I really don’t mind if your loo paper touches my sausages!

I shouldn’t, but I just can’t help myself. I’m not usually a sadist. If anything, I tend more towards the love and peace brigade, yet right now I’m torturing a woman and thoroughly enjoying myself.

There’s nothing physical about my minor act of evil. She’s not planted over a bamboo seedling that will grow up through her body overnight.

My attack is purely psychological, and to be honest, cutting through my dark pleasure is a bright streak of embarrassment.

I can’t believe I’m really behaving like this, but equally I’m utterly fascinated by the terror a small piece of plastic can instil in your average Irish person.

Finally, I relent, reach for little placcy divider and place it on the conveyor belt at the back of my shopping.

Herself waiting behind me in the checkout queue at Dunnes breathes a massive sigh of relief.

“Thank you!” she whispers under her breath.

I’d been dying to see how long she could last when her eyes were confronted by several feet of empty black conveyor belt, but no placcy divider.

What is it about that supermarket divider that terrifies Irish people?

Solid mothers of five who drive small tanks and run successful businesses from their homes shrink with fear when presented with the edge of somebody else’s shopping.

Yes, we all need our personal space to survive the challenges of modern life, and manners are wonderful things. As in my native England, here in Ireland society tacitly requires a certain level of politeness to be observed.

All that suits me down to the ground, but once there’s half a foot of black plastic between the arse end of my box of eggs and beginning of your packet of nappies, it’s pretty bloomin’ unlikely that the cashier will suddenly reach across the void, grab your shopping and charge it to my bill.

God forbid, even if they did, what’s the worst that can happen?

We might be forced to look each other in the eye, act like social animals, and explain that a mistake had been made.

Still you wait. Even when there’s a completely empty conveyor belt in front of you, you wait.

You wait until that impolite man (of course he’s a man so he’d know no better) plays the game and gives you the divider.

Fore more on Charlie's views on Ireland's paranoia about groceries on the supermarket checkout see this week's Tribune here.