It’s enough to shake the currency markets to their foundations: Atticus has uncovered a serious flaw in the euro. The problem lies in the design of the coin. If you look on one side, you get some trivial nod of deference to the country from which the coin originates, but what unites them all is the map of Europe on the front.
And the country slap bang in the middle? Yes, Brexit Britain — which has never had any truck with the currency — sits proudly surrounded by all those Europeans soon to be our ex-friends.
So what happens after Britain leaves the EU? Will the latter adopt a Stalinist approach and airbrush us out? Or move us into the Atlantic and drag Ireland closer to France?
Of course, it could just hand all of the euros to Greece.
Then it would never see them again.
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Khan’s memory has gone to the dogs
Sadiq Khan appears to have a bad case of selective memory syndrome, so contagious among politicians. The London mayor damned Wandsworth council last week for allowing developers of Battersea power station to reduce the amount of “affordable housing” there to 9% (prices for the apartments they are building start at £650,000 for a one-bedroom flat).
But he made no mention of his own agreement to a development at the old Wimbledon dog track, where the proportion of affordable housing will be . . . 9%. Both well short of the 50% he promised in his election campaign. Maybe he has forgotten that, too.
Titbits
■ Lord Stoddart of Swindon has gallantly raised the banner on behalf of pensioners by asking the government what the value of the £10 Christmas bonus introduced in 1972 would be today if it had kept pace with average earnings. The answer is, by last year it would have been £202.
So if you have been claiming a state pension for, say, 25 years or so, you are justified in feeling a tad aggrieved.
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Lord Stoddart is 91.
■ The Commons Speaker, John Bercow, may have got it in the neck from tie companies after he ditched the requirement that all male MPs wear one in the chamber. But now Penrose London, which specialises in making men’s luxury accessories, has sent all 442 male MPs one of its woven silk ties.
One Conservative, delighted with his gift, said: “I hope the Speaker bans suits in the chamber next. Then perhaps I will have an entire new wardrobe by the end of the year.”
■ How do you deal with frontbenchers who yawn during prime minister’s questions? The chancellor, Philip Hammond, stifled a couple of epic ones while the first secretary of state, Damian Green, was standing in for Theresa May last week. Perhaps the former Tory leader Michael Howard could provide some advice. Should Green crack the whip or let it go?
“It never happened in my day,” he chuckled. No, Michael: when you spoke they were all asleep already.
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■ It is always gratifying to see youngsters with the self-awareness that the rest of us lack. Step forward singer Ed Sheeran. “Who the f*** wants me to sing about politics? I think if I started singing about political issues, people would be like, ‘Pipe down, mate — you’re 26,’ ” he said.
You certainly never heard that from the young Bob Dylan.