A YOUNG black woman called Lola Olufemi found herself written up in the newspaper headlines last autumn. Her unhappy exposure finds echoes in the attention being lavished on a slightly older, but still young, woman of mixed racial background.

The link isn’t so much with Meghan Markle, although there are parallels, but with her previously unknown father.

To recap for a moment, Lola was one of a large group of Cambridge students who wrote an open letter criticising the lack of black and ethnic minority authors on the university’s English course.

Although this was a group effort, the Daily Telegraph chose to illustrate their story by using a large picture of Lola on its front page.

The paper also gave the misleading impression that she alone had been responsible for changing the syllabus, rather than being one of many students asking that such a change be considered (with support from many of their lecturers).

The Telegraph later apologised for misreporting the story, although not for singling out Lola on its front page. Lola later told BBC Woman’s Hour that the media had exposed her to a “very targeted form of harassment” after she was “flooded” with racist and sexist abuse.

Wearing my “somehow I ended up as a part-time journalism lecturer” hat, I used Lola’s experience for a session entitled: “What happens when you are sucked into the news.”

I have been reminded of this thanks to the unhappy fate of Thomas Markle, who is 72 and is reported to be a shy man. There has been a “will-he-won’t-he?” tussle in the headlines all this week, leading to yesterday’s announcement from Meghan Markle that her father won’t attend her wedding to Prince Harry.

Rather remarkably, the Sun has managed to splash on this previously unknown American man for four days in a row. Today’s edition has the headline: “I’m sad about Dad.” This is a reference to the personal statement from Meghan confirming that her father won’t walk her down the aisle at Windsor register office (or wherever).

Royal news tends to be fluff and rumour, or tedious protocol, dressed up in words that say nothing. You see this on the BBC news when Nicholas Witchell pops out of his burrow to witter meaninglessly about the latest royal story. He never looks happy in his work, blinking away like a ferret with nothing to get his teeth into, and who can blame him

My own reaction to the Timothy Markell story has been to wonder why they can’t leave the poor man alone. Sadly, he’s been sucked into the news and will not be pulled free from that wordy quagmire for a while yet, if ever.

In case any of my three read today’s blog, here is a heartfelt message: please don’t marry a royal. I don’t want to be ‘papped’ losing my temper on the squash court, looking sweaty on an achy-kneed run or dozing on the sofa.

Tomorrow I will be driving to work when the wedding takes place. I’d much rather not work every Saturday, but perhaps for once this is an advantage.

Charles and Diana married on a Wednesday in July 1981. Street parties were held and, as a young reporter, I had to traipse round a few in south-east London.

I wasn’t interested in royal weddings then and I am not now. Grumble duly delivered, it is fair to say that Meghan Markle is an interesting woman to be marrying into the Windsor clan. As much commented on, she is a mixed-race, divorced American actor with strong views on feminism and other mutters not much mumbled about in royal circles.

At a time then Britain is stumbling towards a departure from Europe that was, in truth, a coded and dishonest vote on immigration, here is one high-profile immigrant we should welcome.

Even this non-royal watcher must admit that Meghan Markle has a bit more about her than the usual royal bride. I hope her big day goes well, although I can’t promise to pay attention when Nicholas Witchell again comes blinking into the daylight.

OUR house is filled with wrongly located furniture and the deafening rumble of Dave the floor man making a proper job of the floorboards we sanded six or seven years ago.

This is one of those ideas my wife has that I grumble about, only to share in the credit when everything works out.

The furniture has been piled into the conservatory or stacked in the spare room. I am in the study with an unplugged television at my back, as well as the chair my mother was given as a wedding present, two dining chairs, a pair of guitars plus amplifier and a propped picture or two.

In other words, only a little more cluttered than usual; and I am sitting here writing with my head only a little more cluttered than usual.

Dave is filling my day off with rumbling and grinding. A moment ago, I was making a coffee in the kitchen and sparks flew under the closed door.

The unconnected television is collateral damage from the sanding. Yesterday a man from Virgin fixed us a new TV box to replace the sclerotic old one from BT.

Only then did we realise we’d mistimed the floor and Virgin. The new box had barely been connected when it had to lose its umbilical link to the TV. We’re hoping it will all work again when hooked up in a day or two.

We’ve been in this house for seven years or so and it’s changed a fair bit, although don’t go mistaking me for someone with a fat wallet. Thanks to a poorly performing endowment mortgage and a couple of bank loans, people have been hired in for the heavy work and my wife has done 90% of the decorating – and that 10% from me is a remarkably generous self-estimation.

