Who the gods
would
destroy …
CAR manufacturing giant BMW will close its famous Mini plant in Oxford for a month or so after Brexit Day next year to consider its position and re-arrange things. Aircraft manufacturing giant Airbus has already said it will leave Britain in the case of a "No Deal" Brexit – the cliff-edge scenario.
Outsiders look on with morbid fascination as this self-inflicted devastation unfolds. Many of us had forgotten that BMW now produces the emblematically British Mini. Oxford apparently also produces parts for the cars made in Germany.
To sort this one out post-Brexit will be like trying to unscramble an omelette. And the same is true across the range of economic activity.
Economic decline since the Brexit referendum has already cost Britain £40 billion (R776bn), according to the Governor of the Bank of England. The Financial Times puts it at £450m a week.
House values will drop post-Brexit, according to the Bank of England, possibly by 35% in the worst case scenario. That ain't funny for the folk who will have to keep on paying their mortgages on the original prices..
Meanwhile, the City of London investment firm co-founded by Jacob Rees-Mogg, a vociferous bankbench brexiteer MP, has founded a branch in Dublin (which will still be in the EU) to cope with post-Brexit difficulties. How's that for a vote of confidence?
Polling commissioned by Global Future shows that voters, including those who backed Brexit, fear that leaving the EU will come at "too high a price". Even those who voted to leave now support continued membership of the Single Market and free movement of people.
Yet the lemming rush continues. Who the gods would destroy they first make mad.
· OVERHEARD in the Street Shelter for the Over-Forties: "What's the difference between men and pigs? Pigs don't turn into men when they get drunk."
· Five baby squirrels whose tails became tangled together in their nest have been freed by a wildlife team in Wisconsin, in the US.
They were found with their tails entangled, together with grass and plastic their mother had used as nest material, according to Sky News.
An animal rehabilitation team spent 20 minutes delicately separating the tails to avoid hurting any of them.
"It was impossible to tell whose tail was whose, and we were increasingly concerned because all of them had suffered from varying degrees of tissue damage to their tails caused by circulatory impairment," the team reported.
Now why does everything remind us of the Brexit business?
· IN THE Missouri town of Uranus, in the US, they've started a newspaper to replace the Daily Guide, the county paper that has now gone defunct, according to Huffington Post.
It's all go. The new editor, Natalie Sanders, was with the Daily Guide and knows the town inside out. She says the new publication will be "fun" and will carry local news as well promote the local tourism industry, which has some quirky attractions including a fudge shop and the world's largest belt buckle.
However, some local people have reservations about the name of the new publication. It could be open to misrepresentation and ridicule, they say.
The name: Uranus Examiner.
Tailpiece
"Would you like to dance?"
"I don't like this music and even if I did, you'd be the last one I want to dance with."
"I'm sorry, you must have misheard. I said: 'You look fat in that dress.'"
Last word
Frisbeetarianism is th
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