Not marvellous medicine, George

Iam well old enough to remember, back in 1967, one Harold Wilson declaiming: “The pound in your pocket will not be devalued.” Or words to that effect. And a lot of stick he took for it, too, as well he might. Especially when his assertion was followed by the sweetly optimistic statement: “What it does mean is that we shall now be able to sell more goods abroad on a competitive basis.”

Wot? I hear you cry. Has the new Doctor Who foresworn the sexier storylines featuring the American civil rights movement and the partition of India and instead taken us back to the future?

Of course, this week, too, we have been treated on TV to one of George Osborne’s ever-timely interventions about Brexit, talking about “regrets” (he’s had a few) and “mistakes” (we won’t go there). But all, it would seem, while “working hard in what we felt to be the national interest”.

One wonders what he might have had to do to be working against it, given the results. His best gag, however, was when he claimed he’d only gone along with the idea of an EU referendum to support David Cameron. Which is as clear a case of “a big boy did it and ran away” as I have ever heard.

But all is not lost. While giving away lots of money he doesn’t have to people who don’t need it, the current Chancellor announced the creation of a 50 pence Brexit commemoration coin.

I personally think he’s missed a trick. A 50 pence piece? Pshaw! How about a half-crown? A farthing? Or, in a nod to the outlook of J Rees-Mogg, a groat?

The poor old Queen is, it would seem, going to have to put up with having her head on this thing, though I think her effigy should be allowed to indulge in a bit of an eye-roll, given that the inscription on the back is to include something along the lines of “friendship with all nations.” As long as they don’t want to come here, of course.

I don’t, to coin a phrase, buy it. And if things go on as they are, I won’t be able to buy much with it, either. But it may be what encapsulates and symbolises our current position in a way few could have foreseen or bettered. Some will end up minted. Most will end up scrabbling for small change.

Here, Nedjem, Nedjem...

The naming of cats, as T S Eliot once so sagely wrote, long before a certain Andrew Lloyd Webber got his claws into him, is a serious matter. So I was interested this week to have pointed out to me, by someone who obviously has even more time on their hands than I have, that the first-ever known cat with a name dates back to – yes, you guessed it – Ancient Egypt.

To the reign of the Pharaoh Thutmose III (and there’s a name to conjure with in itself) in fact, back in the period 1,479 to 1,425 BC. Which, in this particular case, obviously stands for Before Cats.

No less than 3,500 years ago, the first cat to hear the ancient Coptic equivalent of “Here, kitty, kitty!” was named Nedjem. Short, to the point, easy to pronounce, I think you will agree. Until you realise that it means “sweet” or “pleasant”. The first person we know of in history to give a cat a name called it “Sweetie”.

Which only goes to show that, skilled as they were with the pyramidselling, the sarcophagus-building, the Sphinx-designing, the papyrusrolling, the hieroglyphics and the mummifying, plus being blessed with a steady hand for applying the old eyeliner, the ancient Egyptians, catworshippers though they claimed to be, obviously knew absolutely nothing about the true nature of the creatures they were dealing with. Maybe something has got lost in translation from all those old scrolls. How to talk like an Egyptian maybe didn’t cover concepts such as “snooty”, “superior”, “contemptuous”, “just feed me” or “don’t give a damn.” But even today, if one has struggled long and hard to capture the essence of one’s pet in one pithy and perfect name, it doesn’t always work for everyone.

Take this example. The other evening, we are sitting looking out on the delightful park at the back of our house. It is a haven for dog walkers, many of whom we have come to know and recognise. “Aha!” I say, looking over the cloudy rim of a glass of rioja. “There’s our neighbour with his dog.” The neighbour, being blameless, shall remain nameless. The dog, not so lucky.

“That’s right,” exclaims the Significant Other, peering into the dusk. “Womble,” he says. Now, being of a certain vintage, I could understand if our neighbour had decided to name his pet Tobermory, Orinoco, Great Uncle Bulgaria or even (despite its gender) Madame Cholet. That might have explained this sudden declaration. But no. The dog’s name is Murphy. How do you get to Womble from there? Pick the bones, as you might say, out of that…

UNS. Ex-Chancellor George Osborne’s take on Brexit was hard to swallow.