I feel guilty about my lack of skills with a paintbrush or indeed a spade. But, look, some people are made to tap away at laptops while others are good with a tin of paint and a garden fork. And Twitter doesn’t look after itself, you know.

In a puny attempt to defend myself, I would point out that this week I gardened on two consecutive days and didn’t throw in the trowel after 20 minutes, as has happened before.

Now it is time to go downstairs to top up the coffee cup, another of my important life skills. This entails leaving by the front door, walking down the side of the house and then coming through the kitchen door. The cat darts in, hears the roar of the sander, and darts out again.

As I leave with my skilfully topped-up coffee cup, she looks at me as if to say: “What’s going on, Julian?”

I shrug and say that she’ll have to ask my wife when she gets home.

I HAVE a meeting to attend tomorrow but have been wondering whether to send my daughter instead. She’s a lot younger than me and a good deal more attractive. Well, it seems to work for Donald Trump.

On this morning’s front pages, you will see widespread reports on the situation in Israel. Many of the papers are drawn to the contrast between Ivanka Trump attending the opening of the new US embassy in Jerusalem and the killing of more than 50 Palestinian protesters, and the injuring of some 2,000 more, by the Israeli military.

Pictures are used to contract the glossy Ivanka with the bloody scenes on the border between Gaza and Israel, including the front page of the Guardian here…

“Dozens die as US opens new Jerusalem embassy” is the main headline in the Times, here…

Commentators often take sides in this long-running conflict, based on whether they are pro- or anti-Israel. Not sure I know enough about that to be certain, but here’s something on which anyone should be certain: using the military to shoot and kill unarmed protesters is a step no democratic government should ever take.

The Palestinians had marched to the border to make a point about a return to their ancestral homes. The problems in that part of the world are deeply intractable, but it is hard not to conclude that Israel has most of the power – including a stockpile of the nuclear weapons it swears Iran must never be allowed to have.

Moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem has been US policy for years, although previous presidents have stepped away from enacting that decision, fearing the inflammatory consequences.

Trump doesn’t give a fat fig for inflammatory consequences and seems to have decided long ago that the Israelis are the ‘good guys’. For that he is showered with praise by the Israeli government – just what a deeply vain man likes to hear, leading to further backing for Israel, and no consideration for Palestinian claims to part of Jerusalem.

I don’t wish to dig deeper into this as it would be wrong to pretend certainty about the situation: anyway, too much certainty is the cause of many problems, isn’t it?

But let’s be certain about two things:

One: soldiers shooting unarmed civilian protesters – or soldiers told by their generals that stone-throwing protesters are dangerous terrorists – is just not something any civilised country should countenance.

Two: Trump sending Ivanka in his place reminds us just what a weird world we now live in. The US president dispatches his unelected daughter to do his job: how peculiar is that? Trump sending his daughter close to a bloody dispute caused by his decision to open the embassy is ever odder. He should have been there himself, as his decision partly led to the violence. Or maybe he thought it all looked a bit dangerous, so he’d send his daughter instead.

On second thoughts, I’d better go myself tomorrow as getting your daughter to do your work just isn’t the way a man should behave.

Awards ceremonies win no awards from me, so I didn’t watch the Baftas on TV last night, and anyway we were out for a curry with friends.

A glance at my phone after the meal brought up two pieces of information: a tweet lamenting the lack of a win for the BBC’s Blue Planet II; and a message from an Airbnb guess asking if he’d left his iPod (turned out be had; more texts followed asking about his work pass and rail pass, yes again times two).

Award ceremonies often throw up anomalies, as the owner of this ledge discovered two years ago when emerging empty-handed from a glitzy ceremony at the UK Blog Awards. I know how David Attenborough must feel, even if a remarkable wildlife documentary series and a little blog hardly compare.

Blue Planet II was offered some compensation, winning the ‘Must See Moment’ prize, as voted for by viewers, for the scene showing a mother pilot whale refusing to let go of her dead calf. The series lost out to another BBC documentary, about the American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat (unseen by these eyes, so no further opinion is offered).

One theme of the awards was that the newly mighty Netflix did not fare as well as expected in a night that mostly belonged to the BBC, with an entertainment programme gong going to ITV’s Britain’s Got Talent (only seen by these eyes by accident).

Claire Foy again missed out in the lead actress award for Netflix series The Crown (never seen that), with the award going to Molly Windsor for the BBC sexual abuse drama Three Girls (regretted not seeing that).

