One of Alan Bennett’s Talking Heads monologues was about a lonely middle-aged woman who got herself in trouble by writing letters to the papers. I haven’t written many, but one I’m particularly proud of dates from late 1998, just before Ireland adopted the euro. It was addressed to the Irish Times and read:

Sir, since we shall soon have the euro, may I suppose that cash machines will be installed in eurinals, and that furthermore we shall be able to eurinate on banks instead of, as now, banks eurinating on us? Yours etc …

They didn’t publish it. Pity. It was prophetic, given the extent to which they have since eurinated on their customers and on the state.