Proof at last that the world has gone completely bonkers

People of a certain age (mine) grew up in a time when there were just a few TV channels. So few in fact that if there was ever anything decent on, everybody watched it. And – imagine this – we all watched it at the same time.

Because there was so little other media noise, TV shows were important events, and were often burned into our psyches. Friends was the most obvious one, but I was properly in the real world by then and it largely past my by.

The show I loved most of all – and can still recite most of the lines from – was Blackadder. Last weekend’s Armistice Day centenary reminded me of the heartbreaking final scene when Blackadder chides himself for thinking “pretending to be mad” would get him sent home.

“Who would have noticed another madman around here,” he said before blowing his whistle and leading Baldrick, George and Darling over the top.

Recently I have been increasingly wondering if the world was going mad – mainly because everywhere I go there seem to be lots of people talking to themselves. On the streets, on buses, even in the gym the other day there are people staring into the middle of nowhere, about Brexit as I had got lost amid the hard and the soft, no deal, the Canada light, and the Norway option. When I tuned in on Wednesday night someone was talking about the threat of a “blindfold Brexit” which was a new one to me and the first sign of the madness that was to follow.

First the Prime Minister announced she had struck a deal with Europe and then spent hours explaining it to her Cabinet. The Cabinet then made a collective decision to back the deal. Then her Brexit Secretary resigned, saying he could not support her deal, which left us all wondering what on earth he’d been up to for the last few weeks.

Then Jacob Rees-Mogg appeared from Narnia and put in a letter of noconfidence in the PM. More ministers resigned, Michael Gove hovered in the background, Boris Johnson was strangely silent, and Nigel Farage... well who cares what he said. For a few moments it felt like the Government was collapsing, the PM got up to give a speech, everyone thought she was going to resign, she didn’t, and then it was Friday.

One of my media colleagues tweeted: “Has anything changed ?” and by the sounds of things not much has. Some experts even opined Mrs May’s position had strengthened. She says the British people just want her to get on with it Well I just hope they get on with something – otherwise I’m going to end up standing in doorways talking to myself.

For a few moments it felt like the Government was collapsing