I thought the following, from the Newcastle Courant of January 1777, might put a smile on faces and help people forget about Brexit:

“The melancholy accidents that have lately happened in consequence of mice getting into ladies’ hair in the night-time, the society of arts at their last meeting decided to offer a premium to the person who should invent the neatest and the most useful bed-side mouse-trap. We have the pleasure of informing our female readers that a silver-trap is now invented by Mr Moses Martingo, as in night-caps, made of silver ware, as flexible as gauze, and yet so strong that no mouse or even a rat can gnaw through them, there is so much demand for them Mr Martingo employs 40 hands in that branch only.”

Maureen Robinson,

Broadway, York