Alas I record my heart-felt remorse at our departure from the European Union. The UK came late to the party and like disgruntled members of The Stoics Social Club, we routinely complained about the seats being too hard and that the tea didn't have enough sugar in it... So now we are out; albeit much later than many 'No' voters would have wanted, but they have the pleasures of success and thus the will of the people has been asserted. I wouldn't wish to overplay the situation but I find it taxingly difficult to imagine that those who voted to leave will ever be allowed into Heaven.....It may have been a fractious, bad-tempered affair but I'm mindful that violence was avoided, an essential measure of our democratic maturity, regardless of result. So on Friday night I made my way to Newcastle to join in the North-East for Europe silent vigil. I would guess about 250 of us trooped south from the Civic Centre to Grey's Monument at the top of Grainger Street, our Northern political and protest rendezvous of choice and I think a superior equivalent of London's Hyde Park Speaker's Corner. We had a few cheers of support but some rather odd types felt a need to express abuse, wherefore 'magnanimity in victory I wonder? No speeches no shouting from us so the atmosphere was warm and friendly which is the stuff of common cause. Where we will be in a year's time its hard to know though it looks like we are being set-up for a 'no-deal' departure. I hope my fears are unfounded and that our interests will not be harmed by our decision, but there are reasons to be apprehensive and regardless we have harmed our neighours and the great European family will be diminished by disruption and strategic realignment, effectiveness will suffer. That President Trump. President Putin and an ever-more assertive China have been breaking-out the Champagne flutes should give us pause, so for that, to my many good European friends I offer my personal apology and like the undergraduate up before the beak in a Glasgow court, can only protest 'it wisney me that did it yer Honour'. On the up-side Grainger Street in Newcastle is a pretty hot place to be on a Friday Midnight, and being off the leash and out of sight, I quite modestly availed myself of the solace of a wee dram or two ruminating on the irony that my home-nation; Scotland is so very pro-European, maybe I should return Northwards, but perhaps not, there's that troubling incongruity that the Scots cannie abide rule from London, but hey, Brussels... nay boather pal? And another irony is all that singing of Rabbie Burns's 'Auld Lang Syne' at the break-up in the European Parliament last week, for there's mony a reading ye can put into that grand lyric. So I'll end wi another wee bit frae Rabbie, its the final verse from To A Mouse, written after his plough-share had destroyed its wee house an' hame, casting it loose in a dangerous world facing an uncertain future... It seems to fit me fine.

Still, thou art blest, compar’d wi’ me! The present only toucheth thee: But Och! I backward cast my e’e,

         On prospects drear!

An’ forward tho’ I canna see,

         I guess an’ fear!

And for England, in the true spirit of Inter-species solidarity, an appropriate bit o' Shakespeare:

'With inky blots and rotten parchment bonds, This England that was wont to conquer others Hath made a shameful conquest of herself'