A paediatric psychologist was giving the world the benefit of his knowledge. The radio volume was high. It was impossible to ignore him in that Cowley snack bar.

Time, he pontificated, was the greatest gift a parent could bestow. Gameboys, iPods, expensive cycles and other symbols of a materialistic world were mere trinkets, possessions that in the fullness of time wouldn't mean a thing.

While agreeing with the basic principle of his philosophy, my patience wore thin as his tone grew more patronising.

It would have been rude to ask the caf management to switch wavelengths; so with teacup drained, I was ready to walk out, when the man at the next table caught my eye. He was having a 10-minute morning break from his heavy manual job.

The back of his hands always a reliable guide indicated someone in his early to mid-thirties; but his tired face and black-ringed eyes suggested someone at least 10 years older.

"He's not of this world," he said, pointing to the radio, high on a shelf. "It's fine for him. I bet he's on a good wage. There's nothing I would like more than to spend every minute with my two kids.

"But I work 12 hours, five days a week at one job and just as long at the weekend on another and it's not to buy iPods. It's to put food on our table and clothes on our backs.

"There are umpteen thousands like me and we don't want to be made to feel more inadequate than we do by windbags like him."

A felt sympathy for workmen as they tore up kerbstones and asphalt at the Carfax end of High Street at the start of a 16-week operation.

The public's expression showed they were not impressed as they made their way around those all-too-familiar red and white barriers.

Not that the workmen should have been surprised. The long-running Cornmarket Street fiasco was still fresh in the memory.

The work would give High Street better pavements and road surface, explained a friendly engineer from Drayton Construction, of Abingdon, the company entrusted with the contract.

He was quick to point out that his firm had not been involved in the Cornmarket saga, perhaps thinking that any association with that ill-fated project was best denied.

The work was long overdue, he said, the many patches in the road proof that piecemeal repairs were not a long-term solution.

His positive approach was refreshing, so I decided against mentioning traffic mostly buses would be an added danger and discomfort to his team, something the Cornmarket workers didn't have to face.

The six-year-old child, proficient in basic reading skills, asked her mother to pronounce that long word on the printed notice in the store.

"It is shoplifting'," said mother.

"Wicked!" enthused the girl, adding before mum could explain the evils of such behaviour. "If I liftshop sic, it says I can have a free ride in a police car."

I don't suppose my chuckle helped.