SOME lovely little asides have made this week’s Brexit debates, in the Commons and the courts, very followable.

I enjoyed Lard Pannick’s discussion of the 1892 Canadian crustacean confusion, when the captain of a British warship, HMS Emerald, shut down a Newfoundland lobster factory which he felt was contravening a treaty that the Queen had signed with the French government. Lord Pannick’s point, if I followed correctly, was that even then Royal prerogative could not enforce a foreign treaty – Parliamentary authority was required.

In the Commons, I enjoyed Michael Gove accusing Keir Starmer, who is Labour’s leading Brexit minister, of making a speech that was "40 minutes of pious vapouring; a hole in the air masquerading as an argument". Brilliant words, but rather rich given Gove’s role in a referendum that has so many holes in it that taxpayers’ money is flooding through them into the pockets of the lawyers who are being paid to sort it out.

Mr Starmer was in Newton Aycliffe last week, and I was struck by the smiles of moderate local party members as they met him. My Twitterfeed filled with messages asking when Mr Starmer was going to stand as party leader – Brexit may be the making of him.

Then Theresa May, who is fast becoming the mistress of vapid political slogans, said she wanted a “red, white and blue Brexit”. As she was standing on the deck of HMS Ocean at the time, she was presumably referring to the British flag, although the flags of France, Czech Republic, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Slovakia, Slovenia and Norway are all red, white and blue, so perhaps she wants us to unite with these European countries.

LibDem leader Tim Farron accused her of “jingoistic claptrap”. A great word, which entered the dictionary in 1878 via a musichall song, lustily sung by Gilbert H MacDermott, in support of Britain’s aggressive policy towards Russia.

The chorus went: “We don't want to fight, But by Jingo! if we do, We've got the ships, we've got the men, We've got the money too."

“Jingo” became the watchword of “the Jingoes” who patriotically backed the bellicose stance. In 150 years’ time, will “brexiteer” be in common usage as someone who cavaliers onwards to the detriment of his country, or will a “remoaner” be someone who with bad grace struggles to accept the will of his compatriots?

AT this time of year, I make a journey of discovery into the kitchenware department of Binns in the hope that I might find a new utensil for my wife so that she continues to know her place.

This year, I am quite tempted by a set five artfully-designed spoons, ladles and drainers that magnetically cling together in one gorgeous curve.

However, on Monday, I was in Thomas Watson’s auction house in Darlington where I encountered a pair of Victorian grotesque frog-shaped spoonwarmers. This was an eye-opener as I had never previously considered the need of spoons to be warmed.

From the 1860s, in pre-central heating days, when kitchens of stately homes were a long walk from dining rooms, everything possible was done to stop food cooling and gravy congealing. A servant would put boiling water in the frog’s belly, the spoons would go in through a hole in its back and frog’s face would gurn grotesquely at the guests while it kept the spoons warm.

There was so much table paraphernalia in Victorian times, that author Mary Braddon wrote of the “torment” of visiting a friend: “What with his radial carver, iris spoon-warmer, and folding cruets; his self-acting gravy-helper, excelsior asparagus-tongs, and duplex plate-warmer; his royal potato-parer, imperial cucumber-slicer, and oriental digester, to say nothing of patent wine-lifts, corkscrews, oxygen-generators, appetite-stimulators, and the rest of it, dining became a burden, and dessert a weariness of spirit.”

I’m sure my wife would like an imperial cucumber-slicer in her stocking…