The New Cold War And Strategies To Deal With It.

God, I had a terrible dream last night. I was standing outside the old Labour Party HQ in Millbank trying to hold the line against the massed troops of North Korea, who all looked like mini-Ellens. By myself, so this turned out about as well as you'd expect.

Those marching clones scare the shit out of me. I get the shivers every time I see them on the news, even when it isn't as freezing cold as it is today. They're much more frightening than the Russian soldiers who used to parade in front of Brezhnev* - probably because they look so much more focused. Like a demented band of pre-teen baton twirlers.

Anyway, my encounter with them leaves me with a sense of dread that lingers for most of the day. Mr Warner seems to be having the same problem. He comes to the office to tell me that TV Licensing still won't believe that he doesn't own a TV, and that things seems to be getting worse.

"Things are coming to a head," he says. "Everyone's out to get me now - including the bloody Council."

"Why do you think that?" I say.

"They haven't collected my rubbish for the last two months. Not since I wrote to TV Licensing and said I'd shoot anyone who tried to break into my flat. They must share information."

"Oh, I'm sure that's not the case. It's probably just a coincidence."

I make a note of the last date upon which he remembers his bin being emptied, and promise to see what I can do. Then I stand up and wait for Mr W to take the hint, but he just stays in his chair, fidgeting, and plucking at his clothing.

"Was there anything else?" I say.

Talk about a very bad move. Mr W stands up.

"Do you want to see my ulcer?" he says, as he drops his trousers.

Mr W's legs put me right off my lunch, so I donate my sandwich to the Greg winter stomach fuel fund and send Johnny an email instead. I attach a photo of my new haircut to give him a laugh.

"Wow. You look great," he says. "I'd be really proud to walk into a room with a woman who looked like that on my arm."

"Are you taking the piss?" I say. "I am already having a very bad day, so it's inadvisable."

"No. For Christ's sake, woman, can't you ever take a compliment? Thank you is the appropriate response."

Honestly - whatever must Johnny's wife look like if he thinks my haircut is okay? I apologise, anyway, and blame my grumpiness on the fact that, not only did I spend last night protecting the Labour Party from the North Koreans - singlehandedly -  but I am also freezing to death.

"What the hell are you talking about? North Koreans? And have you forgotten that I live in Russia?" he says. "Generally considered to be somewhat chillier than the UK?"

I have the last laugh on that one, though - as it turns out that it's colder here today than it is in bloody Moscow, although Johnny is quick to point out that it's much worse there in the depths of winter.

"Minus 10 is common," he says.

"Good job I don't live with you then," I say. "How on earth does your wife manage?"

"Oh, she has a mink coat."

The phones start ringing again then, so I don't manage to send my anti-fur response until after the office has closed. Johnny is completely undeterred.

"Yes, yes, PETA* and nasty fur coats - sometimes, darling, you are so predictable," he says. "But just wait until you've tried a winter here without one. You'll do a Naomi Campbell within days."

I'm not at all sure about this last comment. What's with the use of "you will" instead of "you would"? Mind you, with the Cold War that's raging at home at the moment, it's a very tempting thought.

Just imagine: instead of being Molly Bennett, overlooked wife and under-rated MP's caseworker, I could be Molly Hunter, wife of an adoring (if bossy) oil baron. I'd spend my life dancing at embassy parties and swanning around Moscow in designer clothes.

Including a fur coat which, even if I didn't object to it on moral grounds, would make me look like a Ewok. I suppose I'd better don my Primark jacket and head for home.


*Brezhnev, Leonid Ilyich. For those of you too young to remember him.
*PETA - People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, for whom Naomi Campbell was a spokesperson. Until she started wearing fur again.

The Necessity to Pass a Psychological Fitness Test Before Using the Phone.

God, the nutters are out in force today. Or on the phone, anyway. All the usual suspects call first thing - I think they store up all their bile over the weekend and are just bursting to vent it at someone by Monday morning. And I always seem to be the recipient of choice.

