BORIS Johnson is making a big speech today – all Valentine’s hearts and flowers for Brexit.

Maybe it’s just me, but the thought of Boris Johnson backing something or other never exactly fills me with confidence. Cynical, I know, but every time he opens his mouth, I worry that lies will come tumbling out.

According to the trailers – spoiler alert: Boris thinks Brexit is great – today’s speech will attempt to reassure Remain voters by setting out the liberal case for Brexit. He will also say that the 17.4 million people who voted Leave face a disastrous betrayal if the referendum vote were overturned – “we cannot and will not let it happen”.

Ah, yes, cake and eat it time again. Having baked sweet goodies and gobbling them down is Boris’s favourite pastime. It looks like his latest Brexit speech will set out to do two things – no, make that three things: reassure Remain voters; reassure Leavers voters; and push his own agenda (the subtext to a Boris speech is always, ‘What’s in it for Boris?’ And the answer to that question today is connected to subtly undermining Theresa May and putting himself in the limelight again).

Anyway, in the name of balance, here is a contrary view from an ardent pro-Europe type. The writer of these words will be revealed in a moment…

“This is a market on our doorstep, ready for further exploitation by British firms. The membership fee seems rather small for all that access. Why are we so determined to turn our back on it?”

And what ardent pro-European wrote those wise words? Boris Johnson, of course. Eighteen months ago, the Sunday Times discovered that Boris had written two columns for the Daily Telegraph: one in favour of Brexit, the other against.

When confronted on Sky News about his two-faced views, Johnson did a typical bit of bluff and bluster, saying that he was “making the alternative case” for himself by writing “a sort of semi-parodic article in the opposite sense”.

He blamed the appearance in the Sunday Times of the previously unpublished anti-Brexit article on the fact that he thought “he might have sent it to a friend”. Some friend, eh?

Will Boris speak the truth today? Oh, you decide. It’s an either-or thing. But I’d be tempted to tick the box marked: “His mouth is moving so it’s probably a lie.”

Perhaps they should get the Foreign Secretary as a guest on the entertaining BBC1 panel show, Would I Lie To You? The trouble is, with Boris Johnson the answer to the question at the heart of the show is nearly always, ‘yes’.

As for the bigger Brexit picture, Boris’s speech is said to be the first from various Cabinet ministers laying out the “Road to Brexit”. Spoiler alert number two: I’m sure that one’s a repeat.

IT IS 7am and me and my fuzzy head are driving the car to work. Over the roundabout we go. Half a mile from home, the dashboard flashes up a warning about loss of pressure in one of the back tyres.

Pulling up, I see that the tyre is pretty much flat. In the old days, I’d have jacked up that car and changed the wheel, but this car doesn’t have a spare wheel. It does have a foam repair aerosol or something, but I don’t trust that to get me to Horsforth and back. I pump up the tyre and return home.

Having dashed out of the house moments ago, I dash back in to deliver the deflating news. Back outside, I take my shoulder bag, laptop and sports bag out of the boot. The nearest bus pulls round the junction, too far away for me to run.

I set off with too many bags, then turn back, as I’d locked the front door but left the keys dangling in the lock.

Usually it takes an hour to drive to the university, a rural route that skirts Wetherby, Harewood, the long hill at Pool and then, just before the airport, a sharp left down a country road. In the distance you can see the airport camped on a hilltop.

Another sharp turn takes you down a narrow, tippling road with two pinch-point bridges at the bottom of steep hills. Two miles later, you emerge into a suburban street close to the university.

All that driving is a pain to a man who’d rather cycle to work, and I’d wondered about trying the train. This morning I have no choice.

Ten minutes or so gets me to the less convenient bus stop. Another 20 minutes or so – and £17.50 lighter on the bank card – and I am sitting at a table, surrounded by my too many bags, one containing a squash racket with an awkward handle.

I email a couple of students to say I’ll be late, then settle back for the journey.

This train line to Harrogate and beyond is a pretty little trip, with one of Yorkshire’s great views at Knaresborough as the train pulls out of the station and crosses the viaduct above the Nidd Gorge. New to me is the stretch between Harrogate and Horsforth, more rolling countryside and another viaduct or two.

It’s snowing in Horsforth as I walk up with a colleague who was on the same train. She tells me that she plays the piano in Bettys in Harrogate, and I didn’t know that. It’s good when people surprise you in interesting way, I think, while also trying not to think about the furious itch of my bursting bladder.

After dashing a little more, I arrive in the classroom two hours and 15 minutes after first leaving home in the car. Three students are waiting, the others roll in over the next half hour or so.

Today’s session is about film and TV reviewing. I’d suggested that they watch The End of The F***ing World, the cult dark comedy/Brit road movie on More4 and Netflix. Quite a few of them have – result! – and have good thoughts to share; some haven’t and don’t.

After three hours in class, a lunchtime squash session, a bite to eat and a meeting about how to do something on Moodle – ask a head-scratching academic if you don’t know – I am walking back to the station.

The return journey takes about 2 hours and 15 minutes: a commute of nearly 4-and-a-half hours, as opposed to an hour each way in the car. An hour each way in the car is an hour each way too many, but you can see why people drive rather than take the slow train.