Award ceremonies do sometimes chime with your own tastes, and this long-time Peaky Blinders fan was pleased to see the Birmingham gangster epic win best drama. Pleased, too, that Sean Bean won lead actor for his role in the BBC drama Broken – a heart-wrenching turn from an actor who stepped fully away from the shadow of self-parody that sometimes lies over his performances.

Peaky Blinders saw off competition from two dramas that were highly rated on the viewing sofa: Channel 4’s comic-book adaptation End of the F***ing World and the BBC’s Line Of Duty.

Never seen the comedy winner, the BBC’s This Country, so can’t comment on that. Toby Jones won an award for male performance in a comedy programme for his role in The Detectorists – his first Bafta and a popular award, reportedly. As waffled about previously on this ledge, Mackenzie Crooks’ comedy about metal detecting and male bonding remains a delight as twinkly as the treasure they so rarely found.

Talking of comedy, the BBC transatlantic sitcom Episodes has just ended with a pitch-perfect episode wrapping things up with a clever twist. That self-satirising vehicle for Matt LeBlanc held to the road as impressively as his presenting turn on Top Gear. The snappy interplay between LeBlanc and his British friends/opponents Tamsin Greig and Stephen Mangan was delightful to the last.

But a win for Peaky Blinders? Yes, I can live with that.

Waterloo teeth, courtesy of the BND

As the owner of a mouth that’s been around for a while, I’ve had my share of dental indignity, the probing and the replacements, and a cap or two (better make that three).

All that oral intrusion has never, to the best of my knowledge, involved borrowing a dead man’s teeth.

This line of thought was suggested by half-overhearing a programme on BBC Radio 4, purveyor of knowledge scraps to the middle classes. You know how it is, as you rush around, perhaps in the car to work or maybe at home doing the washing up – it’s a high-flying sort of life ­­– and something pops up on the radio and hovers before your ear like a humming-bird.

What I half-heard was a snippet about Waterloo teeth, the name given to the teeth that went into early dentures. These teeth were yanked from the mouths of dead soldiers and then sold to the makers of false teeth.

A good historical snippet can slap you in the face in a way that the dates and the battles and the kings and the queens never do.

Had I but world enough and time, as the poet almost said, I’d go off and do some proper research, as this is just the sort of history to bite into. But I don’t so a quick Google has to suffice.

A report on the BBC website from June 2015 adds further enamel to the history of Waterloo teeth. The dentures do not appear to have been called that at the time, and it is not clear that people who bought the falsies knew some of the teeth had been extracted from the mouths of the dead.

The report quotes Rachel Bairsto, curator of the British Dental Association’s museum in central London, who suggests that it was a matter of convenience: the battlefield provided lots of bodies in one place and above ground. The teeth would have been pulled out with pliers by surviving troops and locals, and “by scavengers who had travelled from Britain”.

Molars were less popular thanks to difficulty of extraction. The front teeth, as shown in the photograph borrowed from the BDA, were shaped and sorted to give the appearance that they had come from the same mouth, and then strung up for sale.

Jokes about the British having bad teeth are a stock of American humour, with one episode of the Simpsons featuring a dentist who bullies a child into better oral hygiene by exposing him to a scary publication called The Big Book of British Smiles, all gappy, unaligned teeth belonging to famous Brits.

The poor state of our teeth has probably been much exaggerated in the cause of making Americans chuckle, but in the late 18^th and early 18^th century, our mouths were rotten, thanks in part to the popularity of sugar.

An advert from 1792 – 23 years before that dental pilfering at Waterloo – was placed in a newspaper, asking: “WANTED – SEVERAL HUMAN FRONT TEETH. To prevent unnecessary applications, those only are wanted that are sent from the Continent…”

In other words, the dentist, a Mr Woffendale, would not have wanted inferior teeth looted from British mouths.

Sadly, I have run out of time and need to get my renovated teeth working on brunch before work.

In common with the average skimmer of headlines, I don’t know much about the Iran deal or what the consequences will be now that the US has walked away. But you don’t have to be to your chin in international politics to suspect they won’t benefit the world.

I wanted a visual image or metaphor to sum up this situation. And this is what came to mind: Trump stands before a pile of leaking oil containers and as the escaping inflammables spread towards him, he says something like: “That was a very bad deal, the worst deal in history. Obama made that deal and he was rubbish at deals. He doesn’t know deals like I know deals. I am a very good man for the deal.”

Trump then lights a match and flicks the flame towards the incontinent barrels. “That’s what I think of Obama’s deal. My deal is so much better. Iran will sit up and take notice of my deal, and…”

Boom! A very big boom! The biggest and best boom in the history of big booms!

