Changed my mind. I was in the shower, thinking about what I wrote yesterday about duty-free, and I've decided I was wrong. That's all. I was wrong. It is stupid to wait for the governments of Europe to harmonise duties and taxes, simply because they haven't the political will to do it, it won't happen, and we are stuck with the predatory raids on the economy into the indefinite future. After all, we've got the index-linked civil service and government minister pensions to fund out of current account, and that wealth-absorbing sector will always need to suck huge extractions from the wealth-creating sector.
To say, "Let's not have duty-free but harmonised Europe-wide duties instead" is pie-in-the-sky claptrap, Utopian gibberish. I used the analogy yesterday about the prisoner and the thumbscrews: the argument shouldn't be about the thumbscrews, but about his release. Pious nonsense. But if you know that there is no prospect of the prisoner being released, would it not make sense to consider easing his conditions somewhat? Wouldn't it be nice and sensible if the thumbscrews were lightened up on Christmas Day, and maybe St Stephen's Day as well?
Local monopolies
So I've changed my mind about duty-frees. But that doesn't mean I approve of the way duty-frees are run. I don't. They have become local monopolies which prosper on unfair trading practices. The only duty-free which I have ever seen which has internal competition is in Copenhagen. Most of them are like Dublin or Paris, where prices are scandalously high. I am regularly enchanted by the monthly bulletins from Aer Rianta saying Dublin's duty-free prices are among the lowest prices in Europe. This is like Rwanda declaring that it has the most successful space programme in Africa. I would be much more impressed if Aer Rianta was able to boast about its drink prices compared with supermarket prices in Spain or in France, which it can't, of course.
Instead it compares itself with the villains in Paris-Charles de Gaulle, who to a man and a pampered, cosseted, nail-varnished woman should be working on slave-galleys and flogged on Sundays whenever there's an "R" in the month, and on Saturdays when there's not. Loathsome, odious place. I remember reporting before that the last time I was in P-CdG, the duty-free had run out of gin, and the reaction of the disgusting female in charge, the complete and utter branceuse, was zut alors and tant pis.
If Dublin airport wants to show us what a great thing duty-free is, it should open itself up, allowing competing traders to operate in a duty-free market place, and thereby become the embodiment of fair trading, not its complete opposite, which is what it is at the moment. And there can be no reason, no justification, why one company - Wrights of Howth - has the monopoly on the retail outlets for smoked salmon in the airport.
Fishbone stuck
Though one can never tell; far from Wright's having a monopoly on salmon at Dublin airport, very soon nobody may be able to sell salmon at all following a ruling by Judge Kevin Haugh in Dublin. Last Monday he awarded £15,000 to Mrs Julie Fullam, a company director, who got a fishbone stuck in her throat while she was eating fish at in Dunne's Timepiece restaurant in the St Stephen's Green shopping centre.
She told the court that her children panicked when the fishbone got stuck in her throat and she started choking. She left the restaurant, and went to see her doctor, who sent her to hospital, where the fishbone was removed.
Did it surprise her that fish have bones? Is this something her education missed out on? Did no one ever tell her that eating fish requires care and delicacy because of the skeleton which distinguishes them from jellyfish, seaweed and the aurora borealis?
Whatever the truth about her education, she felt it appropriate to sue Dunnes Stores for selling her fish with bones in, and Judge Kevin Haugh felt it right to punish Dunnes stores for doing this. The newspaper report of the hearing ran: "Judge Haugh said evidence on behalf of Dunnes Stores that the fish was handled as little as possible prior to cooking and that there had been no pre-cooking inspection for bones led him to conclude that Dunnes had been negligent."
What induces Judge Haugh to deduce negligence causes me to deduce that Dunnes know how to cook fish. Fish which is probed for bones, fish which is handled a great deal in the hunt for bones is not fish which has been negligently cooked, but fish which has been destroyed. Dunnes Stores, God bless them, attend to fish the way fish should be attended to.
I trust they, and the restaurant owners of Ireland, will unite to appeal against this wretched decision. The principle must be that it is adults who eat in restaurants, not mewling babes gnawing on fish-fingers, and we adults must bring to the table the wisdom that life and maturity have brought us. That wisdom tells us that fish are born with bones, that we must be careful of those bones.
Fear of litigation
But if we think that a fish having a bone in it is a matter for law, we are in danger of making every little accident of life a matter for lawyers, litigation and compensation. In California and other parts of the US, restaurants do not serve fish on the bone, or even fish at all, for fear of litigation. It is impossible to get black sole on the bone - which is the best way to eat sole. If we go down this ridiculous road, everybody who sells fish is vulnerable to lawsuits from people who are surprised to learn that fish have bones. This is a battle which must be fought. Today it is a Dunnes Stores restaurant. Tomorrow, it is Wright's smoked salmon. Look, I've found a bone in my fish! Bliss! I'm a millionaire!