We did warn you that No Deal will be "bumpy" says The Sun, who not long ago were screaming for us to walk away with No Deal.
Pound panic
IT was predictable the Pound would fall as No Deal gets closer. And that Remoaners would start to weep and tear their clothes.
Yes, weaker sterling is bad news if you’re off abroad. It’s better news for exporters, jobs and tourism to Britain.
It will rise again once we secure a better deal or come through No Deal with a strong, low-tax, independent economy.
But The Sun did warn it might be bumpy.
And the vile Jane Moore jumps on two bandwagons. Bashing Meghan Markle and hand wringing about computer games:
JANE MOORE Fortnite addicts are playing a very dangerous game with their own lives
A 15-YEAR-OLD British schoolboy has won nearly £1million at the world finals of the globally successful video game Fortnite.
Jaden Ashman, from Essex, says he will now buy his mum a house, upgrade his internet and, once he’s left school, probably become a gaming pro.
Win, win . . . right? Wrong.
Gaming, we oldies must accept, is fast becoming a career option for young lads and, reminiscent of the ’70s Russian hothouses for gymnasts, it seems that “e-sports teams” are already providing apartments in which those old enough to leave home can live and practise with other talented players.
But at what price to their future and society as a whole?
If further proof is needed, an eye-watering 40million “gamers” applied to take part in the World Cup in New York where Jaden and other “tweens” triumphed.
It’s a far cry from the days when we had to pop down the pub and wait for our turn on the Space Invaders machine. Are we now hurtling towards an existence when future generations will rarely see daylight and only communicate with others via an electronic device?
Jaden says he practises for eight hours each weekday (and freely admits his studies suffer) and 14 hours a day at weekends. Which, factoring in sleep, leaves little time for anything else.
And he’s not alone. All over Britain, there are young lads spending hour after hour staring at a screen, obsessively trying to reach a similar level of skill while “life” — i.e the beauty of fresh air/culture/face-to-face interaction etc — is seemingly passing them by.
At least Jaden actually attends school. Many of his fellow gamers are “home schooled” to accommodate the worrying number of hours they spend cyber-shooting at opponents.
And they’re further facilitated in their obsession by Fortnite’s developer Epic recently lowering the competition’s age limit from 16 to 13.
How considerate of them. Even more money pouring in to its coffers as yet more kids become hooked on the gaming equivalent of crack.
Prince Harry, an advocate of trying to improve the rapidly declining mental health of young people, recently said of Fortnite: “That game shouldn’t be allowed. It’s created to addict, to keep you in front of a computer.”
Indeed it is. But banning it would be a legal minefield and potentially enhance its appeal.
And it’s painfully clear that desperate parents are struggling with the twin forces of wanting to stop their children playing it, but not wanting to make them feel ostracised from their gaming peers in the play-ground.
So perhaps Epic and other major gaming companies must be encouraged (or, if needs be, forced via legislation) to impose a time limit on how long under-18s can play within a 24-hour period.
If not, where will this online phenomenon lead us once these gamers stop winning and have to find a normal job, like the rest of us?
Unlike the joke, “old gamers never die, they just become skeletons in someone else’s dungeon” it’s no laughing matter.
Meg mag not en vogue
THE tirelessly virtue-signalling Duchess of Sussex – aka Meghan – has edited the iconic “September issue” of British Vogue.
But when editor Edward Enninful asked her to be on the cover, she reportedly declined on the basis that it would be “boastful”.
Was this a not very subtle dig at her sister-in-law Kate, who graced the cover in June 2016?
Whatever, Meghan has opted to feature 15 “trailblazing” women on the front instead – including campaigners on disability and mental health.
Inside, she loftily (and, er, boastfully) describes it as an issue of “substance and levity”.
A noble aim, for sure, but history and “best-selling magazine” lists tell us that a cover shot of a model or celebrity wearing pretty clothes always outsells worthiness.
Particularly, one suspects, when that magazine’s loyal band of readers buy it because it’s the “fashion Bible”.
Time, and sales, will tell if it proves to be a bigger turkey than the Christmas offering at Balmoral.