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Recently we carried an item about the high cost of coffee in St Vincent's Hospital in Dublin. A doctor working in the hospital sent us a mail pointing out that the Kylemore Cafe outlet in the hospital was charging €3 for a cup of coffee. The piece prompted Edward Hanlon to get in touch with a price comparison of his own.

"I was in Rome recently and in a cafe on a street directly in front of the Vatican, just a few hundred yards from St Peter's and I had an espresso and a pastry which cost the same as a coffee in the cafe in St Vincent's."

And as if that comparison didn't cast the pricing policy of Irish coffee shops into a sufficiently bleak light,

he says that a similar snack in the shadow of the Roman forum cost him just €1.50 - "50 cent for the

coffee and a euro for the pastry".

Strange exchange

Still more on the odd exchange rates in Dunnes Stores. Mary O'Grady recently went looking for a duvet in Dunnes in the Nutgrove Shopping Centre and was amazed to see that while it had a sterling price of £9, the cost in the local currency was €20.

"Surely there must be some rules about the exchange rates used?," she asks. (Sadly not.)