It's not very Christmassy. There are going to be fewer trains. We shall have to work longer before we retire. The Americans are coming to Fylingdales.
And by the time you read this Cherie Blair may have resigned as the prime minister's wife.
How to cheer everyone up? Monday's hunting debate had its comic side. Funniest anti was Desmond Turner (Lab, Brighton Kemptown). His chief objection seemed to be the silly clothes people wear to do it. And he came up with the line: "One of the blessings of foot and mouth was that, for a long time, hunting could not take place."
He takes an unusual view of animal welfare, does Dr Turner.
Chief comic for the pro hunters was Gregory "It's the way I tell them" Barker (Con, Bexhill & Battle), with the absurd "the Bill owes nothing to the third way but everything to the Third Reich".
Lembit Öpik said it would be to MPs' shame if they sought to regulate on the basis of emotion rather than on the facts. They did, and it was.
But there was good news on Monday. Please sit down before you read this next bit: the government realised it had got something wrong and promised to change its mind. Well, almost.
Kim Howells is the minister for tourism, film and broadcasting, more commonly known by the communist-sounding title "minister for culture". Which is appropriate, as he used to be a communist.
He recently spoke up for socialist realism by calling the Turner Prize finalists "cold, mechanical, conceptual bullshit". This would have caused a row about state interference in the arts if it were not for the fact that they were cold, mechanical, conceptual bullshit.
But on Monday Howells was the hero. The government had planned to make churches pay for entertainment licences if they wanted to put on anything other than a service. These would cost hundreds or even thousands of pounds. (Informed sources suggest the money was to be used to make the Bible more inclusive and retrain choirboys for the global knowledge economy.)
In the face of opposition from all sides he beat what sounded remarkably like a graceful retreat: "I ask the hon. Gentleman to hold his fire until we have reconsidered our position on the matter."
It may not look much, but this was the government promising to reconsider something. It must be Christmas after all.
David Blunkett had to miss Monday business because of an operation on his oesophagus. It would be nice to think his government's extradition bill had struck in his craw, but somehow we doubt it.
Introducing the second reading of the bill, John Denham said it was inteneded to reform and, yes, modernise our law. And it also seeks to harmonise extradition law across Europe. Which does not mean that Cherie Blair will make enquiries on your behalf whether you are held in Hull or Helsinki.
It means that you will be able to be arrested in Britain for all sorts of ill-defined offences. There's xenophobia, sabotage (a popular charge with Stalin), computer-related crime, environmental crime, swindling and making rude jokes about Romano Prodi.
This week's special guest Simon Hoggart writes: "I made that last one up."
Thank you, Simon.
It is not that the British system is best. Our practice of gaoling foreign nationals without charge and our miscarriages of justice must alarm observers.
But, despite what generations of North London intellectuals would have you believe, not everything British is bad either. Yes, Europeans have an inquisitorial system, pavement cafés and more adventurous sex lives, but there is something to be said for our jury system and lay magistrates too.
For justice must not only be seen to be done, it must be felt to be done. There are different systems, with different standards across Europe. But the system people feel comfortable with, which strikes them as the most just, is likely to be the one they have grown up with.
So, you can understand the Greeks' sensitivities over planespotting if you know anything of their recent history. But that does not mean that British voters will think it just when Inspector Knackeropolous turns up to arrest some poor bunch of anoraks.
There must be international co-operation against terrorism. And where there is a particular problem countries can get together to solve it. That is what Britain and Spain did over the Cost Del Crime.
But like many European causes, international justice attracts those who want standardisation for its own sake. People who would once have been doctrinaire socialists.
Above all, this debate reminds us that modern governments have more in common with each other than they do with their own people.
It can't be much fun to feel left behind by history. Take the Democratic Unionists. On Monday they had the chance to choose the subject for a debate. As usual they chose policing in Northern Ireland.
The Reverend Ian Paisley - or "THE REVEREND IAN PAISLEY", as he would say - spoke…
You see, you are smiling already. There is something about the Ulster Unionists which amuses the rest of us. Partly it's the accent: partly it's because they remain patriotic to a degree that is now embarrassing. But mainly it's because they seem so outdated.
Like a good Liberal Democrat, I support John Hume when he talks about leaving the past behind and building a new future together. But I also wonder how that sounds when you have so much to remember.
While the rest of the world is engaged in a war on terrorism, the Unionists are told they should accept Martin McGuinness as education minister. This is the man who recently called people who said the IRA was about to disband "mischievous".
It would not be a problem for the average Guardian reader, who has always been more angry about the 11-plus than terrorism. But for those who have lived with terrorism, it takes a magnanimity that few of us are called upon to show.
But we Liberals can be remarkably intolerant of people who do not fit into our vision of the future. Think of how we treat people who are not as fond of the European Union or the single currency as we are.
Either we talk airily about planes on runways and trains leaving stations, or we laugh at them for being old-fashioned and Little Englanders. The one thing we don't do is seriously engage with their arguments.
In large part this is because we have made such an investment in Europe. We were the first party to support British membership of the Common Market. And the conviction that we were more far-sighted than the other parties sustained us through all the years of jokes about taxis and telephone boxes and bar stools.
One lesson we may have to learn in our postmodern, multicultural world is the need to respect everyone. Even those we expect to be left behind by history.