WE are all in a row at City Screen, York waiting for Star Wars: The Last Jedi to begin. I won’t give any plot spoilers here, although you need to understand a plot to spoil it. And the stories in these reborn sci-fi classics fly over my head like bits of spinning space debris.

Not spoiling things is important, though. I know this because my little boy (aged 29) told me so, and no doubt his little brother (aged 26) would agree, once he gets back from dashing out to find his missing grandparents. As well might their sister (24), but she is in Australia and so is missing out on the traditional trans-generational visit to the latest Star Wars film.

Also present is my wife (58) and – now located – her parents (81 apiece) and this ledge-inhabiting man who finds himself leading a this-and-that life at the age of 61 (or so rumour and the calendar maintain).

The film starts and is the usual Star Wars mixture of hope and anxiety, vague spiritualism, goodies and baddies and villains who might not be as bad as they seem – or then again, might; explosions and thrills, and spacecraft that move so fast, there are clearly no speed cameras in distant galaxies. Or if there are, they are only for show.

The new film – episode eight in the classic franchise – has a fantastic central role for Daisy Ridley as Rey, who is shaping up to be a kickass feminist icon here. As the film starts, Rey is handing over a lightsabre to Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill, given more to do than last time round). They are on the Irish island of Skellig Michael, which is off the Kerry coast, or it is in real non-Star Wars life.

Hamill told Graham Norton that he hated all the steps on the island, as he needed to rest every 15 minutes. Looking at him, you can well believe it. But never underestimate a Jedi, even one who looks like he’s just slept on an interplanetary park bench after a heavy night.

Anyway, as I don’t want to spoil that plot, I will just say that the film looks utterly fantastic, it races along and is a genuine thrill ride, although one that lasts a little too long, at around two-and-a-half hours.

The fluid villain is Kylo Ren, as superbly played by Adam Driver, his face a study of indecision, sometimes steadfastly evil, sometimes painfully humane. The unresolved tension between him and Rey is likely to drive the next film. John Boyega is given less to do as Finn, but he does it well, and has great support from Kellie Marie Tran as Rose.

The late Carrie Fisher has a parting turn as Princess Leia, and her presence is commanding in more ways than one – poignant, too, in suggesting that while dynasties continue, those who pilot them die out soon enough. Her character, though, lives on for now, even if she does not.

Less engaging are the winsome cutie critters, some apparently a cross-species experiment between penguins and guinea pigs, and quite possibly inserted at the behest of Disney to sell big-eyed toys.

It’s well worth going to see though and very enjoyable. Even if I do have to say that or else my little boys won’t talk to me.

BREXIT rears its ugly head in this year’s panto at York Theatre Royal when David Leonard’s baddie makes a joke about getting back control or something.

The reaction from last Friday’s press night audience was interesting: loud cheers from a small number of Daily Express readers (I’m guessing here) and dark muttering from the balding Guardian reader in the front row of the dress circle.

That’s the thing about Brexit – it’s so divisive, more divisive than anything else I can remember; and I can remember Margaret Thatcher, for heaven’s sake.

This morning’s papers have a bit of Brexit – Brexit before breakfast, after breakfast and with every other bite take throughout the day. A stomach full of indigestible Brexit.

If you believe the papers, we are a nation obsessed with Brexit, waiting the latest news as if hanging on the result of Strictly or the FA Cup final.

In truth, and a sensible step away from the political obsessives, most people are surely bored out of their heads already. They’re either thinking, “Hasn’t that happened yet?” or “Tell me again, what is Brexit thing I might have voted for?”

The Sunday sisters of the Brexit-bonkers Express and Telegraph roll out their coverage this morning with Mrs Maybe saying: “MAY: I WON’T BE DERAILED” and the less shouty: “May: I’ve proved doubters wrong.”

Well, you pays your money and takes your choice of Brexit bullshit, I guess. To this doubter, Mrs Maybe hasn’t proved anyone wrong, apart from those of us who thought she’d be ready to be covered in marmalade by now.

All she’s done is agree to start debating about an agreement, on exactly the terms the other members of the EU said she would have to accept. All those shouty months we endured to reach that point was just different parts of the Conservative Party engaged in an unbrotherly scrum.