Miss Chambers is in full flood about her neighbours, who she still thinks are stealing her electricity. She claims they've rigged up some sort of Heath Robinson-style construction between her attic and theirs, and wants me to get the Police to take her seriously. This would be an impossible task, as she is completely barking mad.

Then Mr Beales phones. The conversation is the usual surreal experience, though this time it's not about his lousy photographs, which makes a change.

"Bloody speed cameras," he says, without preamble.

"Oh, yes?" I am bored already.

"I've been done for speeding!"

"And were you?" I stare out of the window and wonder what the hell I am doing with my life. "Speeding, I mean?"

"Well, yeah - but I wouldn't have been. That bloody policeman was hiding in a bush!"

Oh, for Godsake. I have absolutely no patience with people who complain about being caught speeding. As far as I'm concerned, it's simple - if you don't want to be caught, then don't bloody well do it.

"I should just pay the fine and have done with it, if I was you," I say. "Was that all?"

"No - of course it isn't all. He wasn't wearing his luminous jacket!"

"What's that got to do with it?" Now he's going to tell me that, if he'd seen the policeman, he'd have been able to slow down, and wouldn't have got a speeding ticket. I could make a living from predicting the future.

"Well, I wouldn't have hit him if I'd seen him, would I?" says Mr Beales, as if that was obvious.

At lunchtime, Johnny replies to the email I sent him after Max's stunt at the party. He's booked us rooms  - rooms, plural - at the Marriott County Hall for the week after next. Our dirty mid-week "weekend" suddenly seems a horribly real prospect, and I want to change my mind, until I recall Max moving in on Annoying Ellen's neck like a predatory, if semi-conscious, slug - at which point I reply,  saying only, "Send details and see you then."

I still can't decide where Max's offence rates on the scale of marital infidelity. How much does something count when you're so drunk that you probably don't know where your feet are, let alone whether you're married?

I don't have time to analyse the situation further, as the phones just won't stop ringing. Now everyone wants to know why they are personally paying for Ian Huntley to sue for damages, not to mention having to fund any payout he may eventually receive in compensation.

Of course, the daily PLP briefing* is no help on this. In fact, it's never any help on anything as far as I can tell. Not if you would actually like to be able to answer a constituent's question, rather than side-stepping it and boasting instead about the Party's achievements. I always assume the briefings are written by policy wonks in Millbank, and only with MPs and SpAds* in mind.

By the time I get home, I never want to answer a phone again - so of course, the landline rings as soon as Josh has let me into the house.

"Are you Bonjour Freight Shippers?" What is this man talking about?

"Um, no - "

"Well, this was the number I got from 1471. I checked the last caller after I got your answer-phone message, as your man forgot to leave a number."

"Er, sorry - who is speaking, please?" I have had enough of surrealism for one day, thank you very much.

"Mr O'Nyons."

"Well, I'm sorry, but I have no idea what you are talking about. There must be some mistake."

"No," says Mr O'Nyons, speaking very slowly as if I am a halfwit. "The man who left the message said that you had a large shipment of onions that you had been asked to deliver to me, and that you wanted to confirm my address. "

Oh, Christ. Onions. O'Nyons. Bloody hell, do I need this?

"I'm very sorry, but I have never heard of Bonjour Freight Shippers, and I can only assume that there must have been an error at the exchange." My MP's office voice does come in useful sometimes. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a family emergency to attend to."

I put the phone down, take a deep breath, and go upstairs. Josh is lying on his bed, laughing his head off.

"You are grounded," I say. "For the next ten years. And don't you dare touch that phone again while I am at work."

"You've got to admit it was funny, Mum," says Josh. "O'Nyons! What a muppet. Didn't mean to forget to put 141 in first, though."

I don't reply. I am married to a Botox Queen-snogger, I have Gary Glitter as a father, and I am raising a juvenile delinquent. I see nothing whatsoever to laugh about.



