The village shop was first to go, then the post office, the local school, local pub, bus service, doctor, church (now many communities have to share priests) and now the chemist. You could be dead in your bed waiting for a doctor to call in East Cork and then it's a foreigner who can't find his way and has little or no English. We seem to have let Government and Europe strip away the very heart of Ireland and now it's too late to turn back. Next will be the post man, when people will be told come collect your mail from a central distribution network in the city, or have mailed scrapped totally , replaced exclusively by email.

I wonder if the yank's had their time over would they have invited Bertie Ahern to speak to the joint houses? I don't think so. It's astonishing the amount of coverage we in Ireland give his visit, while in the states the only headline or inch of print dedicated to him was in the New York Times, which said, "Irish PM to resign amidst corruption Inquiry", ouch. The real story for me was that for all our wealth and former economic boom we still don't have a government jet that possess an on-board loo. The government Gulf Stream jet may cost €15 million but a toilet seems to be a luxury extra. Not to worry though, the Dail plans to trade it in for a brand new model. Bit like our Taoiseach I suppose.

Can you imagine drinking over a dozen cans of Red Bull a day, or two litres of lucazade or Diet Coke? How about not being able to go to bed without a supply, panicking when you're running low? All this is a reality for hundreds of Cork people who called me during the week. We've all heard of Alcohol and Ciggie addictions, but soft drinks are a new one. It's the taurine in the red bull, the sugar in the cola's and the aspartame in the diet drinks. I may have laughed about it but for the addicts it's a serious problem. Wendy, whose gone cold turkey on air, could drink 10 cans while working her shift as a waitress! Postman Malcolm quaffs a dozen a day while delivering the mail! He too has given up on air. Let's see if they can last till next Monday! Withdrawal symptoms have already begun to kick in.

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