THE surest way to escape from the waking nightmare of Brexiting Britain is to have a little nap.
It's long been my cast iron method of dodging the worst of life to have a snooze, a little unconscious procrastinate.
As long as Boris Johnson doesn't loom into one's subconscious, asleep is the best place to be.
So there was Jeremy Corbyn, a man after my own heart, having a wee shut eye on the train up to Scotland. Nothing remarkable about that.
After all, hasn't Jacob Rees-Mogg survived the scandal of a scornful slouch on the green benches in the House of Commons? The Right Honourable Member took up three seats with his horizontal pose, giving the appearance of waiting for Nanny to come and tuck him in.
Anna Turley, the Labour MP, called Rees-Mogg’s lounging the “physical embodiment of arrogance, entitlement, disrespect and contempt for our parliament”.
To be fair, the Leader of the House had had a long day, having to wait out a Brexit debate, only one of the most consequential in parliamentary history.
And there was Sir Desmond Swayne last year having 40 winks during a speech by colleague Ken Clarke in the House of Commons. Or, a wee 30 seconds, as Sir Desmond later claimed. "It happened," he said, expressing annoyance at himself after being pictured with his head lolling on his shoulder, "And it won't happen again."
His excuse, he said, was a "very long day". It was an interesting excuse, given that one was expecting a detailed summary of how he had been up early dealing with parliamentary business. In fact, he'd been up at 5.30am for a dip in the Serpentine before work. I can't say that's much of an excuse but I'm ill equipped to judge, given I'll happily nap on the floor of a public toilet if the mood takes me.
Speaking after his colleague had been caught asleep on the job, fellow Tory MP Bernard Jenkins said back in the bad old days, before Commons proceedings were first televised in 1989, MPs used to use the Chamber for a nap.
"It's only the advent of television," Mr Jenkins said, "That means you can't go in to the House of Commons and have a snooze."
It's only the advent of smartphones turning everyone and their granny into a paparazzo that allowed Corbyn to be caught using his commute to catch up on a bit of REM.
What an invasion of privacy to be photographed asleep. A mid-market newspaper published the picture with apparent disgust at Mr Corbyn snoozling away as England played the All Blacks.
Despite being out for the count, a Labour spokesman said "Jeremy followed the game and is delighted England won."
The leader of the opposition also tweeted that the game had been "an incredible team performance and hard-fought victory". What a let down. Honestly being the best policy here, the politician should have tweeted his congratulations and fronted up: "Missed the game, was having a well-earned nap."
Can't do that, though, as it's more socially acceptable to be caught fibbing than to be caught napping. The clue's in the phrase: "caught". And why?
Corbyn wasn't working, he was travelling. That's what train journeys are for, a little siesta. And bus journeys. People are less relaxed about napping while driving but folk can be funny about these things.
You're "caught" napping because of the negative stereotypes attached to daytime sleeping, that naps are signs of weakness and sloth. Yet who do we have in the opposite corner?
Maggie Thatcher advertised how little sleep she needed. Donald Trump boasts of only four hours a night. Hand me my bedsocks.
In Japan Jeremy Corbyn would be praised for his diligence in working himself to the point of exhaustion. Sleeping in public is a practice known as inemuri and is more acceptable than cancelling an engagement due to fatigue.
You can nap anywhere - shopping mall, cafe, public transport - as long as you aren't sprawled unsociably, violating more space than you need to. Take note, Rees-Mogg.
Inemuri, despite being an ancient practice, is a neat melding of the modern trend of praising the desire to be constantly, performatively busy, with holding naps as king.
It's been firmly established that naps are a positive step for good physical and emotional health. In the US employers such as Nike and Google have recognised the benefit of a well rested workforce for increased production. One has nap pods in its headquarters, the other has space for sleep or meditation.
It's a sensible way forward. Down with the shame of snoozing. Up with refreshing rests.
If we go for a December election, Labour should run on a promise of protected nap times for workers. A sleep pod in every workplace. It would be a dream ticket.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here