It’s not all good news for the retailer monster as it has also been forced to defend itself against charges that it has already upped the price of dozens of the products it claimed were permanently lowered less than two months ago.

And then there is the publication of the Competition Authority’s much anticipated report aimed at getting to the bottom of the sometimes shocking price differentials that exist north and south of the border. after months and months of beavering away behind the scenes it turns out it’s all our own fault. Well, that’s not strictly speaking true, the Government is also asked to shoulder some of the responsibility while higher overheads also contribute to the higher costs, but mostly it’s down to us. The one group who is in no way to blame for the sometimes huge price differentials - no siree bob - are the retailers. They are, the Authority tells us, completely blameless and shame on all of us who thought otherwise.

A) Eat it and tell the waiter everything was fine?
B) Push it round the plate to create the impression that you ate it and tell the waiter that everything was fine?
C) Don’t eat it and snarl at the waiter before paying for the meal and leaving just less than ten per cent as a tip?
D) Complain and refuse to pay for the meal?
E) Complain, refuse to pay for the meal and demand compensation for being served inedible slop?

The reason I ask is that recently I was in a well regarded restaurant where I ordered a fish dish which the place was well known for – a cod and chorizo cazuela as it happens. The meal came and the cod was inedible – mushy, cold and absolutely vile. I’d name the restaurant only I have no proof that the cod was mushy, cold and absolutely vile so they’d probably take me to the cleaners in the High Court for slandering them. Anyways, for only the second time in my life I called over the waiter and asked him to take it back.

He was mildly apologetic and said he would talk to the chef - I can just imagine how that conversation went: ‘There’s some bollix out there who doesn’t like your food. Will we spit on his dessert?’ And that was the end of it. When I called for the bill a little while later he told me, with the demeanour of a cat who’s just left a present of a rat on my kitchen floor, that he’d taken the cod off the bill. ‘Well, that’s very good of you,’ I thought, ‘seeing as how I only had two disgusting mouthfuls of it’.

So I paid for the rest of the meal – which was not, it has to be said, particularly good – and left feeling just a bit hard done by – and hungry. Very, very hungry.

How should a restaurant react to a complaint like this? Do the bare minimum and take the offending meal off the bill? Throw in complimentary desserts or coffees or glasses of wine? Tear up the bill, completely? And what should I have expected of them? I’m not sure but I am absolutely certain that the restaurant’s response was so poor that I will never darken its doors again.

Er, 7, I meant to say 7.

An ESB spokeswoman said that the letter was sent out “inadvertently” as a result of a glitch in the system and she denied that such an approach was common practice.

It turns out he was not the only one to get legal missives from the ESB, as our readers were quick to point out. A reader called Holly “was sent a similarly threatening letter demanding payment of €11.93 (for a bill which I never received)”. She says that “failure to comply within seven days would have led to a debt collector being sent to pick up the tab – and I only received the letter eight days after it was dated. I am ever so glad that ESB has finally let my account go to Bord Gáis, after three months of waiting for us to be switched over. To hell with them.”
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The computer was thieved earlier this month - of course it was - and now 75,000 of us will have to monitor our bank accounts for Lord knows how long to keep an eye out for suspicious transactions. The office of the data protection commissioner has warned that fraudsters could potentially use information taken from this laptop to withdraw money from accounts or take out loans in their name. “The risk may be low but there is a risk,” deputy data protection commissioner Gary Davis said.

On our breaking news service today Conor Lally says Bord Gáis is to write to its customers tomorrow and has started contacting the main banks to inform them how many of their customer’s details are on the non encrypted stolen machine.

The managing director of Bord Gais Energy, Dave Bunworth said he “deeply regretted” the theft of a machine that was not encrypted. “We have had an aggressive system of encrypting since last July and this computer should have been encrypted before it was given to the staff member; it was a flaw in the system.”

As I said, halfwits.

MARKS AND Spencer is to significantly reduce the prices of all its clothes, homeware and furniture in the Republic from tomorrow but has stopped short of introducing its “permanent price cuts” in its food halls.

The British retailer says it is dropping prices in the affected departments by an average of 12 per cent in response to the economic downturn and continuing consumer concerns about the price discrepancies which exist between M&S outlets in the Republic and in the UK.

Dubbed “We’ve listened, we’ve lowered”, the price-cutting campaign is the latest salvo in a retailer price war which started last month when Tesco Ireland announced a major stock restructuring and price reductions averaging 22 per cent.
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While the amount of ‘celebs’ who have rallied around the cause is mildly irksome (Kelly Osbourne take a bow ) – the campaign does have a point (assuming of course you’re wealthy enough to be able to afford the luxury of choice). Meat is responsible for around 18 per cent of the planet’s greenhouse gas emissions and huge tracts of the Amazonian rainforest are cleared every year to make space for cattle ranches and feed.

And quite apart from environmental concerns, the idea makes perfect sense from a health and wealth perspective too. Vegetarian food can be cooked for half nothing while people who eat less meat tend to be thinner than those who stuff themselves with steaks and burgers and sausages and the like every day of their lives. And with that I’m off to Cornucopia for me lunch.