Fergus Finlay: I arrived at the hospital for a 2.30pm appointment. I left just after 10pm

Shingles gave me a scare — and a sobering look at what’s great and broken in Irish public healthcare

The Royal Victoria Eye and Ear Hospital in Dublin.

Forget tariffs and the looming budget crisis (which won’t happen, by the way). I’m going to offer you a bit of impertinent personal advice. Try to avoid getting shingles, if you can at all. And if you do have to get it, don’t get it in the middle of a heatwave. From knowing virtually nothing about it, I’ve become a bit of an expert recently. And I’m not recommending it.

I’ll tell you how much of an expert I am. I got it in the trigeminal ganglion. So there. Don’t, whatever you do, google it. I did, and found myself in a rabbit hole that leads to somewhere called (I kid you not) Meckel’s cave. It has nothing to do with pirates, it’s a nerve centre in the brain where nasty things can sometimes happen.