Triple Trump score

IT'S not often you can put a time, a date, a place and a name to the invention of a new word. Mostly they just spring out of the ether – or, more commonly these days, websites like 4chan or Reddit – and then creep into the lexicon until eventually some august and learned body like the Oxford English Dictionary or Stephen Fry takes notice. Then the word officially becomes A Thing You Can Say And People Under 40 Will Know What You Mean. “Chav” is an example.

Some people like to lay claim to the invention of a new word, or at the very least do not demur when a claim for invention is thrust upon them. Dig around the internet with the word “vajazzle” in your search field (but not too deeply – and stay off Google Images) and you'll find the blame/credit for it laid at the feet of actor Jennifer Love Hewitt. She used it in a book called The Day I Shot Cupid. Meanwhile the right to call themselves creator of the word “bling” seems to be the subject of an ongoing tug-of-war between rap acts Dana Lane and Cash Money Millionaires, neither of which anyone has heard of. Who's right? Who cares.

Still, none of these examples has a provenance which is absolutely beyond dispute. But the word “covfefe” does: it came into being at 5.06am precisely last Wednesday. We also know the where (1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington DC) and the who (Donald Trump, either late to bed or early to rise but tweeting nonetheless). Here's what he wrote: “Despite the constant negative press covfefe”. And there it ends.

The tweet was deleted a mere five hours later, but by then the internet was ablaze with this new word and, as The Donald didn't follow up his moment of lexicological inspiration with anything resembling a definition, the internet was also ablaze with possible meanings. Some had the ring of truth, others were plain bonkers – like the one suggesting Trump had just mistyped “coverage” and then fallen asleep. C'mon, nobody's that stupid, right?

My best guess is it means a word that can mean anything you want it to mean. That's certainly the definition I'll be sticking to when I lay it down on a triple word score in Scrabble (54 points, since you ask). How long it is before it's deemed acceptable in the world's greatest board game remains to be seen, however. Maybe the most powerful man in the world has some leverage in that regard.

A touché subject

POLITICAL events last week confirmed what I have long suspected: not only does Jeremy Corbyn look like Obi Wan Kenobi, he also displays many of the same virtues and powers as the Darth Vader-battling, Stormtrooper-befuddling, Luke Skywalker-befriending, Han Solo-humouring Jedi knight. Sure, Obi Wan Kercorbi has been holed up on an allotment growing soft fruit rather than in a cave on Tatooine, but that's the only difference.

Last week, for instance, he did battle on the One Show sofa, parrying a jibe about his interest in decorative manhole covers with a gnomic smile and a jar of his home-made jam. Touché!

Then, with a jab and a thrust, he set about the ruler of the evil Empire itself – or he would have done if she'd turned up for the leaders' debate. Instead he skewered the Lego Star Wars figure she sent in her place. Or was that Amber Rudd? It was hard to tell. Whatever: touché encore!

Then – because heroic deeds always come in threes – he girded his loins and prepared to face the question every politician dreads: Blur or Oasis? In an interview with the NME he plumped for Oasis, possibly because his wife shops there. Anyway, he's on the cover of the current edition – and that's a feat not even the real Obi Wan Kenobi ever managed.

Loathe thy neighbour

JK Rowling, a children's author, has tweeted that “covfefe” means friendship. In that case Robbie Williams, a pop star, and Jimmy Page, a rock star, could do with having a whole lotta the stuff dumped outside their front doors as a means of repairing neighbourly relations in whichever run-down part of West London they both have their mansions.

You see, Williams's £17.5 million hovel is in the process of having a 28ft by 16ft summer house added to its garden. According to his architects, it's a “humble gem”. According to his neighbours, of whom Page is one, it's not humble at all, and if it is a gem it's of the “visually obtrusive” sort that rises to 12ft at one point.

Page is not one of those to have lodged official complaints ahead of next month's expected planning decision. But he and Williams have previous where building work and extensions are concerned. Last year, in comments made off-air during a radio interview, Williams claimed that Page had spent four hours sitting outside his house with recording equipment hoping to catch his builders breaking noise regulations. “Honestly it’s like a mental illness,” he said. Ouch.

Perhaps JK Rowling can be of further help here. You may remember she ran into a little trouble in 2012 over her plan to spend £250,000 on a pair of 40ft high treehouses for her kids, trouble she dealt with (depending on who you believe) by trusting to the good judgement of the City of Edinburgh Council's planning department, or casting the Anteoculatia spell. Oh no, sorry: that turns a person's hair into antlers. I mean the other one, the one that deals with building regulations and bureaucrats. Either way, what she doesn't know about placating the neighbours probably isn't worth knowing. Pick up the phone, Robbie.

Zzzzzzzzzzz

IT was 50 years ago today (near as dammit, anyway) that The Beatles released Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, their epoch-making album – and 49 years ago today that people started marking the anniversary by banging on about how great it and its famous Peter Blake-designed cover is. I was already bored in 1987 when the first “tribute” album was released. By the time 2007's 40th anniversary version came along – Razorlight doing With A Little Help From My Friends, anyone? Thought not – I'd realised this was going to be one of those once-a-decade horrors I was just going to have to learn to live with, like moving house or having a biopsy or getting gubbed in a cup final. I mean has anyone under 25 even heard of The Beatles? Roll on 2027.