DAD'S Army is one of my favourite comedy programmes. Watching the British government's Brexit negotiations is another.
Unfortunately the laugh will be on us in Northern Ireland if the British government crashes out without a deal with the EU.
Whilst I have no obvious grounds for being optimistic I don't believe that the 'no deal' scenario will happen.
Talk is always tough ahead of final negotiations and there is an element of grandstanding.
The EU can't be seen to be giving into Mrs May's Chequers plan too easily because an enthusiastic endorsement will inevitably ignite those Euro-sceptical Tories already opposed to it.
That said, Mrs May will have to adapt the Chequers plan, despite arguing otherwise.
She may also have to ditch the DUP to gain the support of parliament. Euro-sceptics say the EU needs the UK more than the UK needs the EU - that's simply another big whopper from the Leave side.
The EU is the world's second largest economy and has created a free trade bloc that accounts for a third of the world's GDP. If the UK crashes out the EU it crashes out of that access too.
Brexiters also say that Ireland needs the UK more than the other way round.
There is some truth in that but it is far from the whole truth - Ireland's largest trading partner is with the EU 27, not the UK.
Ireland exports nearly as much to Belgium as Britain.
Ireland has also been able to foster strong economic relationships with America too.
Jacob Rees-Mogg is running around paraphrasing Corporal Jones of Dad's Army telling his Pall Mall buddies, "They don't like it up them, those continentals."
In reality those continentals are showing backbone.
Remarkably, the 27 EU nations have remained together and that should be worrying for those Brexiters offering the UK a rainbow future because it is a reflection of the strong antipathy in the international community towards Britain.
It is unlikely that former colonies are going to be enthusiastic about making the UK their priority trading partner when most particularly in Africa already trade more with China and Germany than the UK.
John Hume used to repeat a phrase that his father told him, "that a flag can't feed you".
But that is exactly the diet being offered by Jim Allister, Rees-Mogg, Sammy Wilson and hardline Brexiters.
There was a time when unionists believed they could wrap a union flag around a donkey and get it elected. They have backtracked to that same position.
Brexit is a 1950s' mentality projected by politicians who have not had a novel or fresh idea in over 40 years.
Last week a caller to a radio programme said: "Why all this pessimism about Brexit? Sure didn't we make the greatest ships, have the best textiles and rope works in the the world long before we were in the EU."
This isn't just rose-tinted nostalgia; it is a view jaundiced by a misplaced sense of entitlement and supremacy.
Those sunset industries weren't destroyed by the EU but by former British colonies in India and the Far East and the economic turbines of Japan, South Korea and China.
Britain is still a very significant economy but its success, like that of others is built on interdependence, not isolation.
There were once hundreds of car manufacturers in the UK - today there are 35.
Their supply chains are very different from 50 years ago. Parts come from all over the world and to avail of EU trade deals, 55 per cent of car parts have to have made in the EU.
Automotive industry chiefs have warned of the implications of 'no deal' to their businesses but their concerns are dismissed by Brexit fanatics.
Closer to home, the CEO of Bombardier said a no deal Brexit would mean the Belfast operation would have to stockpile £35 million of parts.
An apprentice tool fitter knows that is not how modern manufacturing works - but these concerns are washed over by politicians who make Widow Twankey seem like Stephen Hawking.
There is no doubt that the past two years have been amongst the most politically unsettling since the Second World War.
Unlike war, Brexit is an act of economic and, perhaps, national self-harm.
Mrs May needs a deal. Her credibility is on the line.
The depth of damage that Brexit luminaries appear willing to plunge us into seems unfathomable but as Einstein said: "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits."
