When I was growing up there was a man who lived up the road. Brigadier Something-or-Other was his name. He wore a bowler hat, read the Telegraph, took the same train every morning from Farnborough to Waterloo and sat in the same first class compartment. He was - as they say - something in the City. 

Then it all changed. Being something in the City meant something else. I remember Viv Stanshall in an interview lamenting the disappearance of 'insouciance'. 

Thatcher. Reagan. There are other names.

And now.

This week. Last week. And the week before that. A feeling of having watched something developing in slow motion. Each headline seems to have been written years ago yet only now coming to fruition. It's tempting to say "I told you so" but are my hands clean?