It's the Waffen SSIA, as far as I'm concerned. Not that I'm not delighted with it, you understand. It's just that all those storm troopers who are goose-stepping up and down telling me what to do with it are giving me the pip. If they don't stop, I may be tempted to tell them what to do with it themselves. First of all, it was that little squiggle who advertises 7up . . . surely the most irritating animated character ever invented.

And now it's the banks.

The banks have a nerve. To say the banks have a nerve is a bit like saying that Bertie Ahern has a nerve. It's gone beyond nerve really. It went beyond nerve some time ago, in both cases. It went beyond brass neck some time ago as well . . . again in both cases. Both the banks and Bertie have the sort of gall which has begun to incite real anger . . . but that doesn't stop them looking for your vote.

We've screened out how much profit the banks make. There is only so much obscenity one country can take, after all. They have economised on the useless parts of their business.

Little details like the travelling banks, which helped the old people of Connemara, for example, scrapped by the Bank of Ireland. And they've economised on the unnecessary services of banking, like actually having cashiers on the tills to deal with the customers.

In my local bank (where the staff are very nice, in some sort of act of communal defiance), they have even economised on the clock and the calendar, two examples of outmoded technology.

They have been replaced by a large television, blaring out Sky News.

Which is nice. Not.

The banks encourage us to try internet banking, so that we will do all their clerical work for them. The only reason we had SSIAs in the first place is because they offered such lousy rates of interest. And then they go and spoil it all by saying something stupid likef Give us all your SSIA money.

As far as SSIAs are concerned, our money . . . strange to say . . . is on Bertie. Or at least on former finance minister Charlie McCreevy (RIP). Because things are so bad now with the banks, and their cheery little begging letters . . .

("Congratulations! blah, blah, blah" ) . . .

that we would actually give Bertie our money instead. Despite Bertie's exceptionally trusting nature regarding blank cheques, and the signing thereof.

It's the way the banks address you in that blizzard of unsolicited and very expensive letters that gets the communal goat. It is one of the mysteries of modern life that the banks, who are so rich, employ public relations that are so abysmally poor.

In all their promotional literature the banks act like it was the banks which actually gave you this money in the first place . . . if someone else calls the SSIAs a windfall, then there is going to be a murder. Whereas we, even in our profound humility, somehow manage to remember that we saved this money ourselves, and have the Government to thank for their interest, thanks very much. (The Government gets a capital G when it has done something reasonable. The higher case will always be the rare case. In terms of home insulation regulations, for example, the government is very likely beyond remedy. To think how superior we were about the Americans not signing up to the Kyoto Agreementf but I digress. ) That knock-on pension thing from the Government sounded quite good, whenever we last heard about it. At this point in time, I would buy a Government Bond, as the Americans once did in wartime, rather than hand one cent of SSIA money over to the banks. Yes, I would rather invest in Fianna Fail. I don't think that there is a political analyst in the country who would question that decision, even as my poor grandfathers whirl in their graves.

Calming down now, calming down.

In through the nose. Out through the mouth. Of course, I am grateful for the SSIA thing. It's just the banks, you know, they have me a bit annoyed.