True, some Labour supporters, mostly those at the far left of the Battered Ballroom of British Politics, think the EU is a capitalist plot anyway. That’s partly why Jeremy Corbyn’s position on Brexit is ambiguous and mostly consists of sitting back and watching the different Tory factions tear lumps out of each other.

In the more sensible confines of The Observer, Tory peers are reported to be telling Mrs Maybe to “Call off the Brexit bullies or face defeat”. The peers fear they are being bullied into accepting a harsh form of Brexit – which they almost certainly are.

Over in The Sunday Times, Boris Johnson is given an airing – the last thing that egotistical poltroon needs – under the headline: “Boris: Brexit mustn’t leave us a ‘vassal state’”.

Not sure I’ve ever seen those words in a splash headline before, but there you go. What the Dreadful One means is that we shouldn’t be separate from Europe but still ruled by Europe, or that’s my guess.

The frankly appalling Jacob Rees-Mogg – part Tory MP, part unfunny character in a PG Wodehouse story – is also banging on about how we mustn’t become a “colony” of the EU, according to the BBC website.

Here’s the thing: the Brexit Batshit Brigade got what they wanted, which was a vote to leave Europe. And they’re still moaning, still obsessing about how they are going to be diddled somehow on the march to their tatty Nirvana. You’ve got what you want on Planet Mogg, so why not just pipe down.

Brexit is coming (whatever exactly Brexit is). The process will be long and unendurably boring. And one day, in 20 years or 30 years perhaps, we might know whether we took the right decision. Until then mostly it will all be hot and contaminated air.

TWO surprise decisions in York this week. First up, the taxi firm Uber is refused a licence to continue operating in the city. Then a doomed Victorian pub wins a last-minute reprieve.

In both cases, council committees acted in unexpected ways. Opinions differ on the results, particularly over the pub, as a trawl through the sticky silt of the comments sections reveals.

I felt cheered by the Uber decision, as the ride-hailing service is another of those modern things that is taking over the world. Then again, I’ve never been in an Uber taxi and this opinion is based in part on being a host for Airbnb – another modern thing that is taking over the world.

An Uber driver delivered a guest recently, a lovely young man from India by way of Birmingham. He delivered him to the wrong house as he relied on Google maps, which isn’t a good idea when coming here. That’s the trouble with modern things that take over the world: sometimes they go wrong.

So, never taken an Uber – but I do sometimes use taxis in York. The trips are more expensive than in some cities, but the drivers are usually gruffly pleasant and provide a good service. And know where they are going without relying on Google maps.

Local taxis for local people, to adapt a line from the TV sketch show The League of Gentleman.

In banning Uber, York is following London, which refused to renew the firm’s licence in September. Tuesday’s decision was greeted by applause in the meeting – and in the city, too.

The Carlton Tavern is a large pub set back from one of the routes into York, just beyond the Cold War Bunker and a little before the restored Holgate Windmill. It was due to be demolished to make way for a home for elderly people.

The planning decision that gave the nod to that proposal caused a local outcry. Now Crown Care can no longer buy the pub from Marstons just to knock it down.

Those opposed to the demolition had the backing of Save Britain’s Heritage and the Victorian Society, and York’s branch of CAMRA. Louise Ennis, a leading light in the campaign to save the pub, is quoted on the York-Mix website, saying: “It’s amazing! I’m overjoyed that the right thing has been done. Texts are already flooding in because people are delighted with the outcome.”

You can count me among the delighted as knocking down old buildings without good cause is a form of corporate vandalism. That said, I’ve never been inside the Carlton Tavern, and do recognise the hypocrisy in wishing to save something I’ve never supported.

This is where things get sticky. It’s great that this pub has been saved. But what happens now?

An offer has gone into Marstons from Joe Gardner, the man behind Spark York, to turn the building into a restaurant, café and deli, non-for-profit enterprise hub and microbrewery.

This sounds like a fantastic idea to me, but not to the terminal curmudgeons who lurk in the comments section of my old newspaper’s website. Dear me, they do like to moan, whinge, bitch and generally complain about life.

If you don’t know York, the cause of their complaints – apart from a terminal love of complaining – is that Spark:York is behind a community space close to the centre of York, containing cafes, bars and restaurants, and other community spaces.

