The Whole Foods Experience

I use the Whole Foods Cafe as my local caff, popping in three or four times a week. Large espresso and a raisin and cinnamon bun - £2.99. Entertainment, and there's always plenty, free. I tend to avoid Monday mornings (mummy and baby time) and any time between 3 and 4, when the schools come out and children are brought in for a snack. Question: what's the difference between poor kids' and rich kids' after-school snacks? One gets a Big Mac for two quid and the other gets a Whole Foods banana and strawberry smoothie and a muffin for a fiver. Is a muffin better for you than a Big Mac? Not necessarily, but it has the Whole Foods imprimatur so it must be ok.

Today when I thought I was safe from weans, my entertainment was listening to two spoiled brats aged about five wailing because they couldn't have cupcakes. I don't understand why some middle-class parents don't have survival skills. Do the weans really need a long explanation to do with high sugar levels and how we're having risotto for dinner later and I don't want you to spoil your appetite? Is there not a time when a parent is allowed to say: You can't have it because I said so? End of.

But that level of gnashing of teeth was mild compared to my experience on Tuesday - and apologies to my fellow pensionistas in HEAPS if they heard me talking about this on Wednesday. Enter mother and three primary age kids. A lot of time is spent choosing what to eat and drink. All the other customers are aware of what's going on because mother has a particularly strident Norn Ireland accent. Eventually everyone settles. And then, mother starts haranguing one of the kids: 'Ollie, give that back! That's just greed! Sheer greed! You've eaten yer own and mine and now you want to eat hers! Nothin but greed, Ollie, just greed!' And on and on and on.

We share longish tables in the Whole Foods cafe and at one point I look up from my paper and catch the eye of the guy opposite me. We do a bit of eye-rolling. I really want to turn round and see this Billy Bunter-style food criminal. I sneak a look and see a shilpit wee cratur aged about nine, head down and shoulders up over his ears. From what I can see of his face, it's scarlet - and still mother goes on and on.

I really want to interrupt her. If only I could say something. Like: 'Can it, wumman! You've had your say. You've reduced all three kids to sullen silence. The two wee girls are looking as uncomfortable as Ollie and you'll be lucky to get out of here without a major tantrum from one of them.'

But, of course, I say nothing. The childless are not reckoned to be entitled to an opinion on child-raising. But I do know this mother is humiliating Ollie and, despite the strong bond between mothers and their sons, Ollie may not forget this public shirrickin.