*SpAds - Special Advisors. Basically the same as me, but earning six times as much, and with better perks, and higher status. (And probably longer legs, too.)

*PLP briefings - daily email briefings from the Parliamentary Labour Party. Suffice to say that they are less than helpful to constituency caseworkers, as they provide "key messages" with which MPs and SpAds* can respond to media enquiries, but are little use in caseworkers' non-political role. We're expected to actually answer real questions! PLP briefings are also top secret - each page has the following warning attached: PLP briefings are the property of the Labour party. They are confidential and are for the use of registered members only. Any publishing or dissemination of PLP political briefing is prohibited and may be unlawful.

Disturbing Resemblances, Yachting Directors of Global Oil Companies, and Uncharacteristic Empathy.

God, why do I look so different in photographs to how I imagine I look? The Boss' website is being updated, to allow him to blog - asking for trouble - and I have to have a new photo taken. The result makes me look like Mr Burns in The Simpsons. When did I become a hunchback? Charles Laughton had nothing on me. I blame it on the weird position I have to adopt while talking on the phone to Miss Chambers and trying to preserve an ear-protecting distance from the receiver. Last night's misguided attempt at pole-dancing didn't help my posture much either, but what's a girl to do when her husband and son spend five hours in a lap dancing club on Father's Day? (Max claims they only went to the pub and that Josh is winding me up, but he looks suspiciously cheerful this morning.)

My photo could be worse, though - Greg looks exactly like Patrick Bateman in American Psycho in his, which may well be scarily accurate. He says he thinks he looks "damned attractive" and will scare off lunatics, so I can't persuade him to change it, but I'm not letting mine go anywhere except into the virtual trash. Am going to suggest the web designer uses the EMO-style photo that I sent to Johnny Hunter instead. The constituents probably won't notice that I have my eyes shut, or will think I'm wincing with empathy for their plights.

Actually, I am feeling rather uncharacteristically empathetic today. Anti-Social Behaviour is the order of most of the day's telephone calls. Such an idiotic term, which doesn't at all reflect the utter misery that is wreaked on so many by so few. If there's one thing I blame the Labour Government for, it was their complete inability to call a spade a spade. ASB sounds like a toddler tantrum, which drastically understates the case if our constituents are anything to go by. Whole estates terrorised and, even if we eventually get a result for distraught residents by getting a nightmare family evicted, it's only a matter of time until their new neighbours contact us, equally desperate.

Whenever the subject comes up at at dinner parties - which is pretty rare anyway - our friends look at me as if I'm making up examples for the sake of entertainment. East Northwick might as well be A Tale of Two Cities, for all the awareness of the underclass that those who live in its richer parishes have. When I mentioned the horse and the burnt-out cars in the front garden of Steve Ellington's place, David said, "Oh Molly, you are funny." He should have seen Edmund Beales' bloody Doberman. Bet there were three pit-bulls inside that house as well - Greg and I escaped by the skin of our teeth. I didn't even recall Mr Beales' shotgun licence until afterwards, so I suppose things could have been a whole lot worse.

Anyway, I'm getting sidetracked, which is what empathy does to the brain. You can't afford too much of it in my job but, getting back to ASB, there seems to be no meaningful deterrent at all. If the nightmare neighbours have children, they'll be re-housed straightaway even if they are evicted - to protect their children. What's even more depressing is how so many of the Council's Housing Officers seem to take the view that the desperate, reasonable residents are simply "moaning minnies." I'd find this rather less irritating if almost everyone who worked in the Housing Department didn't live miles away in rural bliss, as evidenced by their complete inability to get to work at the first hint of snow.