The opening has been delayed until the spring, so this remains an unpretty work in progress. Spark:York is made up of repurposed shipping containers, a look that hasn’t gone down well with the moaners, as right now it resembles a graveyard for shipping containers.

This is not, by the way, intended as a negative comment. I am not one of the moaners. Spark:York is a great idea, just the sort of community initiative from young people this city needs. But it does also need to get a move on.

Saying you want to take over a pub when your prominent project has stalled isn’t the best timing – but the idea is imaginative and great. If it happens, you can count on a visit from this man on a ledge.

I SEE that Tory MPs are under orders to be green again. It’s not always a good look for them.

Political parties are tainted by caricature, and for Conservatives the quick-brush summary goes like this: foxhunting, game-bird shooting, badger-baiting, fracking-loving types who think the environment is where they go for the weekend, with a nice pub for a pint or a G&T to relax after a spot of recreational destruction.

Whispers of Tories turning green have been circulating for a while now. The latest rumour finds its way onto the front page of today’s i-newspaper under the headline: “Tories go green to win back voters.”

Conservative MPs are being summoned to Downing Street, according to the paper, and told to focus on the environment to broaden the party’s appeal.

Mrs Maybe has apparently spotted that her promise to repeal the foxhunting bill didn’t go down well, particularly with younger voters, at her “strong-and-stable-I’ll-bash-this-easily” election.

Ah, Theresa, the bad penny has finally dropped. You’ve noticed the general distaste at the thought of dogs ripping foxes apart, while watched by a pack of men whose red faces match their coats.

Now I’ll come clean here. Yes, I have indulged in a spot of cliché-waving. But the thing about clichés is that they are born for a reason. Plenty of the MPs being summoned to Downing Street for a ticking off about the environment will have foxhunting sympathies. And maybe they’ll think the environment is fine so long as it doesn’t harm the balance sheet. Oh, and global warming is jolly serious, but have you seen the snow in the Cotswolds?

David Cameron went green for a while, sticking a mini wind turbine on the roof of one of his houses. Oh, and changing his party’s logo to a nice drawing of a tree. He visited some huskies in the Arctic in 2006 and hugged one for a photo opportunity.

There isn’t space here for an audit of his actual greenness. But as leader of the opposition, and husky fan, he said: “Climate change is one of the biggest threats facing the world and we must have a greater sense of urgency about tackling it.” Ten years later, he reportedly told aides to “get rid of all the green crap” on energy bills. I’ll leave you to colour that one in.

Mrs Maybe has also tasked environment secretary Michael Gove with enshrining the principle in UK law, post Brexit, that animals can feel pain and suffering. This is a good and important measure, if it happens.

People being green, politicians thinking green – all of that is for the good. I’m happy to welcome any shade of green the Tories decide to try on. But the trouble, as Kermit the frog could have told them, is that it’s not easy being green.

Parties other than the Greens tend to take a pick-and-mix approach to being green. If the Tories are going green again, will they now turn against fracking – a destructive form of energy extraction hated by all shades of green?

Being green, as much as this environmentally mixed-up this-and-that person can see, is about the whole picture. Everything to do with the environment is connected. To be green you need to use joined-up thinking. Turning a shade greener because you’ve noticed that younger voters don’t like you doesn’t really cut it.

And here is a tragic irony for our times. If other parties wish to be green, how come the actual Greens win so few votes? Green politics often strike me as sensible and the only way ahead. Yet I have voted Green precisely once, and that’s because I was pissed off with Labour for some reason or other.

What would the world be like if we all voted Green? A lot safer and more pleasant, but it’s unlikely ever to happen.

Is social media ripping society apart? Former Facebook boss Chamath Palihapitiya, believes so, and his fears are splashed over this morning’s newspapers.

Palihapitiya was vice-president for user growth, whatever that means, but left six years ago.

In a speech last month to Stanford Business School, he said: “The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops that we have created are destroying how society works. No civil discourse, no cooperation, misinformation, mistruth.”

In remarks reported by a tech website called The Verge on Monday, he also said: “This is a global problem… It is eroding the core foundations of how people behave by and between each other.”

Newspapers moaning about social media usually have an ulterior motive, as social media threatens their very existence.

