“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”

Not my words, obviously. The words of Charles Dickens and the first line of just one of his famous books I’ve never read.

Clearly, the first 12 words are one of those literary quotes which people just absorb by a kind of osmosis, so even if you’ve never read A Tale Of Two Cities, you can at least recite part of its opening line.

I used them in a recent chat with an old friend, while discussing the music, films and general experiences of our teenage years, but reading back the longer quote, realise they couldn’t be more applicable to the current state of affairs.

Funny, I’ve always thought of Dickens’ work as classics I don’t have time for, rather than timeless classics, but I never realised we were living in the New Dickensian period.

York Press:

Timeless: Dickens

The human race has never been more connected, more intelligent or more prosperous, but vast swathes of the population live in poverty, famine or war. What’s worse is their suffering could be ended if the right people wanted to, but they don’t.

In the West, we have the luxury of ignoring the damage done by the arms we sell or the wars we condone, instead tuning in to whatever song and dance variety programming, fake reality show or miserable soap opera is being broadcast at that moment.

British National Papers ignore facts to stir up a storm in a teacup over the fact that the word Easter only appears twice on an Easter egg box and 13,000 times on the National Trust website, while others manage to declare war on and offer cheap holidays to Spain in the very same edition.

The victors of a referendum talk about understanding, cohesion and tolerance, while declaring all-out war on the 48 per cent, the metric system and a passport they don’t like the colour of.

I didn’t want to focus on Brexit, but since that’s all we’re going to be doing for the next two years, I’m afraid it was unavoidable - rather like the process itself.

The will of some people will be carried out by a Prime Minister who never stood for election and who campaigned to Remain, and we all have to pretend that everything’s fine as we trundle inexorably into an unknown future.

However you voted, the break-up is real, and we’ve now got a very long and complicated process of divvying up hundreds of trade deals along with the CD collection.

York Press:

Bitter divorce: we'll be talking about Brexit for years, says columnist Dan

Obviously, we’ll keep Queen and Dire Straits, while they’ll be holding on to The Very Best Of Foreigner.

I’d love to be optimistic, but like many I’m still finding it difficult. It doesn’t help that some of those who are most optimistic about the post-Brexit future are sometimes people I don’t want to find myself agreeing with - though to be fair, many Brexiteers are perfectly rational, intelligent people. Truth be told I’m referring mainly to that pint-brandishing local radio presenter and part-time European Parliament gravy train-passenger whose name I won’t mention here.

Still, difficult or not, I know we don’t have a choice. From now on I’ll be crossing my fingers for the best of times, the age of wisdom, the season of light and the spring of hope.

And if it all ends up going as smoothly as the Foreign Secretary on a zipwire? Maybe I’ll just curl up with one of those classic books I never got round to reading.