A decade ago Pullyman - aka Michael Cowin - was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease, a condition that affects people in different ways.

Well that’s the holiday done and dusted and I’m back at the desk.

Two weeks gone in a flash.

Do you remember the days when that was all the holidays you got? Two very short weeks.

People tell me that these days, six weeks is quite normal. Apparently, it’s to do with how you calculate a week.

If you have a fortnight’s holiday, and you normally work a five day week, your two weeks holiday only takes you away from the job for ten days.

Anyway, I probably haven’t been missed, so here we go again.

Recently, the Members of the House of Keys have been doing a bit of feather fluttering and it’s all the fault of Rob Callister. Good old Rob must have run out of blogs and has decided to try and spin a few new plates to wake us all up.

He mentioned the old chestnut called ’members expenses’ and then proceeded to list every one of his.

All very interesting I’m sure. But when it comes to the crunch, who really cares?

The list tells us that a new website cost him (us) the sum of £1,050. But I think that it should have told us who set the website up, as the next entry tells that backdating and updating this website cost another £1,100.

Two new suits and shirts was £560, which seems reasonable enough. But how many Christmas cards can you get for £137.92p?

Another item, listed as small donations, cost £215. I would be interested to know if this includes the ’penny for the guy’ kids outside the Co op, as this could technically be called trying to influence future voters.

But enough of all this trivia. Time to get serious.

Who can tell me what’s going on with this Brexit thing? It strikes me that, whatever happens, the Isle of Man is going to be the loser.

If, by some miracle, the UK Prime Minister and the European Union can agree on a happy ending to the current set-up, she stands little or no chance of selling the deal to her own Parliament. In fact, she stands little or no chance of selling the deal to her own party.

And if she somehow wins that miracle of miracles jack-pot, the final stumbling block will be the Northern Ireland and Eire border arrangement. Seeing as the Northern Ireland Assembly hasn’t met for nearly a year, I think that we all know where their brownie points will go to.

Factor into the equation the name Nicola Sturgeon, and I think that we will all agree that Theresa is well and truly up the May-pole.

So I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. No matter whatever happens, the Isle of Man is going to be a loser.

For example, if the UK is successful in achieving a clean break, there are sure to be some restrictions on what we once took for granted. Things such as freedom of travel to anywhere in Europe and the precision engineering products that we export to the UK and the EU.

If there are to be any customs or trade barriers, you don’t need three guesses to work out who will be picking up the bill.

Our finance industry could be priced out of existence, and the on-line gaming business that was once a firm favourite could now turn out to be an also-ran.

But surely if things were to change, there could be some advantages to the island. For a start we could renew the derogation on meat imports.

It has always seemed to me to be an absolute no brainer that we send most of the livestock that we produce away to the UK to be slaughtered and sold, and then import most of the meat that we need back from the UK, to be sold in our supermarkets.

And who knows, we might even see the day when Manx fishermen are allowed to catch fish in Manx waters.

But I suppose that two new suits and two new shirts for £560 does seem like good value.