I like this one. A "Europe-wide consultancy" (says The Observer, 30/7/17) has put out a report suggesting that Brexit will cause widespread economic chaos in the UK. Not only that, but delays at the Dover/Calais border will mean that we need lots of parking space for lorries outside Dover - kind of like (the report makes this explicit) the "Operation Stack" parking space (sic) outside Dover that we have at the moment to cope with delays at the Dover/Calais border. The report adds that, post-Brexit, there's a significant risk of congestion on motorways outside Dover.
     Er...
     [In fairness, that congestion will be caused by the construction of lorry parks, says the report. Lorry parks like the Ashford International Truck Stop? Anybody who remembers the chaos a few years back when Ashford in Kent was rebuilt as an EU transport hub will know exactly what they mean. That time, the congestion was because the border was opening up, with Eurotunnel completed, et cetera.]
     Name of the consultancy: Oxera. And they're right. Lots of things could go wrong, some of them related to Brexit, some of them related to the new IT system that HMRC - you just knew this was going to happen, didn't you? - are planning to install in March 2019. The report fails to mention one other prospect facing us. The increased flow of negative reports from consultancies seeking headlines, which is almost entirely the fault of Brexit, could lead to significant deforestation (I'm looking at a paper copy of The Observer) and thus increase in the rate of global warming.
     So logically, Brexit could lead to a lump of ice the size of the Schengen Area breaking off the Antarctic, melting in a shipping lane and raising sea levels enough to inundate Venice and much of the Netherlands.
     But don't panic. Other reports are available, and many of them suggest that trade between the UK and the EU will dwindle away after Brexit, so, for example, there won't be any queues of lorries wanting to carry goods across the border. Grass will grow through the cracked concrete of those empty lorry parks, and the new IT system at Dover customs will fizz and crackle unheeded. The pound will have collapsed completely by then, so we'll all be taking holidays at home. Pollution, congestion and even vapour trails will be things of the past.
     Brexit - the green option.

Dunkirk happened because people wanted it to happen. The historical event, I mean. The government of the time wanted to keep back its ships for possible later engagements, so 400,000 young soldiers were at risk of going into Nazi camps. Understandable caution, given the circumstances of the time - you sacrifice 400,000 men because you don't want to end up sacrificing 400,000 men plus ships and a lot of sailors.
     Understandable caution, and it doesn't take much imagination to see how that kind of logic would win over a high-level crisis committee meeting. I wonder if the room had the acronym COBRA even then. Understandable caution; understandable in every respect except that it just wasn't good enough. So the people went out to get the soldiers. And thinking about it now, the people were right and the government was ... less right. With hindsight, 400,000 young British men in Nazi camps. I'll stop that sentence there.
     In today's language, the British government of Summer 1940 faced "tough choices". Ha! Tougher choices. At Dunkirk, either lose the soldiers, or risk losing ships and soldiers. For our times, perhaps the moral of the Dunkirk story - I do mean the story; I grew up with it and I've now seen the new-ish film - is that governments, administrations, establishments don't really run anything. "What happens next" is generally beyond their competence. Read any coverage of this year's disasters - Grenfell Tower in particular - and what comes across is the contrast between the people's response and the government's. A bomb goes off, or a tower burns, and we're all there: emergency services, taxi drivers offering free rides home, "ordinary people" (the BBC's usual designation) giving first aid and then donating time and material aid.
     While the "powers that be" (don't laugh) blunder about in the background. I came home from Dunkirk the 2017 film (in which the British, the French and "the enemy" slug it out) and pulled out The World At War (the 1973/1974 TV series). The queues on the beach weren't quite as orderly in 1973 (the episode "Alone" showed archive footage) as they were in the 2017 version, but apart from that, the main difference was in the telling. More wreckage on the beach in 1973, more of an air battle (and the role of the Germans was acknowledged), but the "little ships" were just part of it. I'm being very 2017 if I implied above that the British government and the British people were at odds over the evacuation. That wasn't the point back in 1973, but in 2017, Dunkirk was emphatically the people's evacuation.
     We're not wrong about the relative performance of the 1940 government and the people, though. And maybe the real difference is just that the people didn't have an immediate outlet back then, in the way that we have the internet and our very different media. Churchill was hoping for 30,000 rescued soldiers, the people delivered 330,000. End of story. And then, even after "winning the war" (so to speak), Churchill went on to lose the 1945 General Election by a landslide. Almost as big a shock as - oh, any recent election in the UK, USA or France. Government incompetence, establishment complacency, institutional indifference - only recently have they been outed as an issue, but they're always punished in the end.
     Thinking about this further (and making a real effort not to use the obvious current example from US politics), I remembered a line from the 2007 film Live Free or Die Hard (described as "preposterous" by one broadly positive critic; I liked it the same way): Bruce Willis and Justin Long are debating whether to let the government handle the film's central crisis. "It took FEMA five days to get water to the Superdome," says Long, in a brief reference to a recent real-world failure of government, and that's the clincher - Bruce is going to do it his way. There are going to be explosions, gun battles, catchphrases and one-liners. We're not going to be watching a film about Bruce dropping off Justin and then going home to do some laundry and maybe binge-watch a box set.
     Nobody expects - has ever expected - government, etc., to respond sufficiently to a crisis, neither in myth nor fiction nor fact. I checked that FEMA reference. Briefly: survivors of Hurricane Katrina were holed up in the New Orleans Superdome; the Federal Emergency Management Agency initially delivered supplies appropriate to a chemical attack by terrorists "because that's what it says in the book", according to one report I've just (re)read. Water and food came later. Impressive that "the book" over-rode everything that those FEMA people must have been seeing and hearing on every news outlet everywhere. Impressive in the sense: unimpressive. But somehow not surprising. There's a whole book to be written about going by the book.
     Oh, and it's always been this way. Along Hadrian's Wall - yes, that Hadrian's Wall; no contemporary reference intended - the Romans built a guard post every third of a mile. Never mind the specifics (milecastle, observation tower, whatever), the intention was to have soldiers on watch every third of a mile. There's one guard post that really brings the Romans alive for me. It's built exactly one third of a mile on from the one before, next to a rise in the ground from which you can see forever. But the guard post is built next to the rise, so that the rise itself blocks the soldiers' view. Yes, yes, we know about the threat from the other side; the book says one third of a mile; that's what you're going to get.
     I'll bet those Roman soldiers drew lots for which of them was going to spend the night sitting on top of the rise looking North. Extra blankets and a shift system. Bet they didn't stand where they were told. If only they'd had social media; think how our view of their Empire would be different today.
     I know balance is important, but somehow, I can't remember any "government did well" stories. Are there any? Maybe what we need is not a strong and stable government, nor indeed any senior politician confidently promising change - because when did any political leader ever achieve what she or he set out to achieve exactly as intended? - but a new campaign to stir the hearts of the people; a campaign that could even bring hope to our political system; indeed, a campaign that would be an alternative to popular revolt in these networked and uneasy times - a Campaign for Humility in Government.

