Poverty Index

I never realised how dire was the poverty out of which I came until I read a piece on Max Clifford by Andrew Lynch in the Sunday Business Post (2/6/13).

It appears that Max's "family was so poor that newspapers had to be used as toilet roll".

I don't think that would be news to many an Irish person of my generation. We habitually consigned the Irish Press to the lav, cut up into neat squares, pierced at the corner and held together by a piece of twine. No matter that the paper was more efficient at spreading the stuff than absorbing it.

And, furthermore, it was my privilege in this life to be dependent on an outside unheated lav in my twenties and thirties.

So you'll pardon me if I don't share Andrew's sense of amazement at this poverty index.

Talk about technological progress. We graduated from the newspaper to the medicated (shiny) roll and then to the science fiction that was Andrex.

Excuse me, I think that's Pat Kenny on the phone, looking for a scoop.