Life is first boredom, then fear", the poet Philip Larkin wrote. The American satirist Edward Gorey put it even more graphically, "Life is intrinsically, well, boring and dangerous at the same time. At any given moment the floor may open up. Of course, it almost never does, that's what makes it so boring."
Life certainly hasn't been boring ever since the world's greatest negotiator became the leader of the free world. Alas, even he has realised that starting a war with a hostile nation of 90 million people is more complicated than buying an apartment block in Manhattan.
After having spent billions of dollars firing off million-dollar missiles to shoot down thousand-dollar drones and having fucked up the oil market and ruined relationships with the Middle East and tanked the world's economy and set inflation rising and disrupted global trade and made the whole world less safe and tied the US military up for who knows how long, all he has achieved is to totally and comprehensively change the first name of Iran’s leader from Ali Khamenei to Mojtaba Khamenei.
Lesser things have set off a chain reaction: on June 28, 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie were assassinated in Sarajevo. It started the war that was going to end all wars. The world's greatest negotiator has just started the war that may start many more wars.
The floor has opened up.
