REMEMBER Johnson's 'oven-ready deal' last December? He didn't have one. Just another one of his fictions to help get him elected as it turned out.
Remember his shambles of an EU video conference at the end of June? No need to extend the transition period beyond December 2020. Why? He'd put "a tiger in the tank" and there'd be no reason not to have a deal by the end of July.
No-one bought that. He'd been caught on by that stage. No-one believes him any more.
Now it's approaching the end of August and no progress whatsoever on a trade deal with the EU.
Talks begin again in September; that's the end of next week and they have to conclude by October.
Why? As the EU's negotiator Michel Barnier explained in July, the other 27 countries have to agree to a deal, so does the European Parliament and realistically they must do that before Christmas. Even a deal in October therefore doesn't leave much time.
Johnson's Brexit government - and let's face it, Brexit is the only item that holds them together - know the timescale as well as anyone, so why are they stalling?
There's growing concern among business, banking and commerce leaders in Britain that Johnson is under pressure to walk away from the Withdrawal Agreement, but that even if he doesn't, there is only time for a bare-bones trade deal.
Rabid Brexit newspapers, exemplified by the Daily Express, have been giving space to the more bone-headed Brexiteers like chief wooden top Iain Duncan Smith to denounce the Withdrawal Agreement and claim it is 'a work in progress'.
He's 'discovered' a £160 billion liability for Britain in it, a piece of nonsense concocted by that expert journal on EU law, the Sun.
Duncan Smith also falsely claims the UK can 'reject' the Withdrawal Agreement even though it's an international treaty that, wait for it, he voted for last October.
In fact no Conservative MP voted against it. Remember it was Johnson's great triumph after his walk up a hotel's garden path with Leo Varadkar?
However, Duncan Smith is not alone in these fantasies. Several other Conservatives of extreme Brexit disposition agree.
For them, the ability to walk away without a deal is the central point of Brexit because they imagine they can then make their own trade deals with the US as the main target and Japan in the short term.
Unfortunately the talks with Japan have become stuck on the matter of Stilton cheese; such is the fate of trade talks.
Now, never mind the consternation in British business circles about ending up with World Trade Organization terms, disastrous for the motor industry for a start, but goods and services in the north would be struck a mortal blow.
Yet the silence from the Stormont executive is deafening. Sinn Féin's Chris Hazzard MP has been trying to unearth details from a junior NIO minister you've never heard of.
The SDLP's Matthew O'Toole has been writing to Michael Gove and others to complain there's no information, but their results are zero.
You would expect silent embarrassment from the DUP at the mess they shamefully supported despite being repeatedly warned about the inevitable damage to the prosperity of people in the north, but why is Sinn Féin not kicking up a fuss as the cliff edge comes into view?
Why have we no idea about what goes on at the Joint Committee on the Irish Protocol? Why do we not know what SF proposes there?
Little scraps emerge by accident, like green cards required for car insurance or the need for electronic travel authorisation for non-Irish EU citizens to travel north.
How does a Polish ambulance driver from Letterkenny hospital take a patient to Altnagelvin? Does the Irish government know? Do they care?
SF north and south needs to break ranks on the silence and start making waves. People need to know now.
