If any other provincial town was named number 3 in the Lonely Planet Top 10 Cities in the World, the locals would be astonished and surprised. But when Cork landed the accolade this week, we expected something different. After all, here is a place which simultaneously nurtures the largest superiority complex and inferiority complex in the world.

The inferiority complex makes Cork react with: “In your face, Dublin. As for Galway, Limerick and Waterford – in your faces too. In your face Kilkenny, ye don’t even have an airport. Kerry, what good is your All Ireland when your so-called cities are unloved? So, in your face Killarney and Tralee. While we’re at it, in your face Paris, Berlin and New York – ye didn’t even make the top 10 ye shower of langers. And by the way, in your face Dublin again in case ye missed it the first time.”

At this point Cork’s inner Roy Keane takes over and the superiority complex gets a run out. “How do you mean we’re only third? How come Abu Dhabi and Charleston were named above Cork when they don’t have an English Market or a Shandon or a Fota Wildlife Park or a river Lee or a gay goalie? Somebody start singing ‘The Banks ..” there quick.”

Lonely Planet’s bronze medal will cause outrage on Leeside. The hurlers will immediately go out on strike in protest, bringing the footballers out with them. A task force of Ronan O’Gara, Maeve Higgins, Keano, George Hook, Dearbhla O’Rourke, Graham Norton and Minister Michael Martin will be convened to make sure that the most beautiful city in the world will never again have to come behind a place in the desert that sounds like a kebab shop on Shandon Street or an American city that was named after a stupid dance from the 1920s. De indignity of it like!