A Case Of The Friday Wobbles, And A Great Idea To Help Small Businesses Comes To Nothing.

Ouf, I definitely shouldn't have eaten the Scotch egg that Max gave me because he was too riddled with guilt to eat it himself. I feel very odd indeed.

Mind you, I always feel a bit wobbly on Fridays - who wouldn't, with The Boss back from Westminster and constituency surgery to look forward to? God knows what that combination does to my blood pressure, but it can't be good.

It seems pathetic to be moaning about anything to do with life in Northwick in the light of the terrible events in Japan last night, though, doesn't it?

"We need to get our senses of proportion back," I say to Greg this morning, while we're walking into work - but he obviously isn't paying any attention to me. He's far too busy listening to the raised voices that are coming from our office.

"Have a nice time on Wednesday night, did you, Andrew?" says Vicky, in that sort of voice. (Her use of Andy seems to have bitten the dust.)

Greg puts his finger to his lips, and pulls me behind the coat-rack in the corridor. We stand very still and wait for what comes next.

"Um, no," says Andrew. "I don't know what you mean. I went to that do at the embassy, which was okay but a bit dull, so I left at 10:30pm and went back to the flat."

"So why didn't you answer either of your phones?" says Vicky. "I called you every half hour - almost all night."

I think this must have been a rhetorical question as, before The Boss can respond, Vicky comes hurtling out into the corridor, shouts, "Sod you!" and slams the door shut behind her. Then she grabs her coat and glares at Greg and me.

"Heard enough, you two?" she says.

"Yes, thanks," says Greg. "Safe to go in there now, is it?"

Vicky shrugs and walks off towards the stairwell, so Greg counts to fifty and then opens the door. Andrew's sitting at my desk, reading the local paper and chewing like mad. He tries to hide Greg's last bag of Haribos, but doesn't quite manage it in time.

"Morning, guys," he says, as if nothing at all has happened. "Looking forward to today? Lots more lovely constituents who hate the Coalition to sympathise with - can't be bad."

Honestly, only an MP would look forward to surgeries. Probably because they can get through the vast majority of the damned things purely by looking sympathetic and saying, "Ah," a lot. While muppets like me try to note down the garbled details of complicated cases, knowing that we're going to be the ones who have to do the follow-up work.

This scenario is a pretty accurate summary of what happens when we start seeing today's constituents straight after lunch. I show each person in, one at a time, while Andrew makes expansive gestures of welcome from the comfort of his chair. His legs are splayed and his tie askew, and I'm pretty sure there's a gravy stain on the bottom of it. No wonder he never makes GQ's Best-Dressed Man in Britain list.

Once the constituent is settled and starts to speak, The Boss then gives a virtuoso demonstration of sympathetic nodding - while I am left to frantically scribble down details of incomprehensible tax credit awards and overpayment demands; care home charges and a traveller family who apparently spend all their time re-spraying cars in the garden of their council house. It's a laugh a minute in this job.

Today, there's only one constituent in whom Andrew seems to take a genuine interest, and that's Jim Dixon - who is a self-employed carpet fitter working for most major retailers in the area. His business is going under, and he's just beginning to explain why, when Andrew jumps to a conclusion, as per bloody usual. That it's all the fault of the banks.

After listening to The Boss pontificating for what feels like hours about Stephen Hester's bonus and the banks' moral obligation to lend to small businesses, even the mild-mannered Jim looks as if he is going to explode. My head feels as if it already has.

"Andrew," I say. "Why don't you just let Mr Dixon tell us what his actual problem is?"

This earns me a grateful look from Jim, who goes on to describe the behaviour of the retailers who use his services. They're taking longer and longer to pay his invoices, and causing him major cash-flow problems in the process.

"How long are they making you wait?" asks Andrew, who has finally grasped what this is about. Or, at least, I hope he has.

"Our agreement is that payment is due within thirty days of the date of the invoice," says Jim. "And all the shops used to comply with that, at least most of the time. Until this last year. Then one of them wrote to me telling me that they weren't going to pay for ninety days, like it or not - and then all the others started pushing it as far as they could, as well. I've got bills that are still unpaid after nine or ten months."

"Bloody hell," says The Boss. Who may now be re-thinking his negative assessment of IPSA's turnaround of expenses payments. "I can see that would be problematic, to put it mildly."

"It is," says Jim. "Seeing as I still have to pay for everything up front. I can't exactly tell the filling station I'll pay for my petrol when my clients have paid me, can I? Or buy my family's food on tick?"

"No," says Andrew. "I suppose you can't. Bloody outrageous, that's what that is."

He sits and scratches his head for a moment, while looking optimistically at me. I'm starting to feel a bit sick - probably from that damned egg - so I just look straight back at him and concentrate on trying not to burp.

"We did something about this, though, didn't we, Molly?" says The Boss. "When we were in power, I mean."

"Well, sort-of," I say. "We legislated to allow small business people to apply charges for late payment if their bills weren't paid on time."

You'd swear that this had been Andrew's own idea, he looks so pleased to be reminded of it.

