Not me tsc. Much to Moss’ irritation I spend way too much time listening to, watching and reading the news - both the sensible and the non-sensible bits, before settling on a direction of travel. One thing has become abundantly clear to me over the last few years though and it is this; a lot of people will form opinions on what they want to believe rather than what the facts are actually telling them. It’s the ‘Emperor has no Clothes’ syndrome.

The Brexiteers will tell you that a brave new vision for the country lies ahead once we leave the EU. I don’t know if that will happen but given my many years spent living in Japan I can tell you that an island nation similar to our own is quite capable of forging its own destiny - quite capable. Ditto South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore. Of course those places have their problems but the point is that they’re not (with the now sad exception of Hong Kong) beholden to a large trading block like the EU. So, to the Remainers on this forum and elsewhere, I would ask this – what exactly are the benefits of belonging to the EU? Can you please not only outline those benefits but also show how we, as an independent sovereign nation, could not, under our own political/democratic checks and balances, achieve the same benefits.

To drewbhoy; I fully support Scottish independence. Ditto independence for Wales if they want it and the unification of Ireland. In my 70 years plus on this planet I’ve seen too many cultures assimilated by their big brother neighbours. And before I was born even more so. Indigenous peoples supressed, sometimes totally obliterated. Languages lost, cultures wiped away. The erosion sometimes takes place in a matter of a few years, sometimes it’s inch-by-inch over decades (Hawaii and Tibet to name just two) and all in the name of a ‘useful’ uniformity.

So, to those who want a ‘useful’ EU uniformity, I’ll ask you this – do you really want to see the day when there are no more pounds in our pockets, no more miles to travel because there’ll only be kilometres on our road signs? No more pints of milk on your doorstep (and yes, there are still parts of the country where pints of milk are left on the doorstep and Moss and I are fortunate to live in one). These things may be simple and to some unimportant examples of what uniformity means but they are symptomatic of a wider and much more insidious trend.

If you think I’m fantasising think again. After the Pacific War Japan decided to abandon its centuries-old weights and measures system and adopt the metric system. That included everything from how houses were designed and built, textiles were woven, paper was made and food was weighed. Everything. For a few years there was chaos until the law was eventually repealed. Architecture, crafts etc are now allowed to use the traditional weights and measures system. A tradition relating to the human form, not to some conjured up abstract measurement, has been reinstated with the result that Japanese culture is the richer for it.

So think carefully before you take the road to uniformity and the bland destination it offers. For feck’s sake, go down that road and in fifty years time we’ll all be speaking fecking Esperanto. ;-)