You may Brexit but I couldn't possibly comment.

You may Brexit but I couldn't possibly comment.

What on earth is happening to the English language? Could somebody please tell me what's going on. I'm at a complete loss and would love to know why the buzzword fraternity keep tampering and tinkering with those witty words of wisdom. Now I'm all for new fads, movements and innovative slogans but I'd be so grateful if you could explain both their origin and their relevance.   Advertisers love to keep us guessing with their literary creations but I need to know which direction the language of Dickens and Shakespeare is heading. Oh for the labyrinthine complexities of the English language.

There are just a couple of words and phrases from both the present day and yesteryear that leave me in a state of complete incomprehension. Sooner or later I'll get the hang of them but at the moment they seem to hover around in my head just aching for some kind of explanation. I'd love somebody to take me to one side and just give me some much needed clarification because, for the time being these words are just completely off my radar. I'm none the wiser and no more enlightened than I was before.

Let's see. There's hard Brexit and soft Brexit. Sorry I'm clueless. They sound like two obscure Dutch washing up liquid products or some fragrant Swiss cheeses that have gone stale. I've now lost count of how many times both hard and soft Brexit have been mentioned in the drawing rooms of Islington or Westminster. Do they get rid of the coffee stains on your coffee table, do they actually get rid of bacteria? Can you use them in the kitchen or bathroom when those stubborn patches of dirt in the corner refuse to be removed? Can hard and soft Brexit help you work, rest and play? Do they come in different sizes? Are they the definitive cures for the common cold? Please tell me somebody. My curiosity has now reached its highest point. I'm going spare here. I'm determined to find out.

When the year began hard and soft Brexit were just the distant dream of some very imaginative ad man or woman. I'm not sure whether anybody had given a thought to the summer European Union referendum showdown. We knew it was going to happen sooner or later but there was a part of us that privately felt confused and baffled, wishing that that day in June would come sooner rather than later. But there was no detailed and simple explanation for what we were about to receive. It may just as well  have been some complex scientific paper on Quantum Physics but we didn't know whether we were coming or going. We were dithering and indecisive. Then there were those who knew where their tick would be placed. They knew that the tide of opinion and the shift in mood had become very noticeable.

And then the day arrived. Oh joy of joys. Let's celebrate, hang out the bunting, dance around the fountains of Trafalgar Square. It was the height of summer. It was the end of June and Britain, in its most handsome democratic dress, decided to LEAVE the European Union. Do you know what? I was doing handstands and somersaults in Piccadilly, or leaping over the bollards in my local shopping centre. I was simply beside myself and barely able to control the ecstasy pouring out of me. All of that inner anguish over that final decision had now been taken away on one June day in 2016.

My conscience was now clear and I was a free, liberated man. I could breath again. I could once again venture out into the sylvan fields of lovely England, striding across the bridges of London town, darting urgently into Marks and Spencer, racing at top speed into Primark and then sauntering around Selfridges because, who cares, Britain had made up her mind. She'd gone in to the ballot box and stuck an emphatic LEAVE on your paper. So that was that. Take that David Cameron. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it.

She'd voted to come out of the European Union and we could all sigh with relief, go back to cleaning our car, listening to Radio 4 or just doing the kind of things that came so naturally to us like walking through Hyde Park with a cheery demeanour, whistling the latest ditty from Justin Bieber or just lying languorously on a hot summer's day on a blanket. And just thinking of England. It could hardly have been better. And yet it got worse. Of course it did because the technocrats, the street poets and the political wordsmiths got going. They had to ruin everything didn't they? You knew they would but you were never sure when or how.

But then it all got rather silly and nonsensical. In the months that followed the people who voted to leave the European Union didn't quite know to handle those who wanted Britain to stay in Europe. Whole families went to war over it. Mum, dad, daughter and son were so divided and polarised that you could have cut the atmosphere with a knife.

