To those of you just getting to grips with our parliamentary jargon, wait until we get to the European Parliament elections.
A quick guide: Alde is not a keenly priced supermarket (it’s an alliance of liberals and democrats in Europe); terrible things to do not happen to the Spitzenkandidat (a lead party candidate) over a roaring fire. Manfred Weber is not an Eighties German rock star and The Power of We is not a chart-topping song but the name of his campaign to be Jean-Claude Juncker’s successor.
Pay attention, because as the threat of a no-deal Brexit fades, the threat of a full-on EU election rises. Should we be scared? No. Should we run towards it with open arms, embrace every MEP candidate and develop strongly held opinions about Spitzenkandidaten that we have only just heard of? Of course.
Our Prime Minister is determined not to have these European elections. My desire to have them might be just to annoy her. But it might also be to see what happens.
As Left-Right polarities buckle, the EP elections are the perfect place for upstart parties. Ukip cleaned up in 2014, with more seats than the Tories and Labour. Having gone through eight leaders in the past few months, or thereabouts, four of them Farage, they aren’t looking quite the same force. Farage will have another go with his own party. I forget its name.
Their avengers might well be the latest start-up: Change UK, led by arch-Remainers Heidi Allen and Chuka Umunna.
Our collective fury does need to be funnelled into something — and the ballot box is best. There, devoted Remainers and tub-thumping Leavers can put an angry X in a box that represents their pure views. None of this sludgy compromise.
Yes, it will be a quasi-second referendum but, for a Prime Minister so beholden to a democratic vote, what’s wrong with another?
But the best reason to have them is that this country loves Eurovision, so let’s make a TV fest of it: Euroelections. At least we can’t get nul points.
All eyes are on this water birth
How to switch off from London life? Get a duck pond, and wait for ducks. That’s what I do at the weekends in my bolt hole in the country.
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Hours are spent watching a loving drake and mallard as they waddle in for lunch and then flap themselves back to the patch of bracken and brambles in which I assume the hard-shelled fruits of their love, a nest of eggs, sits.
Much of the UK may be awaiting the arrival of the next royal baby, but I’m on duckwatch, waiting for the ducklings.
You will get a picture exclusive when they arrive.
Women writers locked out of non-fiction
I had a phone conversation with Catherine Mayer, the author and co-founder of the Women’s Equality Party, yesterday, and the Primadonna literary festival came up. Its mission is to give more prominence to women.
Why do they need it? Because the market is skewed. Books by women are priced about 45 per cent lower than men’s, and there’s a 25 per cent pay gap.
Women do well in fiction. My bugbear is with non-fiction. Try going through the history or economics lists on Amazon and count the books until you get to one by a woman.
Shortly after speaking to Catherine I had coffee with a friend who had wanted to write a book about tech. She recounted how she had met a literary agent who suggested she write about tech for families. “But I just want to write about tech,” she protested to me.
She didn’t get signed. I guess she’d have an easier time writing a novel about tech.
The little book of Tusk sayings
Publishers searching for the next book of aphorisms, look to Donald Tusk. This tweet arrived this week: “Even if, after today, we don’t know what the end result will be, let us be patient. #brexit.” It’s Confucius, no?
In January he asked this gentle question: “If a deal is impossible, and no one wants no deal, then who will finally have the courage to say what the only positive solution is?”
Publishers, not convinced yet? Here’s the winner from November: “As a motto, the words of Freddie Mercury, who passed away exactly 27 years ago: ‘Friends will be friends, right till the end.’”