Did you mean Brixham?

This year’s UK peregrinations have so far brought us to Brixham, staying in a house swap which lacks a potato peeler, ironing board, bathroom bin and, most surprising of all, wi-fi but these deficiencies are more than compensated for by the ever-changing view over the busy harbour. Before reaching here, as one does, we were researching stuff to do, and being reminded en route of the vagaries of a certain well-known search engine. Because Brixham includes the letters B,R,I and X we’d expected the usual confusion with Brixton but no – our internet searching habits caused a different message to pop up:

Did you mean Brexit?

Just goes to show what political anoraks we must be. This gave me cause for reflection on Brixham and Brexit. Now I do not know how the good citizens of Brixham voted in the referendum, though I have dark suspicions, but however they did there is no doubt that Brixham and Brexit have a lot of connections. Brixham is the port from which our gallant prawn fishermen head out to annoy the French. It is the port where William of Orange landed in 1688, an event which initially might be seen as cementing the relationship of these islands with mainland Europe but which led, if one traces a tortuous historical route, to the DUP. Incidentally, according to a harbourside pub, King Billy was offered a pint of bitter when he landed – not, as one might have expected, orange juice. Or better still, gin and orange. The most prominent building on the quayside is a restaurant called Rockfish, which I surmise is named after Rockfish Rogan, erstwhile hero of boys’ comics and scourge of the Hun. In the harbour lies a full scale replica of Sir Francis Drake’s ship Golden Hind, dwarfed by several of the trawlers, to my surprise, but still a potent reminder of what we can do to the Spaniards when they get uppity. And where did the BBC’s Panorama visit recently to illustrate the issues around a no-deal Brexit? That’s right. We went on a mackerel fishing trip the other day and caught nowt. The skipper didn’t blame the mainland Europeans for our failure, however, but a megapod of bottle-nosed dolphin who have hoovered up all the fish in Torbay for the time being. Still, once we’re out of the EU we will have the right to ban bottle-nosed dolphin from our inshore waters. Won’t we?

Brixham has thrown up a few more surprises. They really seem to like marching bands here. Oompahs rise from unseen quayside locations every evening. And we seem to have landed in the middle of some kind of Beard Festival.

Did you mean Beer Festival?

No, you heard it right. The number and variety of ridiculous forms of facial hair all gathered in one small town can’t just be normal daily life, can it? And to my regret we arrived just too late to witness the annual trawler race, which must be quite a spectacle.

Farewell to Brixham tomorrow. Farewell to Brexit might take a while longer but at least our travels are taking us in the right direction, up eventually to remain-voting Scotland. And while the cavortings and lies of our two would-be prime ministers and the boorish behaviour of Brexit Party MEPs is just par for the course, I did feel vindicated at my decision – based on little more than a toss of a coin – to vote Green rather than Lib Dem in the EU elections when the Lib Dem contingent turned up at the European Parliament wearing the infantile slogan “Bollocks to Brexit” on their yellow T-shirts.

Did you mean pollacks to Brixham?