I witnessed a Celtic Tiger phenomenon last week on the train to Belfast. At least, I think you can categorise it as Celtic Tiger but maybe it's just a times-we-live-in phenomenon . . .

I'd never taken the Enterprise to Belfast before, although I know lots of people who have and who rate it very highly. I'm a convert too, it was the most relaxing way to make the journey that I've ever experienced. Even when the rain started to slate down in Dundalk I felt cocooned and cosy as I sat back and gently leafed through the newspaper.

My fellow passengers were mainly suits, all with laptops, all with Psion organisers and all making and receiving multiple phone calls. Since it was early in the morning and since the whole idea of travelling by train is so that you can get some work done, I wasn't as irritated as I might have been by the gentle trill of the ringing phones. (But I'm amused that most of the sober-suited businessmen had their ringing tone programmed into the finale from the William Tell overture!)

However the Celtic Tiger phenomenon was a mobile phone experience and one which illustrates that when people are on the mobiles, they don't seem to realise that anyone else can hear them. So maybe that's why the guy who received the call from his employer didn't simply suggest he'd phone them back later when he was on his own. Instead he proceeded to resign from his job from his seat in the train, saying that he'd got a much better offer from a company in Dublin and that he'd be a fool not to take it. Everyone within earshot tried to gaze out of the window nonchalantly and pretend we couldn't hear him refusing to negotiate another offer. We all hid behind our business sections of this newspaper while he told his (ex) boss that he'd have confirmation of his leaving to him later that afternoon by e-mail.

I forgot to mention earlier - perhaps it's relevant - that the bloke in question was English! And I honestly do hope that he's very successful in the new job. At least it explains why he sat with the laptop open in front of him for ages without actually doing any work.

Still on the mobile phone front, I wrote about the Mannesmann bid for Orange a couple of weeks ago and offered my sympathy to the bondholders who had seen the spread on their Mannesmann paper widen dramatically against government issues. It was interesting, then, to get an e-mail from someone who was looking at the Mannesmann/Orange merger in a completely different light. She's one of my selection of book-people and her concern was that the merger might mean that the Orange Prize would be discontinued.

The Orange Prize is a prize for women's fiction and is, naturally enough, sponsored by Orange. Like all fiction awards it's knocked for being elitist. Usually awards are considered elitist because of the eligibility criteria - Orange's elitist credentials are that it excludes men. And although they originally made comments like "let the women have their little award if they like" the fact that Orange gives £30,000 sterling (€46,773) in prize money in addition to giving the winning novel a huge amount of publicity, has made it a fairly prestigious elitist award. Apparently Auberon Waugh actually gate-crashed the ceremony one year. And you thought bond dealers were aggressive!

Anyway, the literary crowd are somewhat worried that the Orange Prize will have to go in the brave new Mannesmann/ Orange world, and female novelists who would like to get their hands on £30,000 in cash will be less than impressed if that happens. They also want to know if Orange will still be Orange or will it be Mannesmann? The Mannesmann Prize doesn't sound half as zesty as the Orange prize - I suppose as befits a German company which started off in engineering.

The prize has been good for the company in that it has raised people's awareness of Orange as a brand-name, although I don't know whether or not any of the shortlisted authors (particularly those who don't win the prize) are connected to the Orange network. And I don't know whether anyone else considers Orange as their company of choice because it sponsors the award.

I'm very curious to know, though, how much a company gets out of sponsoring prizes - literary or otherwise. The Booker is the mega prize of the literary world and yet I'm not convinced that Booker, the company, gets much other than prestige from it. Booker is actually a cash and carry business which supplies retailers and caterers with food and non-food items. But not books as far as I know. Maybe they just thought that with a name like Booker they couldn't let it go to waste! Naturally, the authors think it's great - the prize money is less than Orange at £20,000, but you can be assured of lots and lots of sales even if the people buying the book never bother to read it. As well as the Booker prize itself, the company also has a Russian novel prize for contemporary Russian authors which is cosponsored by the PA Smirnoff Memorial foundation in Russia. Since most Russian novels I've read end up with the narrator either contemplating or committing suicide, I hope the contemporary lot are a little more cheerful. But there isn't a lot to be cheerful about in Russia.

As you can see, I've been more books than bonds this week which is partly because I've been caught up in the publication of my own latest offering, Suddenly Single, and because I've also been involved in promoting the Open Door series of adult literacy books. While people reading this column have the ability to read (and criticise!), adult literacy is still a major issue in this State. So this series of short books is designed to help adults who have reading difficulties but who are now eager to read fiction and is a hugely worthwhile project. If anyone is interested in helping with adult literacy, you should contact the City of Dublin Vocational Education Committee or the IFSC Trust.

Oh, and thanks to all the people who said hello when I was signing books last week. It's nice to know so many of you read the column but, no, I won't ever start a share-tipping service. Watching your own go down the tubes is bad enough without worrying about anyone else's!

Sheila O'Flanagan is a fixed- income specialist at NCB Stockbrokers