There are two examples of this trend today. First, the Daily Mail makes the Facebook story its splash under the headline: “FACEBOOK ‘RIPPING SOCIETY APART’”. The story, or the snatch I read, says that Facebook leaves its users feeling “vacant and empty”. Funnily enough, that’s just how your blogger feels after reading the Daily Mail.

Over at The Sun, Twitter is accused of being a “playground for paedos” because it “allows perverts to share their vile fantasies”. Twitter denies the accusation and says it removes content that promotes child sexual exploitation.

I don’t know the truth of the Twitter row as reported by The Sun, but let’s stick with the idea that social media is changing or harming society.

It’s certainly changing society on the sofa of an evening. Here’s how a typical evening shapes up. The television is on and the two occupants of the larger sofa sit with phones to hand. Their eyes flick between the TV screen and the smaller screen. My wife’s attention is mostly drawn to Facebook; mine to Facebook, Twitter and my three email accounts. I also check headlines on the Guardian and the BBC.

My wife spends more time than me trawling through Facebook in the evening, but this is only because my working life allows me to dip into that box of repetitious delights and distractions, and hers doesn’t.

The days before Facebook – BF – are eons ago now. Back then, I always had a newspaper on my knee on that sofa. That still happens, but it doesn’t get read as fully as before. Eyes that flick between mobile, television screen and newsprint take nothing in at all.

Facebook isn’t the problem so much as Facebook and everything combined with smart-phones. Perhaps I should try removing Facebook and Twitter from my phone, leaving them for the laptop. That way the newspapers I still buy might receive fuller attention.

Social media is part of a massive, barely controlled experiment in how society operates. Pleasure can be had in seeing what your friends have been up to. Sharing is good too, and you stumble across all sorts of things you wouldn’t otherwise see. And it keeps us in touch with our distant daughter during her year in Oz, so that’s good.

Right now, I can’t imagine life without Facebook and Twitter. They give more than they take, but only up to a point:  determining where that points lies is tricky.

Too much time frittered on Facebook is time wasted. Yet there is pleasure – and that dopamine hit – in spotting what’s been liked, and seeing comments good or bad.

Is Palihapitiya right to say that the social media phenomenon he helped to bring about is tearing society apart? It seems to be a thing for the social media barons to wring their hands at what they’ve done. Former Facebook vice-president Sean Parker said last month that the site was made to exploit human ‘vulnerability’.

On that Colehouse family sofa, we are both certainly vulnerable to Facebook, but are we being exploited or just having idle fun?

The thing is, life seems to change more rapidly now ever before, but is there anything we can do about that? We can’t uninvent the internet or put Facebook back in the box.

Modern, connected life is a bottomless pit of dangers and delights held the palm of your hand. Sometimes that seems good and sometimes it seems  alarming. And no one knows where it will end, but we can always have a look on Facebook.

THE man I’ve never met is asleep upstairs and I am sitting here worrying about snow.

He arrived yesterday before anyone was home. After a spot of phone messaging, he got the spare key from our neighbour – thanks, A – and let himself in, then shot off to watch the snooker. He returned after we were asleep; now he is asleep, or so I am guessing, and I am awake (sort of).

This sometimes happens with guests who arrive late. If this visitor has a lie-in, we might not meet at all, as I am off to work in an hour or so. Incidentally, the guests still come and go, not talking of Michelangelo. Well, I was going on about old poetry books the other day, and a scrap of TS Eliot just flapped into my mind there.

Last weekend’s visitor was a lovely young man from India, now living in Birmingham. We chatted about food over breakfast. I showed him a favourite recipe for spinach, coconut and lentil dhal.

He read the recipe, nodding approvingly. “That’s a good recipe,” he said. “It’s from southern India and you can tell that because of the coconut.”

Not so much southern India as from a book by the ever-reliable Simon Hopkinson. Other pages remain pristine, but that one has spills and spatters. I guess Simon must have got the recipe from southern India; now we make it on the outer western fringes of York.

Snow is forecast for tomorrow – “Coldest weekend of the year…” says the Daily Express, which keeps a weather eye on the seasons, telling us it will be hot in the summer and cold in the winter. Where would we be without such useful advice?

