Given the general air of gloom and despondency, and the imminent arrival of the zombie apocalypse, some lighter news.

I found out on Thursday that the Legendary Tyler is returning to one of my watering holes. He’d been working in Stratford on Avon, but got into an altercation and gave somebody else a slapping. He insisted it was a slapping because the other guy was too young to hit. Tyler spent the night in the slammer, was still behind bars when he should have been at work… Hence at a loose end.

This is the hero who barred my mate for being boring. It will be good to have him back.

Just as good. Legendary Stuart, the village idiot, is also returning soon. You’ll remember him as the fibbing penguin pickerupper and sometime Voldemort impersonator. One of the most endearing blokes you could hope to meet.

Then a personal triumph. I managed to shave my head for the third day in a row without nicking the tricky bit immediately over my left ear. May not sound like much, but it stings like mad when I get it wrong.

Also on Thursday, some high jinx in the sleepy market town of Great Dunmow. A couple of hoodlums torched a car on the northern outskirts of the town. Gosh! It’s like an inner city here. Fort Apache the Bronx has nothing on Essex.

Then there was a heist. Yes there was. Twenty five big ones got boosted from a security van outside the local HSBC. That’s the last place I’d have chosen, because there’s a set of traffic lights about two yards down the road, so it would be hard to manoeuvre the getaway wheels into the queuing traffic. Still, 25gee is not to be sniffed at. I must ask Mr Whippy if he knows who did it. You remember him, don’t you? The guy who knocked over an ice cream van while at a holiday camp with this granddaughter.

And in the doom and uncertainty of the referendum result, a light in the gloom.

shit!