Why Brexit is old and Scottish

Not from the mouths of the negotiators, at least not yet - though judging from the manner of Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief banger of tabletops, earlier this week, his enigmatic facade may soon drop.

Exasperation can manifest in a range of facial expressions, and during the course of the apparently torturous negotiations to date - and the press conferences that have followed - Mr Barnier has exhibited a plethora of such.

Surely it is just a matter of time before his patience runs out and he starts in on the expletives. For this is a test of character that few will have the fortitude to endure.

So far then, the insults have come from the media in the the UK and on the continent.

Suddeutsche Zeitung in Germany went on the attack after the latest round of Brexit game show Who Blinks First? in Brussels this week, labelling the UK government as “dawdling and clueless”.

Sounds more like a description of the England football team to me.

The Sun, presuming to speak for all of us, hit back, calling EU negotiators “naive and ill-judged”. That is quite mild for The Sun, and suggests there is far more to come.

In the midst of all this unseemly squabbling, one must eke out small pleasures for oneself.

In this context, mine is the hope that someone in involved in all this, probably on this side of the pond, will employ in the service of insult what is perhaps my favourite word - quisquous.

I came across a derivation of it many years ago in a song. The Oxford Dictionary deems it to be of 17th Century Scottish origin, and states that it means ‘difficult to deal with, or difficult to settle’ or ‘perplexing’.

Thus, in the context of the Brexit negotiations, quisquous seems to fit perfectly. The UK’s David Davis has proved very able at quisquosity - or is that quisquousness? - while Mr Barnier appears to have made it his life’s work.

Keep it up gentlemen.