LADYBIRD BOOK OF BREXIT

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Many years ago when our children were young, one of those encyclopedia-selling fellows came to the door. He had the usual patter. When I said I really didn't want to buy a set of his books he began to get a bit confrontational - "So you're not interested in your children's education" etc.

Oh, but I was and I invited him in to inspect our collection of Ladybird books. These books were amazing, simple and to the point with full use made of explanatory illustrations. It was there I learnt how a differential in a motor car works and went on to understand it more fully by building one with my son's mechanical LEGO.

He immediately fled the scene.

What you may ask has all of this to do with Brexit?

Well, I was in The Winding Stair at a book launch recently when what did I spot but the Ladybird book of Brexit. And wow, was it a masterpiece. Everything you needed to know inside of a three minute read. I bought it straight away, and now I'm sharing it with you. If you get the chance, buy one and learn it off by heart, the way we Roman Catholics were prepared for emigration to the Pagan England of its day. Then keep it safe. One day it may become as valuable as a mint condition penny black (or are they more valuable with the postmark?).

Note the subtle cover with its delicate treatment of a low key border check. Not exactly frictionless but a lot more civilised than what has faced many an Irish person at Holyhead, particulary if their name was in Irish (Gaeilge).

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Then there is the nub of the matter - taking back control from Johnny Foreigner to whom it was surrendered some forty years ago by the quisling Prime Minister Heath. No matter that many of the constraints imposed by Brussels may have been in the interest of improving health or the environment, or that the UK may have been itself involved in pushing a constraint or two on a reluctant Johnny Foreigner in the process.

And what if the Mammy's unconstrained jam poisons a few of them. They had it coming after what they tried to do to us over recent centuries.

So, if you had any doubts before, you now understand what Brexit is about and how, like cod liver oil, syrup of figs, famel syrup and milk of magnesia, it is really good for you.