Guilt In All Directions, And Josh Takes Centre Stage

Josh does not take well to Max and I taking the piss about the National Skateboarding Championships. In fact, he goes so far as to say that it is our failure to encourage his talents which has made him the way he is. Then he storms off into town with the lads.  Max laughs, while I fall into a guilt-ridden slough of despond. This isn't helped by the fact that I won't get a reply from Johnny until Monday at the earliest. God knows how many copies of my photo his PA will have disseminated around the typing pool by then. I will be his staff's equivalent of Mr Beales. My buttocks might even adorn their dartboard, as The Boss' face does ours.

I'm so miserable that even Max notices, and suggests we go and have a coffee somewhere - so we plod down to Caffe Nero, where I ingest so much caffeine that I give myself palpitations. Max wants to know if I think The Boss will give me a pay-rise, now that I can prove that I'm so badly paid in comparison to most other MPs' employees. I say I rate my chances of that at zero, to which Max says he has now developed palpitations as well. The way our working lives are going, we'll have to rely on Connie to keep us soon. And she's only here for the summer!

We decide we can't afford to buy anything other than a coffee now that Max's job is in such jeopardy, so we might as well go home again. I feel even more guilty about the £20 I spent on underwear this week. You can't take that back for a refund either, unlike your wife. If Max found out..... I can't bear to think about it.

So, an hour after we left the house on our first date in weeks, Max and I are heading back home. We walk along in silence most of the way, until we reach the underpass on the way out of town. We've just passed through one of its steepish, sloping arms, when we're stopped in our tracks by a loud rumbling noise. As we stand still in the central circle, a skateboarder suddenly shoots out of another of the arms, waves, spins a few times and then roars gracefully past us, out into the other arm that leads in the direction of our house. We manage to spot that it's Josh' friend, Robbie, but honestly - blink, and you'd have missed it. It was all over so fast - even though Robbie was going uphill on the exit.

The rumbling doesn't diminish as much as it should, though, given that Robbie should be a fair distance away by now. In fact, it's intensifying, though it isn't as rhythmic as the earlier sound. Max and I continue to stand still in the central area, in case we're about to get taken out by a runaway trolley or something. We seem to wait for ever until, eventually, another skateboarder appears. He is veering all over the place and wobbling furiously. It's Josh. And it's agonising.

Max and I look at each other, both close to hysteria, and then back at Josh who doesn't acknowledge us at all. He's too busy concentrating on wobbling his way slowly - very, very slowly - out of the underpass. Just before he's out of earshot, it all becomes too much. Max lets out an explosive volley of laughter, and I sink against the wall, shaking. I am close to needing an incontinence pad.

"Our son, the skateboard champion," Max says. We are terrible parents.

Nasty Constituents, Oil Spills and Heavy Breathing

What on earth do the girls in the Westminster office do? Are they completely hopeless? In the morning, I receive an email from Carlotta saying that she's booked Mr Beales in for tomorrow's surgery, as Greg and I aren't answering the phone.

Wrong, you dingbat. Greg and I are screening the calls - which is a completely different thing - with the sole aim of avoiding having to give Mr Beales another surgery appointment so soon after his last one. We do try to leave the odd slot free for people with real problems, but it's constant battle, even without the London-based girls being pushovers. Marie-Louise is even more of a wimp than Carlotta.

To add insult to injury, Carlotta says she is going to complain to The Boss about it.

"I should not have to speak to people who are so rude that they make me cry," she says.

Mr Beales? Rude? He's a rank amateur compared to most of the usual suspects - and Carlotta doesn't seem to realise that she wouldn't have a job if it weren't for those "nasty constituents"?

"Those people are for you and Greg to deal with," she says. "I have Andrew's speeches to write."

"Carlotta, Andrew's a back-bencher, for Godsake, and no-one in the Chamber ever listens to a word he says."

This doesn't go down very well, and Carlotta does one of those exaggerated Spanish sighs that she's so good at.

It's not just that the girls are largely decorative: I wish they'd use pseudonyms too, because constituents are constantly moaning about why The Boss only employs "foreigners" in his Westminster office. He doesn't, but he does insist on long legs and an appearance which won't embarrass him at the Cinnamon Club.

Greg's so cross about the Mr Beales incident, that he decides to get his own back on Carlotta. He waits until lunchtime, then phones the Westminster office and leaves 25 "messages" on the answer-phone while the girls are out for their no-doubt glamorous lunch in the House.

The messages involve little more than heavy breathing, coupled with the odd menacing grunt and barking noise. I really hope Greg remembered to press 141 before he dialled.

Things don't get any better in the afternoon. Miss Chambers phones again, this time to complain that the Police aren't taking her latest incident report seriously and "are trying to imply that she has made a lot of enemies."

She goes on to say that she has never upset anyone. This is so delusional as to be almost funny - except that then she asks what kind of madman would post dog-poo through her letterbox?  I don't tell her that I am sitting in the office with exactly such a man.

In the evening, I get another email from Johnny. I don't tell Max, as I'm not at all sure that Johnny's not flirting with me now. It's very odd. You'd think he'd be too busy trying to sort out the Gulf oil disaster - all hands on deck in an emergency and all that.

Also, we have nothing in common, except being the same age and having been to the same school aeons ago, so I can't see what's in it for him - it's not as if The Boss can wield any influence over Obama. Or anyone, for that matter.

Johnny's attached a photo, but it's a bit of a disappointment. He's definitely not the dark-haired blue-eyed one from the school bus, but (just my luck) the mousy paperboy. And he's sitting in a mid-life crisis-style car, grinning inanely, and looking disturbingly like Vladimir Putin - though I suppose if you live and work in Russia, it's quite a good idea to look like someone who's well-connected. I wonder if Johnny looks as good as Putin in a judo suit.

I can't believe how pedestrian my life is, in comparison to his. He seems to be on a plane almost as much as on land, and says he's working flat-out so that he can retire at fifty-five. I haven't even decided what I want to do when I grow up, and my pension's going to be worth nothing, especially now that IPSA's making The Boss pay for it. (I'm expecting a nasty surprise on that one anytime soon.)

On top of that, I bet Max will trade me in before much longer - probably for Annoying Ellen if the sit-ups and mooning around in the garden are anything to go by. Then I won't even get half of his lousy pension and will have to work 'til I drop (or The Boss does).

At that point, I'll probably have to euthanase myself when I can't face another day without heat or food, spent wrapped in a blanket and wearing an incontinence pad. And all while Johnny will be sunning himself on the deck of the architect-designed home he's building for his retirement, and admiring his flash-git car collection.

Mind you, it's quite nice to have an International Director of a Global Oil Company flirting with me. It makes a change - though I do wish I could actually recall whatever it was we did together behind the Science Block.