"I'll tell ya what," said the man-at-the-counter-of-a-midlands-shop. What? "That centralisation thing is only an oul cod." A what? "A cod, an outright cod, so it is."

"True for ya," said customer-at-the-midlands-shop.

We were lined up by the long counter, purchasing hardware. When I say hardware, I mean as written over shop-fronts, sometimes accompanied by "licensed to sell wine and spirits".

The term "software" has no meaning here, as there was not a computer screen in sight. Man-of-the-shop marked the items into ledgers with a stubby pencil. The pencil was on string attached to the pitted counter. When he was in the yard he used the long pencil in the top pocket of his beige overalls.

The shop was among the last of its kind and deserved a heritage award. Man-of-the-shop cruised easily up and down the shelves as he served the men on the other side, pulling at rickety wooden drawers for electrical fuses, plugs, wire, sockets, pliars and nails.

Sometimes he climbed ladders, to get at more rickety drawers or shelves weighed with packets in brown paper.

Taken down, the brown paper revealed paint brushes and scrapers, measuring tapes that thrifty women used for dressmaking and string with plumb-weights attached.

"The match, Sunday, was a disgrace," said man-of-the-shop. "T'was," said customer-of-the-shop.

"That fella shoulda been put off from the start," said man-of-the-shop. "True for ya," said customer-of-the-shop.

"Or that centralisation thing," said man-of-the-shop, reverting to the subject as he remembered the bag of two-inch nails that had been ordered earlier. "The man that thought that wan up, he should be put off the field too. I mane to say, they're after building hundreds of houses beyond and who are they goin' to get to fill them.

"Only the Poles that built them," said customer-of-the-shop agreeably, "them's the only wans that are livin' in them now."

"But," said man-of-the-shop, "they'll be goin' home in a few years. Then, where will we be?"

"True for ya," said customer-of-the-shop, "the civil servants from Dublin nivir came, not a wan, an' I'll have four two-be-twos while ya're at it."

Man-of-the-shop went outside to the yard, large enough to house a new apartment block. In Dublin, it would have the developers fighting over it, bids starting at €15 million. He came back with the crisp four two-be-twos and tied some string around them.

"Tell me," he asked, "are they bringing any of them civil servants down here at all?" "Jeez, I don't know," said customer-of-the-shop. "They was bringing Civil Defence to Nenagh alright, but that was for war with the Russians."

"Well," said man-of-the-shop, "the only Russians I know are the four fellas in the oul' flat upstairs, they pay the rent and no trouble."

He totted up the bill and sighed: "I suppose we could have a war with them if we want to. Tell me, are they going to build nuclear shelters down in Nenagh, then?"

"Jeez, you have me there," said customer-of-the-shop. "But they'll have to give 'em something to do, so I wouldn't put it past them. Good luck, now."