TO-MORROW'S FISH & CHIP WRAPPER

Meet Frank, photographer for the Irish Times Magazine. He took hundreds of pictures of me when he came to the Irish Writers Centre, a nice professional man, and as I told my friend Rita who was helping me focus, where else could an 85 year old have a good looking young man kneel at her feet?
So this morning I Went down to Camden Street early and bought this Saturday's Irish times. On the cover a celebrity woman golfer, pretty with a frangipani blossom in her left ear which used to be a signal as to one's nuptial state. I forget which ear meant the wearer was single. Sinead Gleason,s article about me was on page 6 with a photograph of a batty old wrinkly that turned out to be me. Reading interviews about oneself is a truly ego depressing experience, no reflection on Sinead's or Frank's competence of course.
But on page one of the weekend review was an account of a six year old girl who was asleep when her foster father came home at midnight and beat her te death. This was the report of a 1968 court case, where the jury had decided it was all right for a carer to beat a child to death. The foster father was sentenced to 12 months in goal.To-days article points out that 'horrible things'were still being done to children, but now such events 'évoke horror', showing a shift in social attitudes. I hope so.