We pretend too much. We know that media-trained government ministers are going to avoid answering the question, just as we know that politicians in general are self-interested and, let's say, other drivers are suicidally homicidal clumsy idiots who shouldn't be allowed near the road, while company bosses are overweight felines, et cetera. We know all that. And yet still we stoke up our indignation as if we're surprised every time a car swerves in front of us or a soundbite collides with our ears. This is the way the world is. Don't get mad, get real. Pity them.

How would it work if the BBC didn't compete to attract the highest-paid talent? That's always the explanation, isn't it? Across banking, broadcasting, industry - the talent will go elsewhere if it doesn't pay itself vast sums of money - sorry, if peer-group remuneration committees don't pay it vast sums of money.
     But in public-service broadcasting, where the staff are all civil servants, public-sector workers, where there are non-commercial obligations and objectives, how about - for example - paying salaries to attract enthusiastic young people just starting out on their glittering careers? Youth unemployment is an issue for the public sector, and a lot of youngsters want to "break in" (think about that phrase) to broadcasting and the media. It would be an appropriate use of public money, surely, to give them a chance?
     The "stars", if they are "stars", would go off and find their own levels - by which of course I mean: no doubt they would go off and find huge salaries - elsewhere, and we'd have new talent to entertain and inform us. We talk excitedly about innovation in other fields - new technologies, new music, fashion, films, books, games, robots, scientific discoveries - but in broadcasting, we watch the familiar faces get older, and older, and older...
     Alternatively, given that we're talking about public-sector workers, maybe we should be paying salaries to attract the top talent in nursing, teaching, the emergency services. If that's really the logic. Or are there jobs that people do because they feel a vocation, or perhaps a mission to explain, so they don't have to be paid much? Like, for example, broadcasting?

