Where Ignorant Armies Clash By Night

The EU has a flag and a theme tune- and that's all. It's quite a good flag but it has never flown over a battlefield or marched in a victory parade and people have no emotional investment in it. The theme tune is as good as it gets- but it's not the EU's exclusive property; it's on loan from Beethoven's 9th Symphony.

For a wannabe superstate the EU has been very poor at branding itself. It has no character, no flavour. Proper states have figureheads, leaders, heroes, icons, uniforms, histories, traditions, mythologies- and the EU has none. It doesn't even have iconic buildings. The British State has the Houses of Parliament and various royal palaces, the USA has the Capitol building and the White House. Where does the EU hang out and conduct its business? Haven't the foggiest.

The coming wrangle over Britain's membership of the EU will be all about abstracts- about policies and budgets and quotas and political philosophies. Where names are invoked they will be faceless because the EU doesn't have easily identifiable chiefs or ideologues It's like the presiding authority in a Kafka novel; who's the King of the Castle? Nobody knows. For the average punter who thinks in terms of symbols and personalities (myself for instance) the debate is going to be very hard to follow. It'll be like watching a battle in the clouds between armies of ghosts.

Naming Storms

It feels a bit twee to be giving human names to storms. On the whole I'd rather we didn't. The Met Office says it aids communication if every storm is given an officially sanctioned name because otherwise local people give them local names and people in Cornwall may not realise they're're talking about the same event as people on Barra. Yes, well, that's a danger we obviously need to avoid. Me, I just think they're conforming to American practice because they think it's cool

The naming of storms started last November with Abigail- and we're currently being battered by Imogen. Names have associations. Abigail, Barney, Clodagh, Desmond, Eva, Frank, Gertrude and Henry didn't do much for me but every time I hear Imogen I think, "Fear no more the heat of the sun, nor the furious winter's rages" which is nice- and even vaguely applicable. Next up is Jake...