Being the king of deals is part of the Trump mythology, but few of us know if he is truly any good with a deal. Most of us have avoided being in a room with the man, thanks heavens, but we do know that shouldering your way to a property deal isn’t the usual training for painstaking international diplomacy.

It is fair to say that the Iran deal wasn’t perfect, but it had helped keep the peace for a while, and had been drawn up multilaterally by many countries after years of talks.

Sadly, collaborating for the common good is no good if you are Donald Trump, especially if you have assorted neocon nut jobs whispering sour nothings in your ear: “Drop those bombs” “Kill that deal…”

Add to that the unstable volcano of Trump’s vanity and you begin to worry about the world. It’s hard not to believe that Trump’s distrust and hostility towards the Iran deal is all tied in with his animus towards his predecessor. Almost anything Obama did, Trump thinks he can do better; and if he can’t, he’ll just have a tantrum and smash everything in the room.

Trump thinks the Iran deal was a bad deal because he didn’t make it; he sees everything through the lens of self and swears that anything done by anyone else cannot be any good.

It’s the sort of macho, idiotic carry-on you expect from a self-styled business supremo, I guess, but transpose that to the president of the US and it starts to look like that nightmare where an idiot Batman villain has taken over the world; only that is no dream.

Trump’s decision to violate the international agreement that has prevented Iran from obtaining a nuclear bomb just looks like swaggering bluster of a man who knows nothing but still knows better than everyone else.

Many believe a war with Iran is now more likely, and that such a conflict could engulf the Middle East. So perhaps my opening metaphor isn’t too wide of the mark.

We need to maintain diplomatic relations with the US, and for now that involves dealing with the dealer. But all the hand-holding from Mrs Maybe, the big bromance with Macron, the stony-faced “visiting the relatives from hell” meetings with Merkel – all of that comes to nothing with a quixotic man like Trump. If he wants to do something, he’ll do it anyway.

And right now, he’s just dropped a lit match.

HERE are two stories about music: the first is one of those pop-culture moments on the BBC Today programme, the second a sad but ultimately uplifting tale of a young woman who was inspired by a Demi Lovato song to overcome suicidal feelings and self-harm.

Nowadays my finger isn’t exactly on the pop-culture button, more the old-culture button, and I wasn’t even sure who Demi Lovato was. But I do know who Childish Gambino is, so perhaps that will earn me kudos.

A while ago, the eldest boy bought me his album “Awaken, My Love!” as a present. I’ve just tried to find it but a filing error in the CD rack seems to have turned it invisible. Anyway, it’s a good album, sort of rap, sort of soul/pop, and with a stand-out track, Redbone.

You will not be surprised to learn that Childish Gambino is a stage-name, as adopted by the American actor, comedian, rapper and man of many talents, Danny Glover – not the Lethal Weapon actor, but another Danny Glover altogether.

Childish Gambino has caused much comment with the video for his latest release, This Is America – so much so that the Today programme was getting in on the act just now in one of those slightly awkward down-with-the-kids items. That gives me an idea: I’ll watch that video and write one of those slightly awkward down-with-the-kids blogs.

The video is a brilliant bit of choreographed political comment. It’s set in a giant warehouse where Glover dances around in a parody entertainment that addresses gun violence and racism, and he adopts exaggerated poses that suggest he is playing with racial stereotypes.

It opens with a man playing South African-style acoustic guitar, catchy and lovely. Then Glover walks in shirtless and shoots the man in the head, and the music becomes darker.

Later, Glover dances before a black gospel choir, before turning an automatic rifle on the swaying singers, possibly in a reference to the Charleston mass church shooting. The video ends with Glover being pursued by an angry mob, having seemingly stirred up a riot. Or perhaps it is the police who chase him.

More than 24m people watched this video on its first day of release. That suggests the power a musician/video-maker can have in tackling social problems – important at a time when the US president is more interested in making gruesome mock of London’s difficulties with knives rather than addressing his own country’s unending problems with guns.

Don’t go away thinking that Glover’s cryptic video for This Is America is all gloom. No, it draws its power from presenting the joyous side of American life alongside the horror of gun violence. It’s worth a watch and, once I’m done typing, I’ll try to rescue that album from the uncharted depths of the CD rack.

Four telling minutes in one viral video. On the BBC website you will find a two-minute video in which Abbie Foster, a 22-year-old from Norwich, tells how she began to come to terms with years of suicidal feelings after hearing a Demi Lovato song.

