Having suffered the eternal embarrassment of bringing tea to China when I packed a box of Barry’s for my month-long stint at the Beijing Olympics in 2008, much to the amusement of Jimmy Magee, I forgot to pack any for Rio. It didn’t matter, though. Happily for me, as a fairly avid tea-drinker (four or five cups a day), we had a sufficient supply in the RTÉ office at the Olympic Park.

But you know yourself. It’s just not the same when it’s made with powdered milk. Even the ordinary Brazilian milk made a bad job of the cuppa. And having given up coffee about five years ago, I was left in a quandary, especially on the early mornings when I needed my routine caffeine boost.

So I caved in and began drinking coffee once more on the promise I would climb back on the wagon upon my return home. Somehow I haven’t gotten round to it yet and it is driving me bonkers. Because now when I get the urge for a coffee or Americano, it is like a siege. Last week in a new trendy café in Dublin city centre, it really took the biscuit when I ordered a bun and a coffee.

The lovely woman at the till handed me the bun and a number for delivery of my coffee. OK, I thought, this was a new one on me: getting the confectionery immediately but having to wait for the delayed delivery of my beverage. Well, I had the bun eaten by the time the coffee arrived.

I devoured it while watching the waiter go through the detailed, steamy and quite noisy process of preparing my “tall” Americano, which reminded me of the mission employed by Willy Wonka to make one of those little magic sweets. Banging. Steaming. Battering. Boiling. Dribbling.

After what seemed like an eternity, eventually my long-awaited cup of coffee was brought to me.

I am sorry but these cafés are getting worse. The more banging and hammering and steaming and boiling, the swankier the coffee, it seems. You wouldn’t hear the likes of it in an aviation service depot.

For heaven’s sake, could someone not invent a quieter, quicker way of making a damn cup of coffee and give all our ears a rest? It’s enough to drive a man to, eh, tea.

Betting against the odds

The bookies would love to see me walking through their door. I know it is a very serious and depressing problem which affects many people and families in this country, but thankfully I don’t have a gambling addiction. I enjoy the very odd bet. I love it when I win but hate it too much when I lose, so I just don’t bother putting my heart through the pressure. I do kick myself on days when I make a bold prediction and it comes up trumps. Days like this year’s All-Ireland final when I told anyone who would listen the first day, that it was going to be a draw (at odds of around 10/1). But on the other 90% of times when I get it wrong, I breathe a sigh of relief that I didn’t part with my precious tenner. So, just as well I didn’t do the accumulator I was so sure would come up when I printed my championship predictions here last May. I promised I would come back to see just how wrong I was. Well, here is what I predicted. Hurling: Munster = Clare; Leinster = Kilkenny; All-Ireland = Clare. Football: Leinster = Dublin; Munster = Kerry; Connacht = Galway; Ulster = Donegal; All Ireland = Dublin. With due apologies to Paddy Power, I didn’t make it in!