MANY things are surprising. Others are astounding. However, it is not often you get the kind of truly jaw-dropping experience that was on offer this week when Prime Minister Theresa May, with a straight face, proclaimed there was a “new sense of optimism” around the Brexit negotiations.

This euphoric outpouring was prompted by what has been portrayed as a “gentleman’s agreement” on the terms of a divorce bill to enable the UK to proceed towards discussing future trade arrangements with the European Union. A bill totalling tens of billions of pounds.

The Leave camp would cost the UK far less if it would only be content with a giant Brexit theme park, and stay in the EU. A bit more of that later.

An EU spokesman declared this week that the bloc saw the joint report of Michel Barnier, the European Union’s chief negotiator on Brexit, and UK Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union David Davis as a “deal between gentlemen”, which was “fully backed and endorsed by the UK Government”.

And the spokesman emphasised European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker had shaken hands with Mrs May on the deal.

As with many of these things, the agreement seemed to raise more questions than answers about what had actually been achieved, and what happens next.

It was interesting to see the pound slide as financial markets digested news of the agreement. That seemed to speak volumes.

Of course, anything which makes a hard, cliff-edge Brexit less likely is to be welcomed. Especially given the seeming surge of British nationalism that has followed the Brexit vote, not to mention the continuing absence of awareness among many Brexiters of the economic damage already occurring from the Leave vote and the huge trouble still to come.

But we should certainly not get carried away about the tentative divorce settlement. Avoiding hard Brexit would be a relief. But it would most definitely fall far, far short of engendering a “new sense of optimism”.

In the context of the UK’s negotiations with the EU right now, the only thing that would really bring a “new sense of optimism” would be abandonment of the monumentally ill-judged Brexit project. Other than that, it is just a matter of gritty damage limitation, and that is not a cause for celebration.

Planet Brexit is a strange world. However, this week’s proclamation by Mrs May was still far enough away from reality to have a proper shock factor.

There has been plenty of Brexit reality in the economic indicators this week, if she cares to take a look.

Annual UK consumer prices index inflation rose to 3.1 per cent last month, its highest for nearly six years, from three per cent in October, official data showed. The annual CPI inflation rate was just 0.3 per cent in May last year, ahead of the EU membership referendum the following month.

Figures published by the Scottish Retail Consortium showed the value of sales last month was down by 0.6 per cent on November 2016.

The value of non-food sales, the more discretionary element of consumer spending, was in November down by 4.4 per cent on the same month of last year.

Meanwhile, official data showed households in Great Britain continue to suffer year-on-year falls in pay in real terms. This drop is a direct consequence of the plunge in sterling in the wake of last year’s Brexit vote, reflecting the UK’s much-diminished economic prospects.

The pound’s weakness has fuelled the surge in inflation that is hitting UK consumers so hard, and giving retailers justifiable cause for concern in this key festive trading period.

The UK economic backdrop is miserable. It seems a long time ago, given the turbulence, but remember that the Office for Budget Responsibility cut its UK growth projections sharply and hiked its forecasts of public sector borrowing only last month at the time of Chancellor Philip Hammond’s Budget. The Brexit vote figured significantly in the OBR projections.

It was a relief to see Mrs May suffer an embarrassing defeat in a key House of Commons vote on Wednesday night, meaning Parliament should have a greater say on the Brexit deal terms than the Conservative Government desired. However, while certainly welcome, this does not get us any further than trying to limit the inevitable economic and social damage from Brexit.

The Brexit camp argues tirelessly and tiresomely that a democratic decision was made by the UK electorate to leave the EU.

However, given the many baseless arguments on which the Brexit vote was secured and the mayhem that has ensued, the UK population could easily be given the opportunity of another, more considered vote and choose to stay in the EU.

That said, while the folly of the Brexit vote is all too evident by now, it is taking a long time to sink in with the Brexiters even though it is hitting their household budgets. Maybe many are in denial? Whatever the case, public support for leaving the EU has remained astonishingly solid given the unfolding grim reality of the situation, indicating that even the Brexit moderates have not yet shifted position.

Many, many Brexiters would surely feel annoyed at any failure of their drive to “take back control”, make Britain great again, and hark back to Victorian times and days of Empire, or whatever it is they think they are trying to achieve as they damage the UK economy.

The problem remains that the huge cost of leaving the EU is clear but the benefits claimed by the Brexiters remain as elusive as ever.

Perhaps we should debate public funding for the building of a major theme park where the arch-Brexiters could spend days celebrating the long-gone Britain some of them crave so much - a country that may never even have existed.

Maybe the odd trip to such an amusement park whenever they fancy would, for at least some of the zealots, be enough to scratch that itch of British nationalism or whatever it is that is driving them.

And the rest of us could get on with our daily lives, against a difficult economic backdrop, without making things a lot worse by leaving the EU.