Caroline O'Donoghue: Six unexpectedly enlightening things about losing your front tooth on an airplane

Back in November, a series of events resulted in me getting my front tooth removed. For the insatiably curious, the “series of events” was an accident involving a bike rack outside Douglas Shopping Centre in 2003, and a “temporary, emergency measure” that my dentist warned “would need regular checking up on”. The regular check-ups were, unfortunately, never administered.

Finally, 17 years later, I bit into a bread roll on a 22-hour flight. At this stage, the roots of my front tooth had slowly rotted to a mushy pulp and the tooth turned 180 degrees sideways. I went to the bathroom, tilted my head back, pushed the tooth back into my skull and waited for another 11 hours to land in Paris.