Gorge on syrup pud and be glad

Rules looks as if it voted for Brexit, and now finds itself inside an eternal Christmas Eve, where it is always Christmas, and always Brexit. And what a gay Brexit, with swags and flounces and light bouncing through the windows on to Maiden Lane, like a child’s vision of hope. Or is it illusion? Does a chimney contain Arron Banks as Father Christmas with gifts in his sack marked ‘depression’, ‘delusion’ and ‘starvation’? Will he get stuck and go shouty-crackers on Twitter? Is Nigel Farage sipping a pint of lager, pretending to be a good elf? The sort of elf that politically alienated elves can identify with and follow, until they learn the depths of his betrayal and drink only tears, because the lager has gone and is not coming back, and neither, I must tell you, is the empire?

No matter, for we are in Rules, and nothing hurts in this tall Victorian house with its wonky rooms and faded staircases to unknowable attics.