Right now, in a printing press probably on the western margins of Dublin, a laminating machine is pumping out little cards with these facts on them, for distribution around schools, for consumption by easilyimpressed children. "The tunnel lies some 70 feet underground. . . Two million tonnes of rock and clay were shifted in excavation. . . Building left a hole the size of a cathedral in Fairview Park. . . The machine that dug the hole weighed 1,800 tonnes and used 3.2Mw of electricity. . ." Sounds like the reconstruction of post-war Germany, doesn't it? Not something that might happen in cosy little Ireland, or even Celtic Tiger Ireland, with its sleek new patina but stillhuman scale. If the Industrial Age is the mined outfield of a POW camp, and the Information Age is the other side of the fence, we've burrowed under it all - and ended up in the forest, leaving our false ID with the claustrophobic Hungarian in the mess-hut.

Be under no illusion; this is a whole different world, this tunnel, and you're playing by a new set of rules.

The website gives you some idea of what to expect.

"The Operator has full jurisdiction in the Tunnel, " it says. The Operator. Written just like that. With a capital 'O', which it's all too easy to imagine as a huge, unblinking eye. "Drivers must obey instructions, " it follows. It talks of "loudspeakers". "Tune into FM radio to hear safety instructions, in case of incident."

Great. You can't even listen to soothing classical music to ease your nerves as you enter this concrete colon.

Now you're inside and you feel the onrush of the future - it's a sleek and unforgiving world; alien, dark.

The past is a different country. The past is behind you, with the comely maidens. The past is a nightmare from which you've escaped, where tunnels were never like this, just places you rolled up your linen sleeves in front of, and stuck your arms into, shoulder deep, to find the farm ferret, missing now for hours.

But the future, if this is anything to go by, is a nightmare too. This is humanity culverted, whooshed along via strip-light and hard black and white surfaces, propelled by 16 enormous jet fans that would turn you to ground-bait, given half a chance. To each side, openings reveal little side tunnels where rat-men will scurry out of after Sellafield happens. If only you can make it to the light, if only you can make it to the light. If it's not a massive train coming the other way. Or a giant hand. Because make no mistake: you're the ferret now, boy. You're the ferret now.

Still and all. For Euro6. It's worth at least one go