Patrick, a reader from Malmö, wrote recently with kind words about the column. It keeps him in touch with home, he said, adding - apparently as a compliment - that it "makes more sense than a lot of the news out of Ireland". He continued: "I can easily imagine sitting in Bewleys reading it, even though you don't write much about Dublin."
Well, as a special request for Patrick, today's subject is Dublin. And since he mentions Bewleys, I was sitting there myself this week when I was struck by the apparent demise of the company's customer complaint card. As you may remember, this was a cardboard questionnaire which invited you to mark everything from coffee to staff on a scale of one (poor) to five (excellent), and invited general comments. Its disappearance is a matter of regret.
True, I never completed one of these cards, and never saw anyone else do so either. But where they came into their own was whenever you had a wobbly table. Sometimes you could just slip the card under the problem leg, without adjustment; occasionally you had to fold it first. For a really difficult table, you might have to fold twice. But it always did the job, quickly and easily - unlike the napkin or the newspaper golf supplement you're now forced to use.
The irony is that wobbly tables are probably the single most common complaint of café customers, not just in Bewleys, but worldwide. And as a method of correcting the problem, the cards were almost perfect. On a scale of one ("no use") to five ("extremely useful"), I'd rate them at least four-and-a-half. Under general comments I'd add that, whenever the restaurant was overheated, you could also use them as fans. But the beauty of it was that here was a complaint mechanism that, of itself, provided instant redress. I'd complain about the withdrawal of the service, but how?
Irish people are famously reluctant to make complaints - at least directly. And yet complaining among ourselves is a national sport, on a par with hurling. There was palpable excitement this week, for example, at the proposed new Dublin road signs, as people realised that here was another thing we could criticise bitterly for years. The city council doesn't issue comment cards; but if it did, using a scale of one ("easily understandable") to five ("is this a joke?"), the signs would have scored highly. In the event, the Minister for Transport spoiled it all by sending the design back and asking for a fresh one.
Personally, I thought the criticism was unfair. Sure, the signs had too much information. But this is a nation so proud of complex road-directions - multi-fingered finger-posts pointing vaguely at everything from Baltinglass to Ballydehob, to the nearest bed-and-breakfast, in a combination of miles and kilometres - that we sell postcards of them. With their reduced charm levels, the new signs were at least less likely to be stolen by theme pubs.
And yes, maybe motorists wouldn't have understood them; but bearing in mind that the motorists are probably stuck in traffic, the signs would at least be an amusing distraction. Maybe "R114" indicates the number of times the road has been dug up this year, drivers would think; or maybe the number "8" on a purple background is the bonus ball in this week's lottery. Meanwhile, the exclusive use of "An Lár" would have been a conversation piece for tourists ("That's just the name of the sign-manufacturer, honey. Now stop bothering me while I try and find the city-centre on this map.")
In the short-term, the new arrangements will probably make Dublin traffic even worse. As Yeats wrote, in an uncanny prediction of the chaos caused by the combination of inner and outer orbital routes with inadequate signage: "Turning and turning in the widening gyre, the falcon cannot hear the falconer; things fall apart; the centre (or An Lár) cannot hold."
If traffic management remains a problem, however, the other news out of Ireland is that the plastic bag tax "is as close to an unqualified success as anything can be". That's according to an editorial in the Daily Telegraph, which this week put aside its traditional distrust for both taxes and Ireland and backed British government plans to copy us. The newspaper credited the triumph of the scheme here to a desire not to give money to the Government, "an ingrained and admirable aspect of the Irish character".
It was controversial when introduced, but it's obvious now that the bag tax couldn't fail. Like the Bewleys' complaint card, it was a dual-purpose instrument: it either eliminated bags, or it raised money for the environment. It's strange, though, used as we are to hearing how everything is done better in Scandinavia, that suddenly we're the world leaders in plastic-bag control. Something for them to think about in Malmö.