At home the car is slumped in the drive, awaiting attention. Soon I am slumped on the sofa, awaiting a drowsy interlude that doesn’t arrive.

THE way people share the lowest moments of their lives on social media is a mystery and an inspiration, too. I am feeling tearful writing this, thanks to the death of a little boy I didn’t know, the son of parents I don’t know, although the dad is famous and has often been dubbed the ‘funniest man on Twitter’.

Sometimes the outbreaks of vicarious grief on social media and in the comments sections on websites seem plain weird. Does all that ‘thinking of you’ emoting help or is it just self-indulgent grief at one remove (insert sad emoji face here)?

That has been my response at times, and still is sometimes, but it also seems reasonable to accept that acknowledging grief is to recognise that deepest of human emotions.

The actor Rob Delaney has shared many things on Twitter, endless so-bad-they’re-good jokes. His humour is in part born from the mess his life once was. A typical headline from a first-person newspaper article he wrote a few years back captures what is often his Twitter tone: “My life as an alcoholic bedwetter.”

Here is a recent Tweet about his resurrection from alcohol – “I quit drinking 11 years ago today. Wanted to let you know that’s an option if your life is a booze toilet. I am 62,000% happier. Thanks.”

Delaney is an American who lives here, co-star with Irish actor Sharon Horgan in Catastrophe, the lovely but edgy Brit sit-com. This morning he shares on Twitter the personally devastating news that his two-year-old son Henry has died after spending half his life battling a cancerous brain tumour.

His message is long and terribly sad. It is a way for him to communicate his awful news, but also a request for space. Delaney ends his message thus: “Finally, I ask that you respect my family’s privacy regarding this matter. I have nothing else to say that I haven’t said here. Thank you, beautiful Henry, for spending as much time with us as you did. We miss you so much.”

Kudos is due to Delaney to being able to share the ups and downs of his life in a direct and affecting manner; his bad news connects because of all the funny stories and shameful secrets he has spilled so entertainingly in the past.

Recently people I know have spoken on Twitter and Facebook about their despondent troughs. Former colleagues have discussed health problems caused by a botched operation, or the sudden death of a loved one. Posts have been read, messages passed on, and in both cases the support of a distant social media community seems to have helped in some way.

We tend only to think of the negatives: the bragging and the point-scoring; the endless reporting in from pubs and restaurants, airports and holiday destinations. And, yes, I have done a few ‘big holiday’ posts – mostly because everyone else does, so why not join in.

Social media is still one big, evolving experiment: Twitter and Facebook or whatever cannot replace a life, but they can be part of a life: silly, time-wasting, skittish at times, and yet moving and meaningful sometimes, too.

It is common for people to share their grief on social media. Occasionally people think of creative ways to remember: one Facebook friend puts up posts composed of pictures he took of the family home that is no longer a family home. Small, detailed images that build into something affecting, even though you were not there and didn’t know those who have died.

So, yes, it is perhaps strange to feel sad about the death of a little boy I never knew. But sometimes that is what it’s like to be human, especially as you get on a bit, for the passing of years do seem to make it easier to feel emotional about life.

None of us can say anything that helps Rob Delaney and his family, but I guess we can still care.

DID you see Trump’s flyaway hair? Barely sticking to his head, it was, a sort of weird hair meringue, flossy at the sides and not there at all at the back.

The clips of Trump’s uncrowned glory were shown and shared yesterday, as everyone enjoyed the blustery humiliation of a man old enough to know better than to lacquer together a head of hair.

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THE man from BT has come to fix our temperamental TV box. It seems the problem is simple. He tips the box and viscous liquid drips out.

“Brexit sludge,” he says, tutting. “Happens all the time nowadays. It’s all that Brexit on the news. Every night it’s the same – Brexit and more Brexit. The news has gone stagnant and it’s rotting the boxes.”

The engineer tidies up the mess as best he can, then leaves. Read More

YOU can always rely on Donald Trump to grab the wrong end of the stick when he lumbers into British life.

The American president told Piers Morgan in that crawly ITV interview – well, I say ‘interview’; it seemed to be more of a tongue colonoscopy – that he might be prepared to apologise for sharing tweets from the far-right Britain First group. Read More

Today’s blog is brought to you by a mug of Darjeeling tea – yes, Darjeeling, and not that horrid Lapsang Souchong stuff served yesterday in China to Theresa and Philip May.

“We drink that,” Philip said gallantly, while his wife was boring the ear off President Xi Jinping about something or other.

My tea was made in the leaky old stainless-steel teapot given to me by my long-dead grandmother when I set off for university back in the deeply dim and distant. Read More

This morning one tale twinkles in the inky undergrowth, catching the eye of this ledge-bound skimmer of headlines. May’s no quitter, Trump’s ‘new American moment’ and a ‘secret plot to derail Brexit’… thank you, but no. Read More

THE death, at the grand old age of 91, of Ikea founder Ingvar Kamprad should say something about Brexit. Oh, if only the endlessly complicated falling away from the EU could be assembled like one of those ubiquitous Billy bookcases. Read More

LYONS is famous for food and murals, huge paintings on the end of buildings, depicting scenes or characters from the city.

The gable end of the food market is given over to the chef Paul Bocuse, who died last week, captured in his tall white chef’s hat and with one hand up to his chin.

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