Abbie Foster with Demi Lovato. Credit: Abbie Foster and courtesy of the Eastern Daily Press

“I’ve been bullied form a young age and been sad, I guess, for as long as I can remember,” Abbie says. “One day I was sitting in my mum’s car and Skyscraper by Demi Lovato came on the radio…”

Lovato sings about her own battles with depression and something about that song connected with her. Through addressing her feelings of worthlessness, she overcame her self-esteem problems and now works with other young people who are experiencing similar difficulties, even reportedly turning some away from suicide.

Abbie is, she says in the video, “three-and-a-half years free of self-harm” and in a clip she is shown doing cartwheels. A moving moment.

O’Hooley & Tidow

WE are standing in the sunshine in a new corner of York. It’s one of those days when York doesn’t feel like York and England doesn’t feel like England. Or maybe it’s one of those days when York feels like a perfect version of York and England feels like England perfected.

This has been our home for nearly 30 years and the city has changed. Whether for the good or not is a matter of taste, I guess, but on this sunny afternoon it’s hard not to feel the city has come alive.

There always is a danger that a historical city lives only in the past, and York has glorious acres of that, but a place needs to move forward, too. York seems more exciting, mixed and vibrant than it was 30 years ago, I’d say.

This is the opening weekend for Spark:York, a community-minded collection of small businesses with bars and a food court – or that tatty pile of used shipping containers, if you are a member of York’s grumpy congregation.

Yes, it all took longer than intended; and, yes, it is fashioned from shipping containers (and so what so that) and it is temporary. But standing here in the Sunday sunshine everything feels enjoyably different, a new way of doing things in the old city.

We have a filled crepe and chat to our son and his partner. They live bang in the centre so this is their doorstep and their fatal distraction: should they cook or pop out? I missed the opening on Friday as I had to work and was teased for moaning about everyone else be able to go while I was stuck at a computer screen.

Good luck to Spark:York – it’s an ambitious project run by hard-working young people with a vision to get things done differently; or, in their own idealistic words: “An ecosystem of entrepreneurial community, where collaboration solves pressing social challenges.”

We leave for another great addition to York, Brew York, the expanding craft brewery around the corner. It’s been here for two years and seems to be moving now, with an evolving selection of beers that are never less than delicious – and that deserve to be tried by all proud beer lovers of this city. I’ve done my bit, although others have dedicated more of their bellies and wallets to this fine place. Recently Brew York did a spot of crowd funding that raised £54,000 towards boosting the business, with the money invested being exchangeable for beer vouchers.

We are at Brew York for a concert by the Huddersfield duo O’Hooley & Tidow. The gig is in aid of Refugee Action York and is being put on by the enterprising people behind Thorganby folk club.

We’ve seen Belinda and Heidi before: they were great then and they are great tonight, generating so much sound and emotion from two voices, an electric piano, percussion and a piano-accordion.

Most of the songs are their own compositions, but they do a lovely cover of Down Where The Drunkards Roll, and that pleases this long-time Richard Thompson fan.

I interviewed the duo over a pint in Huddersfield a while back, and we have a chat in the break. They are as friendly as usual, give me a hug and remind me that my Yorkshire Post piece is framed on their wall at home.

After the encore, after sweet beer and sweeter harmonies, we dash for the last-but-one bus home.

Today we are going on a local walk with friends, starting from home. We found this route on the YorkMix website. And that’s another enterprising change in this city, another independent spirit of the new old York. It’s informative, attractive and fully engages with life in this changing place. The people who produce the website work tirelessly, and if you live here and haven’t had a look yet, well, you should.

And you should try that beer too and visit that collection of old shipping containers.

THIS morning’s self-challenge is to dash off 500 words on the local election results before going to work.

To be honest I wasn’t going to bother until I saw the front page of the Daily Mail (above). And, yes, I know that’s a bad habit, but it does prove inspirational in an odd way – the great anti-inspiration of the age.

On the BBC website you will find the reasonable headline “No clear winner in final election result”. This stands in contrast to a squabble of anti-Corbyn headlines in many of this morning’s newspapers – and a squall of social media comment from followers of Jeremy saying that this was in fact a tremendous result.

As always, the truth lies somewhere in between, trampled on the floor.

Labour are up 62 seats, the Tories are down 32 seats, the Lib-Dems have rallied themselves by gaining 75 seats – and in the night’s most cheering news, Ukip have almost been wiped off the electoral map, losing 123 seats to be left with three.