In the old days snow didn’t much bother me. Sometimes I had to push my bike home; sometimes I booted up and walked. Thanks to having to drive now, more notice is taken of snow. First thing Monday, I will be on the road to Horsforth in Leeds. If the forecast is right, snow will be lying on the ground.

My usual route is devious and ends with a swoop down a steep valley that, oddly, then winds into a suburban road close to the university. That way will be out, so it will have to be the A64 and then all those horrible roundabouts on the ring-road – otherwise known as the Leeds traffic jam, a study in lack of momentum.

On good days you get nowhere fast on that road; heaven knows what it will be like in snow.

Life was easier before I shuffled onto this ledge all that time ago. But life is what it is; living on a ledge is what it is. The life I once led is disintegrating a bit more now for those who are still there.

Other than imminent snow, this morning’s papers are Brexit-blasted, a swirling storm of words adding up to not a lot. “Huge Brexit boost as last,” says the non-snowy part of the Express. “The price of freedom,” says the Telegraph – pompous and nonsensical in four words. “Rejoice! We’re on our way,” says the Mail.

Never has one tiny step forward been celebrated with so much pomp and wordy ceremony.

Well, I’ll be on my way soon. And I’ve still not heard a sound from our guest.

THE man I’ve never met is asleep upstairs and I am sitting here worrying about snow.

He arrived yesterday before anyone was home. After a spot of phone messaging, he got the spare key from our neighbour – thanks, A – and let himself in, then shot off to watch the snooker. He returned after we were asleep; now he is asleep, or so I am guessing, and I am awake (sort of).

This sometimes happens with guests who arrive late. If this visitor has a lie-in, we might not meet at all, as I am off to work in an hour or so. Incidentally, the guests still come and go, not talking of Michelangelo. Well, I was going on about old poetry books the other day, and a scrap of TS Eliot just flapped into my mind there.

Last weekend’s visitor was a lovely young man from India, now living in Birmingham. We chatted about food over breakfast. I showed him a favourite recipe for spinach, coconut and lentil dhal.

He read the recipe, nodding approvingly. “That’s a good recipe,” he said. “It’s from southern India and you can tell that because of the coconut.”

Not so much southern India as from a book by the ever-reliable Simon Hopkinson. Other pages remain pristine, but that one has spills and spatters. I guess Simon must have got the recipe from southern India; now we make it on the outer western fringes of York.

Snow is forecast for tomorrow – “Coldest weekend of the year…” says the Daily Express, which keeps a weather eye on the seasons, telling us it will be hot in the summer and cold in the winter. Where would we be without such useful advice?

In the old days snow didn’t much bother me. Sometimes I had to push my bike home; sometimes I booted up and walked. Thanks to having to drive now, more notice is taken of snow. First thing Monday, I will be on the road to Horsforth in Leeds. If the forecast is right, snow will be lying on the ground.

My usual route is devious and ends with a swoop down a steep valley that, oddly, then winds into a suburban road close to the university. That way will be out, so it will have to be the A64 and then all those horrible roundabouts on the ring-road – otherwise known as the Leeds traffic jam, a study in lack of momentum.

On good days you get nowhere fast on that road; heaven knows what it will be like in snow.

Life was easier before I shuffled onto this ledge all that time ago. But life is what it is; living on a ledge is what it is. The life I once led is disintegrating a bit more now for those who are still there.

Other than imminent snow, this morning’s papers are Brexit-blasted, a swirling storm of words adding up to not a lot. “Huge Brexit boost as last,” says the non-snowy part of the Express. “The price of freedom,” says the Telegraph – pompous and nonsensical in four words. “Rejoice! We’re on our way,” says the Mail.

Never has one tiny step forward been celebrated with so much pomp and wordy ceremony.

Well, I’ll be on my way soon. And I’ve still not heard a sound from our guest.

OH, I really wasn’t going to do this. I mean, yesterday I even switched off the BBC Today programme because it was all just too much.

BBC Radio 3 provided a haven of beautiful sound as I drove to work, taking the back roads. Open scenery and good music, even an unexpected burst of Miles Davis after a piece by Chopin; open scenery in contrast to the closed scenery of Brexit.

It was another discussion that did it, you see; another discussion about bloody Brexit. I forget now which Tory talking head was churning out the usual rubbish; but, honestly, it’s not important, as they are interchangeable, a waxwork gallery of talking heads who talk a lot and say little.

