That's just like pointing at a red button and asking me not to press it.

"Ruth doesn't want to talk about anything else but Free Cone Day, do you mind?" She is an actress giving her time, so I'm not that bothered, but Ben & Jerry's is another tub of cellulite. I wonder if a Gestapo or KGB flavour would be equally acceptable to Ben & Jerry's, a company in its own words "built on the philosophies of peace and love"? It is very hard to believe that not one highly-paid executive at Ben & Jerry's Googled 'Black & Tan' before they put it on the tub, if only to see if any other icecream company had taken the name.

Surely, the company knew about it first? Ben & Jerry's marketing manager Cathy McGouran handed me a tub of Chocolate Therapy. Nice try.

Therapy for what? I asked.

"Everybody knows that ice-cream makes you feel happy and de-stresses you, " Cathy said, somewhat unconvincingly. I told her I still had a bad taste in my mouth over the brutal militia operating here from 1920 to 1922. (Not that I was around then, you understand. ) "It's never been released here, " she said. So I am expected to buy Chocolate Therapy instead? "We have a statement from the US we can email you, " she added. But they're surely going to withdraw the Gestapoflavoured ice-cream? "It's under review, " Cathy said.

That was a little non-committal for my taste. I smelled horseshit. I looked at the Chocolate Therapy, melting in the sun. Do you get that smell? I asked Anne-Marie Foran from Unicef. "I do, " she replied, wrinkling her nose, much to my surprise.

It wasn't the ice cream at all, it was the droppings under the horsedrawn carriages outside the gates at Stephen's Green. Just another unfortunate, unforeseen association.