HERE we are in the teeth of Christmas on the brink of yet another political and economic abyss, with a distinct possibility of falling into it within the next month.
As an addictive media-monitor, I can take no more press features, radio or television punditry or ill-informed vox-pops on the subject of Brexit - all of them merely posting different routes to hell in a handcart.
I can't be the only member of the public who is - to put it vulgarly - scunnered.
History has a habit of repeating itself and I'm drawn back in time to my navy serge-clad self, O-level history and British Lord Salisbury's 19th century policy of 'splendid isolation', avoiding permanent alliances with other great powers. That didn't end well either.
At the time of writing, it is undecided whether the May versus Corbyn television face-off scheduled for Sunday evening will be on BBC or ITV.
Cue alarm and despondency among aficionados of both Strictly - the Results and I'm a Celebrity....
Fear not. Apparently these two Sunday night staples are the irresistible force and the immovable object against which neither a Prime Minister nor a Leader of the Opposition can prevail, though the Blessed David Attenborough may be shunted off the BBC schedule to facilitate the debate.
Ah - the power of the people and their passion for popular culture. Armageddon will be postponed until the 'soaps' are over.
It wouldn't have happened in Margaret Thatcher's day. It is hoped that either 'Strictly' or 'Celebrity' will furnish a large legacy audience of the electorate, though I, personally, will get up and make a cup of tea, or, more probably, pour a stiff gin and tonic.
It's not often I'm glad to be older. The long-term consequences of Brexit, however it turns out, will fall upon the shoulders of the young generation.
How have we prepared them to cope? Badly, I fear. With the best will in the world, we've spoiled them.
Strictly brought up ourselves on morals, manners and knowing our place, we made our children the centre of our universe.
As 'helicopter' parents we 'health-and-safety'd' the sense of adventure and independence out of them.
As indulgent parents we exaggerated their talents with empty praise, shielded them from the consequences of their own actions; gave them parity of esteem with adults far too early and allowed them, by default, to adopt the morals and manners of an increasingly coarse society.
Worst of all, we allowed them to develop an arrogant sense of entitlement they hadn't earned. Now they're reaping the fruits of what we sowed.
In an increasingly chilly economic climate many parents are stuck in an unending 'confidence and supply' arrangement with their adult children.
Grown singletons in good jobs return, cuckoo-like, to roost in the family nest and save money; young couples expect a generous contribution from the Bank of Mum and Dad to help buy a house; university students, perpetually broke, are a constant drain on parental resources and so tenderly reared that one English faculty has informed them they may - and I'm not making this up - have to read books on their courses "they might find upsetting".
Amazingly, the same 'snowflakes' are brave enough to bar guest speakers whose opinions conflict with their own, or attempt to change history by militating for the removal of statues or portraits of famous alumni who founded or endowed their colleges, because their wealth was accumulated by exploitative means.
Bringing up the rear are those neither in education nor employment, who have little of anything - including hope.
It's a sad fact that for generations here, we have reared our brightest and best for export.
In the great Brexit scheme of things we are a small area - 90 miles wide by 90 miles deep - of a small island off the westernmost edge of Europe, famous for cholesterol-inducing food, obduracy and craic.
We're coasting inexorably toward Brexit on the coat-tails of Britain - an inconvenient little problem of a passenger, that some may be thinking more trouble than we're worth.
