The Treaty of Le Goulet. Source.

As an arcane warmup for the France–England match tomorrow: one of my favourite expressions, outstanding in its entitled pomposity, is this description of Teresa May’s Brexit plan from the patronising patrician lips of The Haunted Pencil:

the greatest vassalage since King John paid homage to Phillip II at Le Goulet in 1200.

The Tree-Frog should know—he was there. Yup, he sure knows how to Get Down with the Kids. So that’s what they teach them at Eton, when they’re not busy hurling racist and sexist abuse at girls visiting from a state school. I wouldn’t know, I only did Woodwork at Skibbereen Comprehensive. *

I’d love to slip the bon mot (oops) into a chat over a pint at the Aardvark and Climbing Boot, but so far even “vassalage” has proved beyond me. Still, it might work as a new model of car (“Tesla Vassalage SR”), or in a catchy pop lyric—an early draft by Ken Dodd, perhaps, interpreted in the suave tones of Wee-Smug himself:

With this government one doesn’t need such a long memory as Tree-Frog, whoever the Prime Minister is this week, presiding over “the greatest fiasco since the day before yesterday”. May we be released forthwith from this Tory vassalage!

* My attachment to Skibbereen goes back to a rainy evening fuelled by inordinate quantities of Guinness on a Mozart opera tour, also memorable for a brilliant story at an Armagh pub session. I briefly flirted with the idea of applying for the Skibbereen Philharmonic, undeterred by the fact that there isn’t one.