Perhaps the BBC can now stop inviting Nigel Farage onto Question Time. And while they’re about it, row back on over-promoting Jacob Rees-Mogg and his ‘cretinous’ opinions – to quote the man back at himself.

“Everyone’s a winner… apart from Ukip” is the reasonable verdict of the i newspaper. But let’s take a deep breath and have a look at that Mail headline. Here goes: “NOW GIVE US A REAL BREXIT!”

The strap headline reads: “Leave voters come out in force for Mrs May and deliver an emphatic message…”

God and Paul Dacre alone know how, but the nil-nil election result has been interpreted as voters backing a real/proper/hard/kick-foreign-ass Brexit. Really, that newspaper is bonkers beyond belief.

The Sun is also bonkers with its thuggish take on all this: “Jez gets a kick in the ballots.”

As suggested in passing yesterday while the results were still coming in, these local elections are being over-interpreted in what they say for Corbyn and Mrs Maybe. These were local elections in which local people voted for local candidates, including a Yorkshire friend who won her first seat for Labour, and the brother of another friend who won another Yorkshire seat for Labour.

We should take a moment to thank and praise that pair and anyone else who stood and won a seat, whoever they represent. And we should all calm down a bit and stop reading the runes of these results as a clear indication of whether Jeremy Corbyn is doing well or not doing well.

Does Corbyn have anything to learn from all this? Of course, he does – not least that failing to stamp out anger about antisemitism probably did him no favours. And as a left-titling person, I’d also say that the endless social media commentary and argy-bargy about Jeremy being stitched up by Blairites or who is said to be doing their man down today is more than a little off-putting.

But there you go, I’ve hit 500 and will now stop stabbing at the poor old laptop.

IN the spirit of mixing unconnected stories, this morning I bring you naked cleaners and partially clothed local election results.

The cleaners are the subject of a story in the Daily Mirror, while the local election results are shared by all.

The Mirror reports that an unnamed Yorkshire woman in her 30s was outraged when she saw on a government website an advert for a company employing naked cleaners.

The woman, who is on Jobseeker’s Allowance, was said to be “embarrassed and distressed” by seeing the advert, saying: “I thought that sort of attitude of the objectification of women was in the past.”

The unlikely sounding job was for work with a company called Fantasy Cleans – “cleaners with a difference”. Now I have had the average amount of sexual fantasies, at a guess, but not one of them has entailed hiring a cleaner who sets to work wearing only rubber gloves and a smile.

The jobseeker alerted her MP, Labour’s Naz Smith, who tells the Mirror: “My constituent, a single woman on Jobseeker’s Allowance, facing extreme financial hardship, drew our attention to the advert on the government’s own job search platform.”

People who sign up for that benefit are expected to spend hours trawling job websites to prove they have made sufficient effort for their meagre benefit. It is a demeaning and wearying process, as I can testify from a miserable five or six weeks doing just that in my post-redundancy life.

I’ve no idea how such an advert makes it onto a government platform, but at a guess it’s because nobody other than the poor sods who are required to trawl the job ads ever looks closely at the website.

By the by, our kitchen floor could do with a clean. You will be relieved to hear I intend to remain fully dressed when doing that bit of domestic drudgery.

With the local election results coming in, the consensus seems to be that the Conservatives had a slightly better night than expected, while Labour had a slightly worse night than expected. A sort of political nil-nil when Labour had been talking up something featuring more goals.

In its round-up of the day’s stories, the Guardian calls on the headline: “Have we passed peak Corbyn?” This refers to something said on the BBC election programme by Justine Greening, Tory MP and former education secretary – “Maybe we are beginning to see something akin to peak Corbyn happening.”

As someone almost once said a long time ago: “Well, she would say that, wouldn’t she?”

Here are two thoughts about those local election results:

ONE: Yes, hitting peak Corbyn was always going to be a danger. While the Labour leader is strong on the stump, great at stirring a crowd – and while some of his policies have broad appeal – he is faced with a long slog before he gets to use those skills in another election. Nearly a year after his markedly better than expected defeat, his dull but dogged opponent is slogging on, loved by few but marginally ahead in the polls.

TWO: If life is local, then there is something galling about reading all the interpretations of the local election results in terms of what they mean for Corbyn or Mrs Maybe. Yes, last night’s local elections – which weren’t taking place around here – are the first big test for Theresa May after that unnecessary election of last year. But they involved local people voting, if they bothered at all, for local candidates who represent them on local matters. It’s a shame that the only time national media people become interested in local politics is when they can spin a national story from local yarn.