Greg is still determined that we finish what we started with our DIY CRB checks, despite the Beales Dog Debacle. I have agreed to think about it, mainly because the new door is the only security improvement The Boss has approved. This is a bit rich, when you consider that even his favourite drinking den in Millbank has better security than we do. Last time I went to meet him there - ostensibly to participate in interviewing Carlotta LongLegs - I was overcome by claustrophobia when I had to step inside one of those glass tube things, which seemed a horribly snug fit. Then I freaked out because I thought it was never going to open again. Considering how tiny I am, God knows how they vet any fat terror suspects. I'm probably not allowed to say "fat" either.

Just before I leave work for the day, Johnny sends me another email asking if I'm not talking to him. He's apparently been back in the UK for the weekend, on a yachting trip, and says it's a shame I didn't reply to his last message as we could have arranged to meet up. I obviously should have paid more attention to those reports about Tony Hayward on his yacht. (What kind of man calls his yacht Bob, for Godsake?) Maybe I'd have spotted a Putin lookalike hauling the mainstay, or whatever you do on a yacht - apart from falling mysteriously over the side when a pensions scandal threatens, of course. Obviously Johnny's earlier email suggesting a massage was directed at me. I'd tell him where to get off, if I didn't really need a massage to alleviate the pain in my neck caused by trying to spin round the spare curtain pole last night.

Families for Dummies

Good God. When I was watching Tv last night, there was a clip of Ed Balls before he got contact lenses. He was unrecognisable. Maybe I should get some?

I wonder how many other candidates there'll be for the Leadership by the end of the week, all pretending that they're part of one big happy family and will support whoever wins. I like Andy Burnham's eyelashes, but I'm not sure they qualify him to lead the Party.

Not that I'll get a vote anyway since I refused to renew my membership over the stupid Iraq dossier debacle. When I wrote to Millbank to express my disgust, I received a Direct Debit form in response, telling me that this was the most effective way to pay.

In the same envelope was a flyer describing the new policy of "listening." Obviously this does not include reading letters from disgruntled constituency staff - or even the general public, hence the election result.

Talking of happy families, the Press keep bemoaning the death of the extended family, but what they don't say is that it's just become over-extended due to divorce, so that people like me have to spend all their time phoning various parental figures.

You feel guilty for not phoning them, then you phone one and immediately feel guilty that you haven't phoned the other. Before you know it, that's the whole evening gone. I sometimes think it would be much easier to be an orphan. Then that makes me feel guilty too.

When your job involves spending all day taking calls from a collection of often-abusive nutcases and whingers, you don't perceive having a "nice long chat on the phone" in your leisure time as a good thing, no matter who it's with. However, today's been a bit quieter than usual - mainly due to a cunning plan I cooked up with Marie-Louise, The Boss's Diary Secretary.

She's crammed his diary chock-full of (largely pointless) meetings for the rest of this week. So Greg and I get a much-needed break from Andrew's phone calls today. We're all sick to death of listening to him moaning about why it is that no-one has approached him to stand for the leadership.

So, by the time I get home from work, I am less horrified by the sight of a phone than usual, so I decide I'd better call Mum and capitalise on this rare state of affairs. Then I remember it's Dad's turn, so I try him first.

"I went to B&Q today," he says. "Never going there again on a Thursday. Bloody awful."

"Why?' I say, somewhat bemused.

"Full of bloody wrinklies," he says. He is seventy-five, for God's sake.

After he has explained to me exactly what is wrong with the country - and asked me a hundred incomprehensible questions about the apparent foibles of his new computer - I finally manage to get him off the phone. One hour and forty-five minutes exactly.

I need three consecutive cigarettes before I can handle phoning Mum. She is unavailable - something to do with the painful buttock - so Ted chats to me for 5 minutes exactly and that's it. Result!

It's only 10:45pm. If I put off calling Stepmother Mark I until tomorrow night, I might catch the end of Question Time and be able to vent the day's aggression by shouting at the TV.

Best-laid plans and all that. I miss QT, when Dad phones back with "a quick computer question." Two hours later, I go onto Amazon and buy a copy of PCs for Dummies. I arrange for it to be sent directly to Dad, labelled: a gift from a well-wisher.