Bliss it was to complete the journey without another word about Brexit. Some days it seems that the media and the politicians are completely obsessed with Brexit at the expense of everything else; a single-issue sclerosis that stops any other issue being discussed, anything being done.

It is hard not to conclude that politicians and journalists are more interested in Brexit than most ordinary people are. Perhaps this plays to the Leavers in the end, as it would be understandable if even ardent opponents of Brexit found themselves mumbling: “Oh, for pity’s sake, just get on with it.”

While Mrs Maybe leads a government seemingly incapable of thinking about a single thing other than Brexit, the NHS is deep in a struggle to survive, the housing crisis worsens and, shockingly, six months after the Grenfell fire, most survivors are still living in temporary accommodation.

Just pause to consider that last point. Six months; six months of Brexit babble and Brexit bollocks, and this country can’t get itself organised enough to house people made homeless by that appalling tragedy. Parliament should ban Brexit for a day, force all MPs to attend and discuss nothing but rehousing those people.

As this blog goes out almost ‘live’, the headlines this morning are all Brexit-blasted again. “Sufficient progress” has been made to move on to talks about Britain’s future relationship with the EU, according to Jean-Claude Juncker, European Commission President.

And Mrs Maybe says the issue of the Irish border has been settled – apparently to the satisfaction of the Arlene Foster and her backing vocalists in the DUP band, Arlene and The Discontents. No hard border and the Good Friday Agreement will be upheld.

Eighteen long months after the referendum, and we can talk now about our relationship with Europe. This is not the end, barely even the beginning of the end, just a move forwards by one shuffle inch.

I didn’t intend to write about Brexit again, as nothing anyone writes seems to make anything clearer. As a parting thought, we held an in/out referendum and the answer came back for leave, by a relatively slim margin. Nothing was mentioned in that referendum about a ‘hard’ or ‘soft’ Brexit; nothing was mentioned about quitting the customers union and so on.

Instead, the shape of Brexit has been left to the Tories, with little more than offstage muttering from Labour. And today’s news is just one step forwards in a long and arduous slog.

I’VE had three ‘Saturday jobs’ on newspapers. The first was on the Daily/Sunday Mirror in Manchester as a copy boy. I puttered there on a Honda 50 and worked in Thompson House; a building later rechristened as a jar of coffee by the corrupt press baron Robert Maxwell.

Can you still buy Maxwell House coffee? Google confirms this is possible, although not for a coffee snob. Anyway, Maxwell took over the Mirror and wanted his name on the building, perhaps unaware of the coffee.

That job involved clipping page proofs to wires and putting messages in vacuum tubes. The folded message would be sucked away to another part of the editorial operation. The building, by the way, was later used as the police headquarters in Prime Suspect, with a striding Helen Mirren replacing all those old-school journalists. Memory tells me that one of them wore a green eye-shade.

Two things about that Saturday job: you had to leave at 18 for tax reasons or something; and you had to know someone on the inside. My brother took the job after me, and I think he took the Honda 50 too.

I left at 18, infected with the newspaper bug. Ten years later, I had a grander Saturday job on The Observer. Again, you needed to know someone. I’d interviewed the poet Blake Morrison, the paper’s literary editor. He lived in a rented apartment inside the walls of Greenwich Park, a cool sort of residence, but I don’t think he lives there now.

Morrison put in a word, and I rolled up on that first Saturday without a clue as to what I’d be doing. At the time, I wrote artsy features on a weekly paper and did a spot of subbing as part of that role. They gave me a news subbing job and I stayed for three years until York called.

Now I have another Saturday job, working on the Sunday Independent. This newspaper is produced in Dublin and then sent to the Press Association to be checked and further edited.

My latest Saturday job comes with a Friday attached too, and two days a week have taught me a bit about Ireland and Irish politics. Lately all the familiar names from Ireland have been popping into the headlines over here.

The Irish are much exercised over Brexit and have been worrying away since that disastrous vote. The Sunday Independent contains comment about many things, but much of it concerns Brexit. How odd it is to read through that copy as a Brexit-phobic Englishman sitting in Howden. Many Irish commentators sound sensible to my ears, often suggesting that Britain has flounced out of Europe on a perverse whim, and now wants to rewrite the rules to suit itself.

