Sir, - The Irish Times's price rise should not be allowed pass without a nod to the late, much-loved and still lamented Donal Foley. Was it not in his first lurch into satire in his Man Bites Dog column, back in 1972 or 1973, that he strained the credulity of his readers by envisaging Ireland in the year 2030 - and among the most outrageous predictions he could make was that The Irish Times would cost a pound?
If memory serves me well it was in the same column that he identified one region of Ireland called Cloud Cuckoo Land, chiefly inhabited by bank directors, bishops, publicans and others, but seriously lacking in plumbers, carpenters and any other craftsmen. It must have been Donal's irrepressible optimism that made him push this fateful day back 30 years beyond its actual arrival. - Yours etc.,
Dennis Kennedy, Belfast 7.