What a nation of nervous Normans. A National Consumer Agency report released last week revealed that the number of us willing to complain when we are dissatisfied has fallen from 79 per cent to 69 per cent since 2007. That’s three in ten of us who are willing to stay quiet when the steak we ordered comes dressed as nuked road kill. What’s wrong with us?

A lot of us learned this behaviour at our communion and confirmation dinners. It was here that our parents would moan to each other about their burned offerings, whispering that the egg mayonnaise with Thousand Island dressing tasted “peculiar” followed by: “Shut up, shut up, here he comes”; “How’s the prawn cocktail, madam?”; “Oh it’s lovely, up there with the best.” Then we’d all blush because a man in a uniform had talked to us.

Still though, you’d think we’d have grown out of it by now. It’s not like the service we’re getting is any better than before. The same report shows that the number of hospitality industry customers who felt they had reason to complain has risen from five per cent to 16 per cent in the last year. So things are getting worse, and we’re less likely to complain.

There can be only one answer to this. There is a simmering fury among the Irish people over the banjaxing of the country and that, yes, it’s insulting to be asked to pay €24 for a microscopic steak that would struggle to make it on to a supermarket shelf, served by a Lithuanian girl who looks like she might cry, but if I complain about this now, the whole thing could come out and I might run amok with an axe. The judge will call that an over-reaction.

As a final point, if you didn’t like this article, don’t even think of firing off a letter to the editor. Who do you think you are? An American?