NEVER before have so many people watched the last five minutes of Emmerdale. (Where are the Sugdens, by the way?). We were all waiting for the much heralded Leaders' Debate on ITV. Because it is a truth universally acknowledged by TV executives that the electorate need a gladiatorial contest where the party leaders go toe-to-toe and debate the burning issues of the campaign so that the voters can choose.
Instead, we had Jeremy Corbyn, glasses skew-whiff as if he was channelling Eric Morecambe, trying to explain why he wouldn't commit to supporting a new, improved deal with Europe – one that HIS government would negotiate.
Boris Johnson blustered away repeating "Get Brexit Done" and it's all "oven ready" like a latter day Fanny Cradock, yet still apparently needing to read from a script. The audience laughed when he said truth was important.
Afterwards Tories concluded that Boris was the clear winner, while Labourites called it for Jezza. The real losers were the voters, deprived of proper debate and politicians being grilled about their inconsistencies and outright lies. Could you imagine Robin Day, Andrew Neil or Brian Walden inviting a viewer to ask what Christmas present each leader would buy for the other?
BUT, for proper car crash television there was only one contender. Far surpassing the drama in the third series of The Crown was Prince Andrew's interview for Newsnight. And who knew Buck House was carpeted by the same guy who does Wetherspoon's?
I thought you had to have brains to be a helicopter pilot, so how did the Queen's second son get in then? The look of disbelief on Emily Maitlis' face was a sight to behold as the Duke of Naff spouted on for an hour about not sweating, not remembering meeting that 17-year-old girl he was pictured with his arm around, but he definitely recalled that pizza in Woking. No wild-eyed republican could have dreamt up a better script.
I imagined the Queen with her head in her hands as on he went about not noticing if Epstein's mansion had hot and cold running Russian teenagers because he didn't want to appear grand, but he didn't usually notice staff.
He talked of Epstein's "unbecoming" behaviour, causing Maitlis to splutter "Unbecoming? He was a serial sex offender!".
"Yes, I was trying to be polite," the Duke replied.
She offered him one last lifeline by asking him if he regretted his association with Epstein. But his Royal Thickness said, no, because the disgraced paedophile did introduce him to some very useful people.
Little wonder his media adviser, having tried to persuade him not to do the interview, resigned ahead of it. Now the prince has been relieved of his duties.
ON THE family WhatsApp the other day, my daughter asked if it would be wrong to correct a mistake a friend of hers was constantly making in saying "would of" instead of "would have". She added that the query was directed to her brother and not us, her "grammar Nazi" parents.
Er, guilty as charged. Working with younger colleagues, all of them university educated, I used to grit my teeth at the ones who would frequently say "I seen" and "had went". And just don't start me about apostrophes – especially in public signage.
As a student, I worked in a hospital cafeteria one summer. I was already reeling from being told by a supervisor that she would put me and another student out in front and not in the kitchen as we were "nice and clean". Then she got me to write the lunch menu on a blackboard. When I'd finished she took the chalk from my hand and added an apostrophe to the word 'hamburgers'.
"There," she said triumphantly, "it makes it more fancy."
I HAVE some sympathy with people who say they're fed up hearing about Brexit. But they're crazy to think "Let's get it done" will be an end to it. There'll be months if not years of negotiations with Europe over trade deals and new regulatory frameworks, not to mention the seven years Jezza says it will take to get the US to make arrangements to offload their chlorinated chickens. Yum.
No, the best way to banish Brexit is to follow the advice of a friend of mine whose favourite phrase was "C'mon and we'll not bother." So that's the solution. Let's forget the referendum ever happened. Simples.