"Well, there you are, then, Jim," he says. "Problem solved. By your good old Labour government. Just slap a few charges on these bloody retailers and they'll soon -"

"Pay up, then tell me to bugger off and use someone else in future," says Jim. Which, not for the first time, seems to leave The Boss with nothing of any use to add to the debate. Or not before I have to excuse myself and head for the loo, anyway.

I have to repeat that particular journey so often over the course of the rest of the afternoon that eventually, Greg barges in to the Ladies' toilet to tell me that I might as well go home, for all the use I'm being. So now I have no idea if Andrew found a solution to Jim's problem, or not. The latter seems infinitely more likely than the former, based on past experience.

I suppose I'll find out on Monday morning, when I'll have to rely on Andrew's own notes to carry out whatever he suggested to Jim we would do - which is bound to be a total disaster, whatever it is. Which is a pretty good description of how I've spent my evening, too: on about two hundred more trips to the loo. (This poetry thing is awfully contagious.)

"You still throwing up, then, Mol?" says Max, at about 8:00pm, when he tries to open the bathroom door and finds it locked.

"Yes," I say. "Thanks to you, and that bloody Scotch egg of yours. Go away and leave me alone."

"I'd go to bed, if I were you," he says. "And take a bucket with you, too."

Huh. So it seems The Boss won't be the only one to have had an early night this week. Though I bet his was more fun than mine.

Trained monkeys, Dr Snuffleopagus and the Drama Queen.

Things are really looking up. Today's the last day of Recess, and The Boss still isn't speaking to me, so Greg has to do surgery again. The usual suspects seem to be otherwise occupied, and work is thoroughly uneventful - which is just how I like it.

To add to my joy, Josh phones at lunchtime to tell me he's got an interview at the cinema on Monday. Bloody hell. So all my worrying about his unemployability may have been for nothing.

I'm not used to everything going so well, so I get a bit nervous - with reason, as it turns out. My whole evening is interrupted by various members of my family. First Connie phones.

"I hate my new job," she says. "I wish I hadn't applied for this bloody internship now."

"Why?" I say. Doesn't she realise what an honour it was to be selected? There aren't many internships as prestigious as this, nor that are as well-paid. Connie's earning almost as much as Max - though I haven't told him that.

"A trained monkey could do what I'm doing," says Connie, hiccuping with outrage. "Or a robot. And my boss is awful."

"Oh, well - join the club on that one," I say. I am still working on the principle that, if it isn't cancer, shut up about it.

"He hates women, and only speaks to me when he has to, Mum." God, this is like deja-vu. My maternal sympathy finally kicks in.

"Oh, poor you, Connie," I say. "I know all about that one. Give it another week, and then speak to him about it if it doesn't get any better."

"I would, Mum," she says, "But I can't pronounce his name properly. I can't call him Dr Snuffleopagus, which is what it sounds like, can I?"

This might appear to be a minor problem, but Connie takes such things very seriously indeed. She was once reduced to tears of embarrassment when she phoned the kebab shop to place an order, and couldn't understand what the man who answered was saying. She couldn't handle asking him to repeat what he'd said more than twice, in case he thought she was taking the piss - so, instead, she lost the plot and had to pass the phone to Josh - who presumably reminded them that his father was dead, and negotiated a discount.

I finally calm Connie down a bit, and am looking forward to an early night, when I get a text from Dinah.

"I've had bad news," she says.

This doesn't sound like something to discuss by text message so I try to phone her, but she doesn't answer. Instead she texts again:

"I don't want to talk about it." Oh, for God's sake. I text back:

"Then why bloody well text me in the first place FFS*?" I am definitely becoming more impatient by the day.

There is a lull, and then three texts arrive in quick succession. In them, Dinah spells out her distress at being diagnosed with a serious illness when she saw her GP this morning. Now I feel terrible.

"God, I'm sorry, sis," I type. "What is it?"

Back comes the reply, as quick as a flash.

"HPD."

What the hell is that? I didn't even know Dinah was feeling ill. Or not any more than usual, anyway. Hypochondria runs in the family.

"Dinah, I've never heard of HPD, I'm sorry. What is it?"

"Histrionic Personality Disorder."

I almost collapse laughing. Max thinks I'm choking and starts trying to do the Heimlich manoeuvre on me, until I fight him off.

"What the hell's the matter with you?" he says. "Are you hysterical or something?"

"Probably," I say. "Dinah's just been diagnosed with Histrionic Personality Disorder."

"How did it take them so long to work that one out?" Max says. "That's just another word for Drama Queen-itis."

Later, I go onto Facebook to try to work out where Josh has gone for the evening, and notice that Dinah has updated her status. It now reads, "Dinah is finding it very hard to cope with her HPD diagnosis." I resist the temptation to leave a sarcastic comment, but the effort nearly kills me, and now I need a lie-down. Attention-seeking Facebook statuses always stress me out, even though I make it a matter of principle to ignore them. It's never a good idea to encourage nutters, whether at work or in your private life.

*FFS - for those of you over the age of thirty-five or who do not have teenage children to keep you abreast of what's hip and happening in text-speak, FFS means "for f*ck's sake."