E.T. - Make An Appointment To See Your MP. Everyone Else Is Doing So.

It's mayhem when I arrive at work. Greg's wearing a party hat with *Dan For Barnsley handwritten on it, and The Boss is glued to his mobile - phoning every LibDem he knows to congratulate them on their party's "historic result."

It takes all my powers of persuasion to calm things down in time for surgery, which is going to be double its normal length today, as so many people want to see The Boss. God knows why - constituents obviously have no idea how pointless MPs surgeries are.

First they make an appointment, and then they wait for days, or sometimes weeks, while worrying about how they are going to present their cases to Andrew.

Then, when the day of the appointment finally comes around, they travel to the office, where they have to sit in the waiting room with a load of the usual suspects, before finally being shown in to the presence of the great man, who is probably only half-listening anyway.

After being asked for a brief explanation of their problem - much briefer than they've anticipated - they then get five minutes of um-ing and ah-ing, followed by The Boss telling them to go home, stop worrying and to leave it us. (Us being a very relative term.)

So I have no idea why constituents put themselves through this farce - when all they really need to do is phone the office, or send us a letter, to achieve a better result three times as quickly. Unless they find Andrew much more appealing in the flesh than Greg and I do.

Mind you, I wouldn't want The Boss to always be spared the agonies of dealing with constituents, especially the usual suspects, who are out in force, thanks to the bloody National Archives. Dealing with (non) reality is character-building, after all.

"Bloody hell," says Andrew. "Does everyone want to talk about UFOs today? Is no-one interested in The Fightback?"

"Don't you ever watch the news?" I say. "I blame the BBC. And the Government, who've decided to close the department that investigates reports of sightings."

"Yeah," says Greg. "And we all know who has to handle this stuff instead of the *MOD now, don't we?"

The Boss looks blank, so Greg decides to bring him up to speed.

"MPs like you do, Andrew," he says. "Except that you don't have to deal with these nutters, because Molly and I do it for you. Sparing you the joys of people like Mr Aitchison, who phones up every time an alien appears at the foot of his bed. Or John Newman -"

"God, yes - he's the worst," I say. "Does he have to go into quite so much detail about where the aliens insert their probes?"

"Can't say I blame them," says Greg. "I'm often quite tempted to shove something up his jacksie too."

The Boss perks up at this. Some men never grow out of finding the mention of bottoms funny.

"I bet that's what Nick Clegg felt had happened to him," he says. "When he heard his Party had come in sixth."



*Dan Jarvis, winner of the Barnsley by-election - details here. Look away now if you're Nick Clegg.
*MOD - Ministry of Defence. Missing a number of Harrier Jump Jets and an aircraft carrier, as well as a department to investigate UFOs.

Feeling Hot, Hot, Hot. And Then Not, Not, Not.

Bloody hell, I've got to do something about Max's snoring. He woke me up God knows how many times last night. By 5:00am I was plotting to kill him, and I wasn't intending it to be quick and painless, either.

Then, this morning, he doesn't wake me up when I accidentally turn the alarm clock off, instead of hitting snooze - so I end up oversleeping and am ten minutes late for work. With the result that my membership of the Alarm Clock Britain club has been cancelled, according to Greg.

"Not funny," I say. "It's a bloody stupid phrase, and I don't want to be in Nick Clegg's club, anyway."

"Well, I don't know why he didn't stick with saying hard-working families," says Greg. "It was good enough for us, after all. Conveyed exactly the message we were trying to get across."

I look at him in disbelief.

"No, it didn't," I say. "Not after we'd overused it to the point where it even used to make me want to scream. Must have driven constituents bonkers, appearing in every paragraph of every bloody leaflet we sent out."

"Hmm," says Greg. "You might have a point there, actually. Some of them did mention it when we were campaigning in Easemount, but I wasn't sure if they were being sarcastic or not."

Given that you'd have been hard-pressed to find anyone with a job on that particular estate - even before the recession had really kicked in - I'm not surprised that its residents couldn't see the relevance of Labour's bloody mantra. Not that that excuses Nick Clegg's woeful alternative, though. Alarm Clock Britain is even worse.

Not only is it a pretty weak effort from a man with a background in PR, but I'm amazed by how out of touch he must be with the electorate, if he seriously thinks that the majority of them still use clocks rather than mobile phones to wake them up. Perhaps he should have set his to go off on New Year's Day instead of presumably sleeping though reports of the whole iPhone alarm debacle.

Anyway, I'm determined not to let the combination of lack of sleep and over-sleeping spoil today. It's the dawn of a new era, after all - although a certain Patrick Bateman lookalike doesn't seem to be aware of that. Am I the only person around here who keeps up with current affairs?

"What on earth's the matter with you?" says Greg, as he waits for me to finish shutting down my computer at closing time. "You haven't said 'fucksake' once - or kicked the filing cabinet. Not even when Mr Meeeeurghn phoned about his Argos vouchers."

"That's because I am both rejuvenated and filled with optimism," I say. "And the future suddenly seems a whole lot brighter."

Greg doesn't look at all convinced. In fact, he feels my forehead and makes me put my hands out straight in front of me to check if I've got  the shakes. Of course I haven't, although my right hand does twitch a bit from the effort not to form it into a fist and thump him after what happens next.

"Mood swings?" he says. "Menopause finally hit?"

"No, it bloody hasn't," I say. "Though thank you for reminding me. And anyway, when that longed-for event does eventually occur, there'll still be life beyond it now - thanks to Miriam O'Reilly."

"Oh," says Greg. "Her."

It's safe to say that he doesn't seem as pleased as I am at the BBC being ticked off for ageism. I'm amazed that they got away without being found guilty of sexism, too, given how many female presenters get pensioned off from our TV screens twenty-five years before their male peers, but I suppose that's probably another fight for another time.

Anyway, Miriam's "landmark victory" is very exciting in its own right, so I can't really understand Greg's muted reaction. You'd think he'd be delighted, given how much time he spends banging on about equalities when he's campaigning, or trying to impress women whom he'd like to date.

"Why the sour face?" I say. "You should approve of the Tribunal's findings as a matter of principle. And because it might save you from having to work with Vicky instead of me. Hopefully The Boss'll be less likely to find a way to give my job to her after this."

"True," says Greg. "It's just that I love Countryfile - and Julia Bradbury is seriously hot."

I am saddened to report that it seems that some forms of hot are more desirable than others. Those followed by the word "flush" still being akin to the kiss of death.