What really surprises me, still on the same subject, is the gender pay gap. The BBC generally goes for the moral high ground, and yet pays its top men more than its top women for what seem to be equivalent jobs. I found a quote from Tony Hall, the BBC's director general. “I feel reinvigorated in one of the things I really believe, which is getting by 2020 equality on the air between men and women and in pay as well,” said the man in charge. Not sure how to take that. Why not by 2019? Good to know that he's "reinvigorated" now that this approach to pay has been revealed.
     Setting aside any suggestion of inequality, unfairness, sheer absurdity, my problem is that I don't understand how gender pay gaps happen. I've heard - but don't entirely believe - suggestions that women are less assertive than men in asking for more money. I know that words including "pregnancy" and "baby" and "maternity leave" and occasionally even "career break" can sometimes appear in conversations of this nature, but really ... no. Career people are career people. Life's full of life-events. People are either good at what they do, and worth paying, or they're not.
     The clincher in this case - which surely makes it completely inexplicable - is that the BBC's top women are high-performing career women whose pay negotiations would typically be conducted through agents. I'm pretty sure that careers aren't a progression any more, either. You don't join as an apprentice and work your way up through the pay reviews to the boardroom (so that a pregnancy-induced absence, say, might entail missing a pay rise). Life isn't like that these days.
     The BBC gender pay gap is inexplicable. We can see - hear - for ourselves that these women do the same jobs to the same standards as their male colleagues. They're all skilled readers of autocues. Surely the men deserve to be paid the same as the women?

Mind you, the advantage of a hung parliament is that nobody can do anything. As things stand in the UK, the Tories can't be Tories, and Labour can't be Labour. If there is a collective wisdom in the British electorate, it was applied this time to stop politicians bothering us with the fall-out from their ideologies. Macron's election amounted to a rejection of the two established parties (and of extremism), and Trump is at least a catharsis for the US political system - no more business as usual. If we have to mention Brexit, at least we are getting a renegotiation of our relationship with the EU. Not a strong mandate to leave, but enough to force a negotiation.
     I could live with this. For about five years. No big new initiatives; just the occasional crowd-pleaser.

We're all still endlessly on about Brexit, as though it's a binary thing. We did vote in/out, but now, more than a year later, we're negotiating a relationship with the EU. Just that. It's a process that's been going on since Margaret Thatcher - in fact, since the original Treaty of Rome. Perhaps more accurately since Charles de Gaulle, who said "Non!" long before Mrs T got to the word. Or we could go back to William the Conqueror; maybe even to those people who built stone circles in Brittany and Avebury. Wasn't there a Field of the Cloth of Gold in there somewhere, and didn't somebody have 'Calais' engraved (tattooed?) on her heart?
     Meanwhile, the sun's out, and a cruise ship came in, and the sea is just at that point off flat calm where it glitters in the early light. There's a big yacht anchored out in the Carrick Roads that's been there for days. Onshore, no wind in the trees, and maybe I'm imagining that the birdsong is just slightly muted. Today's cruise ship is the Aegean Odyssey, flag state Malta (thanks Wikipedia). And all of a sudden I'm thinking about a remembered illustration in a (probably old even then) children's book from the post-colonial days when even I was young: the tall ship anchors in the bay and the locals paddle out in dugout canoes to offer their valuables. Today, we'll wait for the passengers to come into town before selling them small ornaments with 'Falmouth' printed on the side, plus Breton caps and sunscreen, plus tee-shirts declaring that life is a beach.
     In the USA, the talk is of cities, states and companies defying President Trump to stick to their greenhouse-gas emissions targets under the Paris climate-change accords. In the UK, the week's political news was that a parliamentarian had compared Leave to Appeasement - a distasteful analogy that doesn't work even if you turn it the other way round. Oh, and the ever-reliable Michel Barnier was quoted again, talking down the UK's chances in the Brexit negotiations. We do like to quote ourselves in the foot, don't we? But back here in the real world, we've got a cruise ship with "an average 350 passengers" on board (thanks, Google). Standard practice here, when there's a European cruise ship in for a day or more, is for the signs on the round-town, circular-route, to-the-shops, to-and-from-the-cruise-ship, did-I-mention-to-the-shops buses all to be in German for the duration. Never mind "dreckly"; Arwenack Street speaks your language.
     The Aegean Odyssey is run by a "one-ship cruise company" called Voyages to Antiquity (thanks again, Google). Mostly, it sticks to the Mediterranean, although you can take it as far as the Caribbean. Today, it's on a trip round England, Ireland and Scotland, and we've got it until 10pm tonight. As the shops open and the buses start running, I doubt that anybody here is worrying about Brexit.

