The big surprise when the Trump circus came back to town? How boring he has become

The old showman was angry, dull and mired in grievances when he went to court. His supporters had to supply the fun

It is a mark of Donald Trump's enduring grip on our nightmares that in the run-up to his court appearance on Tuesday the dominant conversational tone in New York wasn't one of schadenfreude, but anger - and not exclusively towards Trump. On public radio that morning, pundits speculated that publicity around the case had re-energised Trump's base.

I found myself muttering that this whole thing was a mistake. Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, had brought charges that were too thin, too obscure, too trivial in comparison with the real harm done by Trump. By summoning the circus back into town, Bragg had, effectively, said Beetlejuice three times, and now we would all have to suffer the consequences.