall, stunning young actor, starring in a play at Dublin's Project theatre that called for him to remove his top rather a lot. Me and my friend were in the audience. His brown eyes, brilliant acting, sculpted chest and wide smile cast a spell on us that night. When I look back all those 18 years ago, I am at a loss to explain.
It was the final night of the play, and somehow we managed to ingratiate ourselves with the wrap-party crowd, which eventually took us back to the actor's house, somewhere on the outskirts of Dublin. Not only was he talented and handsome, but he also turned out to be incredibly charming and generous and fun. We stayed the night, and early the next morning, motivated by pure adoration, we cleared and polished the post-party bombsite. When he emerged, beautifully dishevelled, from his bedroom, he was grinning that wide smile from ear to ear and saying in his cut-glass English accent: "How wonderful. How kind of you. What lovely girls you are."
I remember him going upstairs and coming back down with a box of vintage jewellery. Out of gratitude for our thoughtfulness he let us pick something each. Then he went off to buy the makings of breakfast and left us there. Which was a mistake, as it turned out. Giddy with excitement, a strange kind of euphoria took hold, and we began to explore his house like policemen looking for the forensics on who he was. Except we weren't looking for anything incriminating. Just more proof that he was the most amazing man we had ever met.
But what started off as innocent exploration turned into something else, something unnatural. We went around the house like mad things. Jumping on the bed. Rifling through the - gorgeous - clothes in his wardrobe. Examining the contents of his fridge, where we found a birthday cake which - why? why? - we stuck two forks in and half demolished. I was upstairs, admiring the contents of - oh, it kills me to write this - his underwear drawer, when I felt a presence behind me. Without turning, I knew. The actor. Back with breakfast. Angry. Quizzical. And, worse, disappointed. "I'd like," he said, "if you would both leave."
So we did. Outside to the Sunday sunshine in last night's clothes, sitting on a grassy bank outside the house, wondering how to make it right, how to catch water in a sieve. I don't think I have ever been so appalled with myself or so disgusted as I was that morning.
Back on the train. The boys verbally meander down the cold-meat section of the supermarket aisle. And meanwhile there he is. Angry. Quizzical. A big noise in the US. Oh. My. God.
