AND so, as we drift aimlessly along in this post-Brexit torpor, even the rudiments like basic library services appear to be a pipe dream.

I’ll admit my Fairfield and Paddington roots kicked in when the Guardian’s newsdesk let slip that the bulk of the library cuts would happen south of the river.

However it would be churlish to suggest that the north-south divide, which saw our beloved ex-PM sprinkle cash over Tory-supporting Surrey, Hampshire and Hertfordshire in early 2016 while leaving the Labour heartlands bereft is being revisited in miniature either side of the Mersey here. Heaven forfend.

Libraries should be the inalienable right of anyone who dips their hand into the pocket for their rates, community charge and council tax, no matter what their postcode or bank balance.

All power to those who’ve taken it upon themselves to provide such services off their own back – their altruism is commendable – but it’s a line-in-the-sand issue, like picking up the bins and keeping kids in school, for most Guardian readers I suspect.

But then it has not been the best of weeks for our former Cheshire villages, what with the free hour’s car parking also being placed under threat for Lymm and Stockton Heath.

Here my sympathy for WBC runs a little drier, despite the heavy hand of Whitehall making misers out of every town hall.

For what may be recouped in scrapping the parking entitlement, vital for those who just want to nip into the village, it seems a piddling saving.

Especially when it could be dwarfed by the rates boost when the next enormo-drome is given planning permission off the M62. And as many council leaders tell me, that’s going to be the name of the game for future prosperity.

Stockton Heath has turned itself into a tidy little mini-Alderley Edge in recent years and I’m assured that Lymm still has plenty to offer. Seems a shame to spoil that for small margins.

Work commitments resulted in a late-season excursion to Blackpool last weekend.

Or to be more precise a lack of commitment in the work environment deposited left muggins on the Lancashire rather than Catalan coastline.

Braving a force nine gale on the Costa del Cold to even find the Wire game being broadcast, Podium placed its faith firmly in Walkabout, that Aussie bastion of RL which had served up the golden game time and again in a pinch.

But a triple-header of ra-ra had invaded their screens so it was a race across the street to The Litten Tree (a chain I was sure died off with Yates’s, another Blackpool stalwart).

And despite the effects of windlash and general disinterest all around – Connacht vs Glasgow Warriors diverted the Celts inside – it was well worth the effort.

Because whatever Jack Johnson, Sam Wilde, Declan Patton and Morgan Smith achieve in primrose and blue, this was truly the day boys became men.

While nay-sayers may point out the Dragons had little to play for that quartet, ably supported by ‘veterans’ like the Kings, Stefan Ratchford, Ben Currie and Kev Penny equipped themselves admirably. And you wouldn’t have guessed it was a dead rubber from some of the confrontations in the closing third.

Elsewhere everyone was raving about the Leythers returning to Super League – but this was the afternoon a young Wire side arrived – period.

And just to round off a pleasant evening, gliding down towards the South Pier in one of those new-fangled trams, I was able to share the victory briefly with a cheerful tourist, hair dyed in the famous colours, also enjoying the illuminations.