This from the News (sic) on Wednesday morning. "An official report has warned that victims of stalking and harassment are being left at risk because of failings by police and prosecutors in England and Wales." That was BBC Radio 4, the Today programme, 7am bulletin and no doubt repeated, on 5th July 2017. Second item, after the North Korean missile launch. The piece - package? - ended thus. "The National Police Chiefs' Council says it's contacting every force to ensure officers improve the way they use their powers."
     Later, maybe about 7.20am, a government minister (sorry, they all sound alike to me), came on to talk about how he was going to "make sure" that something else wrong was going to be put right - housing, I think, and yes, Grenfell Tower was mentioned - and then Today moved on to "sex robots". The advantage of these, we were told, would be that they could keep lonely and/or elderly people company (other advantages are available, but not on Radio 4). One major disadvantage, apparently, is the risk that they might "objectify the female body". Well, yes. A robot is an object. But – all sex robots are going to be woman-shaped?* Wouldn’t there be demand for –
     Moving on.
     I came away from the radio with the thought that the “ensuring” process could usefully be challenged. How is that government minister going to “make sure”; how is that collection of senior officers going to “ensure”? What is the process? Box-ticking? Compliance with a new set of tickable boxes? Actually getting involved? Actually caring, even? I don’t know, and nor do I have a preconception as to what it should be, but it just strikes me that nobody ever asks.
     Hold that post! This from the radio on Saturday morning, half seven, same source. "It's emerged that police officers in England and Wales are now required to fill out a ten-page form every time they use any kind of force against someone. Officers must record the person's age, gender and ethnic background if they restrain them with handcuffs, use an irritant spray or a baton. A senior member of the Police Federation described the process as very bureaucratic." Imposing a ten-page questionnaire is no way to ensure anything, of course (except, in this case, hands-off policing), but I bet it works as evidence in a performance appraisal - look how busy I've been, drawing up questionnaires.

* There is now, you will be relieved to know, a Foundation for Responsible Robotics (FRR). There is also, you will not be surprised to know, a debate about whether or not to regulate the robot business. On the morning that North Korea was revealed to be capable of hitting the US with a potentially nuclear missile, my research took me to the FRR's "first consultation report" - Our Sexual Future With Robots. Obvious first subject for a report, of course. Turns out that roughly two thirds of men and one third of women are in favour of, er, interacting with robots. Oh, and North Korea's rocket was called "Hwasong-14".

"Now is not the time to talk about blame," said David Cameron (his exact words I think; I'm quoting from memory) after the flooding of the Somerset Levels in the Winter of 2013/2014. The phrase stuck in my mind, but I must have missed the announcement that the time had come to talk about blame. True enough, but the former prime minister was quite adroit sometimes, wasn't he? And nobody ever noticed, which was part of it.

Am I old enough to remember the time when hemlines were taken to be an economic indicator? When mini-skirts were correlated with economic growth? Probably not. But a faint memory was stirred, two days ago, when I came across a piece in the Weekend FT discussing the length of men's shorts. The fashion these days, I gather, is to show more than half the length of the thigh.
     Everything changes; everything stays the same. I graduated to long trousers a long time ago, and I'm happy, thank you. My best wishes to the global economy.

Let's keep this brief. So many of the arguments (still) raging across social media about the Brexit vote - repent, Leave voters, blah, blah, et cetera - consist of forward-looking statements combined with attacks on the other side for not being able to say confidently what the future will hold. In the UK. Of all places. Yesterday, we had heavy rain. Today, bright sunshine. Tomorrow? Maybe George Osborne, who forecast that a vote to leave would plunge us into a "year-long recession" (and yes, you're right, the vote was just over a year ago now) should take over the weather forecast.
     Recent survey evidence* suggests that regular users of the term "Maybot" to denigrate the UK prime minister (as in: she's robotic, etc.) often turn out also to be enthusiastic advocates of AI. Another recent survey** indicates that the most committed crystal-ball gazers of the undead Remain campaign invariably insist that their forward-looking assertions are somehow fact-based and rational.
     Not that another layer of government above the Westminster government, with all its attendant bureaucracy and costs, is necessarily a bad thing. Perhaps Brussels would have reacted more effectively to that recent tragic fire than Westminster or indeed Kensington & Chelsea. Nor does it really matter that Facebook is heaving with dissent over last year's headline vote. Brexit has become the opium of the people.
     But if the hour brings forth the man - a phrase worth putting into a search engine if you have half an hour to spare - then maybe the man we need right now is not Michel Barnier, nor indeed Jean-Claude Juncker, but once again William Goldman, who wrote the book Adventures in the Screen Trade, and within that, the sentence, "Nobody knows anything."

* Sample: various friends, in conversation. Post-truth, right, so it's okay to call that a survey?
**Sample: various recent heavily commented Facebook shares. Truthiness abounds.