The Irish are nervous about Brexit, as we are now realising. The shaky political edifice on which Theresa May is balanced is propped up by the Democratic Unionist Party of Northern Ireland. Arguments over what sort of border should exist between the province and the rest of Ireland have just scuppered the latest attempts to come to a Brexit deal.

Mrs Maybe was in talks with Jean Claude Juncker, the European Commission President, when she was forced to take a call from Arlene Foster of the DUP.

What a humiliation. The prime minister hauled outside to endure an ear-bashing from a woman whose abrasive manner could sandpaper a table. Well, Mrs Maybe got herself into this mess after botching that unnecessary election and then bunging a billion to Northern Ireland in a pact with hard-line Conservative devils who make some of her own lot look like pixies.

Everything stalls again, as Britain does a weary waltz towards the cliff outside the Brexit Ballroom.

Leo Varadkar, the Irish Prime Minister, or Taoiseach as they say over there, was whisked away to deal with all this while still wearing his running clothes. How very Leo. They love Leo in Ireland, or they did for five minutes, and now they love to grumble about him.

As for Leo and Arlene, no love is lost there. They seem intent on shouting at each other over the world’s most contentious garden fence.

Today is Tuesday and I don’t have to go Ireland, even if Ireland has come to me.

WE are sitting in the car talking about Jeremy Corbyn. The Labour leader is on the front of GQ magazine, touched up a little but looking smart in his M&S suit and customary red tie.

You wouldn’t have thought that such a starry cover slot could have led to another one of those rows – you know, the ones where the thinner-skinned disciples of Jeremy take offence on his behalf.

But that would be to reckon without yesterday’s BBC Today programme interview with Dylan Jones, editor of GQ. He told the BBC that Mr Corbyn’s photo shot was “as difficult as shooting any Hollywood celebrity”.

Jones said many politicians had appeared on his cover, but none had arrived with such a ‘ring’ of ‘gatekeepers’ intent on minding their charge.

What seems to have annoyed the easily outraged disciples of Jeremy is that Jones claimed that behind the Labour leader’s “rock star persona” he was “underwhelming” in person.

Here’s the bit that really got under their skin…

“When he actually turned up for the shoot it was almost like he was being pushed around like a grandpa for the family Christmas photograph. He wasn’t particularly aware of what was going on. But we’re very pleased with what we ended up with.”

The endlessly offended took to Twitter to express their anger, crying “hatchet job” and pointing out that Jones was a Tory supporter who once wrote a book about David Cameron. This crawly exercise, by the way, was thrillingly titled Cameron On Cameron, and contained a series of interviews with the former Tory PM. According to reports, Jones paid £20,000 for the privilege of conducting those interviews

One of the usual suspects, an ardently ‘pro’ blog, brandished the Corbyn cudgels and said the interview was the third time in a week that the BBC has dissed the Labour leader, or something like that.

Anyway, none of that was what we talked about in the car. Instead, we discussed the demands of performance. This was partly because my wife was singing with her choir last night; and partly because we’ve been this way before.

The thing about performance is that you hold back in rehearsals; performance is animating, and getting to that point requires restraint. A comedian off stage is not the same as a comedian in the middle of his act; a violinist playing a demanding piece doesn’t give her all in the rehearsal, keeping something back for the performance.

And politics is a performance, too. The Jeremy Corbyn who wowed the Glastonbury crowds with on full-pelt oratory is not the same Jeremy Corbyn who kicks his heels during a photo-shoot. And you wouldn’t expect him to be.

For Dylan Jones to find Corbyn ‘underwhelming’ in person is then hardly surprising – although it was surprising to discover, thanks to Huffington Post, that Jones wasn’t there for the photo-shoot and was reportedly relying on what he was told.

Oh, Jeremy Corbyn looks the part on the cover of GQ, and this row – like so many in the past – is essentially a silly bit of outrage about not very much.

The more serious question to ask is whether Corbyn will ever get the chance to look the part at the door of Ten Downing Street. The Tories are certainly in grave disarray, but could well stagger on long enough for the shine to dull on Corbyn’s late-career ascendancy.

Well, that nicely took up the journey from Morrison’s to home.