Summer solstice...

It’s the summer solstice today, apparently, though the weather is gloomy and overcast. I still can’t find anything positive to say about the referendum, except to wish it wasn’t happening. I can imagine positive futures - and negative futures - whether we vote in or out. Similarly, one scare story sounds much like another scare story; in that respect the ‘Leave’ and ‘Remain’ lobbies are level-pegging.

All we’ve succeeded in doing is unearthing a particularly nasty seam of political in-fighting. The referendum result is on a knife-edge, so even a ‘Remain’ win (which is what I expect) will hardly represent a ringing endorsement for our membership of the European Union. To the other members we’ll still be the awkward squad, the odd men out… and the divisions in our own country will be more pronounced, the rifts wider and harder to heal…

Pampered, over-paid Premiership players would no doubt find this pitch unacceptably waterlogged. Not Sir Tom Finney, though; he got stuck in (statue outside Preston FC)…