Efficiency ploughing ahead hand-in-hand with informality

It was a week in which the business news was dominated by the travails of dodgy German car salesmen and by the Flight of the Web Summit Earls to a less costly Lisbon.

It was a relief for this Dublin-based journalist to make an inaugural visit to the National Ploughing Championships near Stradbally, a town perhaps best known for its association with steam engines.

Happily, the ground was firm enough and the caking of mud on precious urban boots could be quickly tossed off.