Please help me stay awake while Nigel makes his own plans for the woke folk

How will we all cope? What will become of us? I hear – can it be true? – that serial bolter and allround political party pooper Nigel Farage has just resigned again. This time, it would seem, he is leaving the Reform Party (who they?) to “get his life back”, while simultaneously adding the weight of his vast experience and knowledge to “opposing the woke agenda”. The mind boggles . . .

Those woke folk must surely be shaking in their environmentally-friendly, ethically-sourced vegan shoes.

How will they bring themselves to stay awake long enough, never mind woke, to face the ferocity of Farage? Me, I wouldn’t bother. It’s the original version of this mangled word I have trouble with.

My woke agenda is based around cocking a sleepy snook at those smug beggars who, especially since the advent of lockdown, still insist there is something innately superior or morally worthy about getting up early. I’m just tired of it.

It is, of course, genuinely a bad sign of deeper problems if you can’t bring yourself to get out of bed in the morning. I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about the fact that there are those of us who function better if we allow the hands of the clock to tick onwards to double figures before we try anything radical like walking and talking, separately or (whisper it) together.

The Significant Other is very definitely a lark. Vaughan Williams’s musical bird, which takes so long to ascend it must be glued to the ground, has nothing on him. But he has learned much of great usefulness in our three decades of acquaintance, including letting sleeping wives lie.

Yes, I could get up with the lark and I do, when there is a reason for doing it. Like going on holiday. But otherwise, instead of leaping with a glad cry into the first inviting jobs and activities of a new day, my circadian rhythms are such that I would spend the first couple of hours coming to and achieving damn all apart from a finely honed impersonation of a cast member from Plague Of The Zombies. I would therefore, be much better to stay put, get the sleep I need (and love) and get up when my brain and body are actually ready, willing and able to get stuff done. This does not make me a bad person. Like Brexit (or maybe that’s a bad analogy in this context), things get done.

And lest Mr Farage (yawn) should be looking for a target against which to direct his obviously still-plentifuI store of bile, you and he can rest assured that I will never be woke.

I’ll be sleeping it off...

Royal ructions

It’s hard to know what else can be said about the Oprah Winfrey interview with those pesky Sussexes. Not being a royalist, it’s all been difficult to thole, to be quite honest, but I can understand that those who support the institution at the head of our still, if only just, United Kingdom are everything from concerned to spitting tacks.

Team Sussex or Team Windsor? A plague o’ both your houses, as someone exasperated in Romeo And Juliet exclaimed at the fallout of a family feud. Or, as my grandfather used to put it in rather less Shakespearean terms: “If ane’s as bad as the ither, they’re baith the same!”

Mind you, even for a hard-hearted old republican like me, it did jar somewhat only a week or two ago to hear statements about the nature of public service levelled against a young man who, undeservedly privileged or not, actually served his country and, theoretically, a greater good in Afghanistan. And who seems to be held in generally high regard by the military organisations with which his connections have now been severed.

Without going into the finer points of truth, lies or varied recollections (other recollections are, obviously, available), I will also admit to noticing that there was a pretty immediate public response by the palace to the investigation of bullying accusations against the Duchess of Sussex, while her calling out of allegedly racist behaviour will be “dealt with privately”.

Racism accusations aside, parallels are inevitably being drawn with the situation faced by Diana, Princess of Wales in terms of controversial interviews, mental health issues, awarding and removal of royal titles and provision of security. For an institution steeped in history, it seems ironic that the royal family never seems to learn much from it, especially when it is threatening to repeat itself.

But whether you believe her or not, the Duchess of Sussex has, at least, the great personal advantage of being married to a man who loves her and is prepared to support and speak up for her. Which is more than her late mother-in-law ever had.

All I would suggest is, given that the fall of the monarchy any time soon is pretty unlikely, that any event leading to the departure of Piers Morgan from public view can only be a very good thing. Until he inevitably turns up again, sitting at the right hand of Andrew Neil...

For an institution steeped in history, the royals never seem to learn much from it

REFORM SCHOOL’S OUT: Nigel Farage has resigned again but has vowed to use his experience to oppose the woke agenda.