BREXIT is going to be brilliant for introducing new words and concepts into our language. Who, for example, would have thought there could have been so much fun to be had over a customs union, as there has this week.

This week’s debate has also answered one of those burning questions that I never quite got round to asking: why do lorries have “TIR” in big blue and white letters on them?

The explanation emerged in the aftermath of Theresa May’s speech on Tuesday.

TIR stands for “Transports Internationaux Routiers”, a system that was set up by the United Nations in 1949 to help war-torn Europe recover through trade. If a consignment is in a sealed vehicle or container and its documentation – a “TIR carnet” – is correct, border officials can wave it through without inspecting it or levying any tariffs on its contents.

The TIR convention of 1975 has 70 signatories, and so its territory stretches from north America, across all Europe and into the Middle East and north Africa. A sealed cargo, therefore, can journey over many frontiers by boat, road and rail without being bothered by customs officials.

In 2013, there were three million TIR carnets issued meaning there were 50,000 TIR border crossings a day – since 2013, Russia has become a little awkward, sending her army over borders as well as her lorries, and so in 2015, there were about 1.5m TIR carnets.

The EU single market made trans-border journeys even easier, but now we are out of that and on the margins of the customs union, we will have to fall back on TIR to ensure that our trade gets through.

So ubiquitous are the letters TIR that in some languages, Portuguese for one, the word “tir” means “big lorry”.

I AM delighted to see both Middlesbrough and Sunderland in the race to sign Hull City’s Scottish star Robert Snodgrass. Delighted because the boy Snodgrass is a talented player, and delighted because the surname Snodgrass is an entertaining word. Dickens must have thought so, too, as the only other Snodgrass I’ve encountered is Augustus Snodgrass in The Pickwick Papers.

According to my surname dictionary, “Snodgrass” is Scottish and it means grass that is smooth or sleek or, more probably, trimmed. It originates from a particularly smooth patch of grass in a bend in the River Garnock in Ayrshire.

Judging by £13m-rated Robert’s sleek facial hair, future generations of the family may be called Snodbeard.

NEWSPAPERS have always been troubled by letters that aren’t what they should be, so I was pleased to spot this in our sister paper, the Darlington & Stockton Times, of exactly 50 years ago. It appears the most important person in Bedale has been living off the fat of the land…