 It was personal. petty, occasionally vindictive and suddenly Britain became a very argumentative nation, a confrontational nation and a nation that seemed terribly ill at ease with itself. It all dissolved into some rather messy disagreement. A boxing referee would have thrown in the towel in Round One.

Suddenly the two camps Leave and Remain were at each other's throats, not strangling each other but battling with each other, thrashing out the pros and cons. Were we more enlightened than we were?  I'm not sure we were. Here we are at the end of the year and the two warring parties are still putting their respective cases before the jury, still wrangling, squabbling and bickering for no apparent reason. There has to be some resolution. Please ladies and gentlemen. A little decorum would be most welcome. I've got the most splitting headache. It's a deafening noise. Can we please move on? We've made our decision and there's no point in analysing why, how and if. Sometimes we all need a little quiet and civility. Time to get on with the everyday business of life.

 But this is not just a case of right or wrong, guilty or not guilty because the issues go much deeper than that. Where's Perry Mason when you need him? And yet it seems to carry on and on like some stirring rendition of War and Peace. There are the Hard and Soft Brexit followers. Remoaners and Bitter Brexiteers. Is this the society of gobbledygook and drivel, of just unfathomable phrases that seem designed to irritate or maybe some calculated plot to drive us completely crazy.

Every time you turn on the TV or switch on your radio it's in your face, emphatically, forcefully and aggressively at times. I'm beginning to long for the day when Hard and Soft Brexit go back into the historical archives or are just plonked into some dusty box. They really are beginning to get on my nerves. But hold on. One day they will disappear from our radios phone ins or anguished discussions on BBC's Question Time. Sooner or later we'll all break out the champagne. I'll just run up and down the streets in a state of sheer exultation. I'll run up the flag of the Union Jack or maybe more advisably St George's. Feelings are still running high.

 Question Time I fear seems to be descending into some lion's den of argument and counter argument. I worry for the health of David Dimbleby. You begin to think that sooner or longer Dimbleby's white, pasty face will just crumple into some desperate frown. Brexit and the EU have, seeminly, wrecked Dimbleby's once fresh faced and pristine features. It reminded me of what happened to Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight. Poor Jeremy's face looked very pale, eyes hooded and haunted but Jeremy wasn't David Dimbleby  Dimbleby looks as if he's in need of complete rest and rehabilitation on some exotic Caribbean island. Go on David treat yourself. You deserve it my friend.

Before I leave you a word or several about the Left Wing and the Right Wing. There's the Left and Right. The Far Left and The Far Right. It's all geographically and preposterously unclear. For years I've always believed that the Left and Right Wing were occupied by the likes of the great Sir Stanley Matthews, Tom Finney, the snake hips of John Barnes and Stevie Coppell, slippery, sinuous and sinewy wing wizards for England, players of craft, ingenuity and cleverness. But surely not in the stuffy corridors of the House of Commons. Surely politicians can't score goals from the half way line or maybe they can. Or perhaps they're just frustrated footballers dreaming about an FA Cup Final appearance one day.

 The right wing and left wing were the exclusive province of English football. They used to be called outside rights and outside lefts but then they were simply referred to as wingers, shuffling, jinking and shimmying down the flanks before cutting inside to cross to the far post where Dixie Dean, Tommy Lawton or Bob Latchford would send their powerful headers into the net. But then we discovered that the aforesaid wingers had always been employed in the equally hectic and controversial world of politics.

There are Conservative politicians on the left and Conservative politicians on the right, Labour ministers on the left and right and not forgetting Lib Dems on the left and right. Of course there's the middle ground which seems like a rational compromise. But then UKIP members join in with their telling interventions and much to your horror you also discover that their members are situated on both the right and left. Is there some kind of political dictionary I can consult or maybe I just need to watch Question Time over and over again. Any suggestions Mr Dimbleby. I know let's have a festive mince pie or have a word with Santa Claus. On second thoughts maybe not.