Turn On, Tune In, And Cop Out. (I Wish.)

Lightbulb moments are vastly over-rated. I've just had two of them and neither was enjoyable.

In the morning, Mr X phones to complain about his new council flat. Or, more specifically, about the lack of light bulbs in his new council flat. (I'm calling him Mr X because I'm too scared to risk naming him.)

Let's just say the conversation does not go well. My attempts to explain that he is expected to provide and fit his own light bulbs is interpreted as a combination of racism and discrimination; and then Mr X says that this is how he's been being treated ever since he arrived in the UK. From a previously war-torn part of Eastern Europe, which I'm also not willing to name.

Mr X is very het-up and becoming increasingly difficult to understand, so my asking him to repeat every other sentence really doesn't help. Eventually, he loses patience and starts yelling at me. Luckily the pitch isn't as ear-shattering as that which Miss Chambers can achieve, but what he says is much more worrying.

He's threatening to bomb the local housing office if he is not provided with light bulbs by the end of the day. I'd ignore it if he was one of the usual suspects, as they wouldn't have the faintest idea how to build a bomb - but Mr X seems an altogether different kettle of fish.

The detail he gives - not to mention the organisation of which he claims to be a member - makes his threat sound alarmingly credible, so now I am faced with a dilemma.

"Greg," I say. "I think I'm going to have to breach confidentiality again."

After I've explained why, Greg goes off on a rant about how refugees from war zones should be made to undergo counselling as part of the asylum process, so that they realise that they don't have to operate in the same way as may have become necessary in their homeland.

"Yeah, well - not helpful at this point," I say. "I don't think I'm likely to get Mr X any psychological help by this afternoon. I'll have to phone The Boss and get his permission to share the information instead."

"Huh. Good luck with that," says Greg. "Don't you remember what he was like about Mr Humphries? You got a right bollocking - just for giving a statement to the Police."

"Well, this time more people's lives might be on the line if I do nothing. So I haven't got any choice, have I?"

Honestly, imagine how cool it must be to have the sort of job where the biggest emergency you face is a collapsing bedstead. Not mentioning anyone's job in particular.

I pick up the phone and dial Andrew's number. There's no answer, so then I try his mobile - which goes straight to answer-phone. Brilliant. Mr X is probably assembling his bomb right this minute, while lots of unsuspecting housing officers sit calmly typing and drinking fruit tea.

I call Marie-Louise, who tells me that Andrew is in back-to-back meetings for the rest of the day, and has left his pager in the office. For God's sake - I give up. There's nothing for it but to make an executive decision, so I ring the Council and speak to the Head of Housing Services. Off the record, though I never really trust that anyone will honour that particular phrase.

After all that, it turns out that I needn't have worried. Or risked a bollocking. Apparently, Mr X phoned the Council and made the same threats, before he even called me. So the Police have been notified already, and the Housing Office is in the process of being evacuated.

All that's left for me to do is to try to extract a promise that someone from either the Police or the Council will let me know the outcome, but I don't have much faith that this will actually happen. Nor does Greg.

"They always bloody well forget about us," he says. "So I'm not leaving anything to chance."

He spends ages building a barricade in front of the door in case Mr X escapes the clutches of the Police and comes here to take his revenge. Joan knocks it down five minutes later when she comes in to ask for an up-to-date photo of The Boss for a newsletter. She says she didn't even notice it was there.

We're all so jumpy by now that no-one wants to answer the phone, in case it's Mr X again, so we decide to do it on a rota basis. Greg says he'll go first, Vicky's to go next,  and then it'll be my turn. And so on for the rest of the day - or that's the theory, anyway.

After Greg takes the first call - from Steve Ellington - the phone rings again.

"Your turn, Vicky," I say.

She shakes her head, and stray hairs go flying everywhere as usual.

"Count me out," she says. "I'm only a volunteer."

So it's my turn again. This time the caller's a lovely old lady called Mrs Worthington, who sounds very frail, but is scrupulously polite.

"So sorry to bother you, dear," she says. "But I don't know where else to turn."

"Don't worry about that," I say. "How can we help?"

"It's the lightbulbs in my flat."

For one insane moment, I imagine that Mr X has kidnapped Mrs Worthington and is holding her hostage until he is given a stock of lightbulbs, but then all becomes clear.

Mrs W tells me that she was widowed last year, very shortly after she and her late husband had exchanged their council house in the South East for a smaller one in Northwick - which has much higher ceilings.

As if the stress of bereavement and moving wasn't bad enough, she recently had a fall and is now barely able to walk, let alone climb on to a stool or use a ladder to reach the light-fittings.

"The last bulb went yesterday," she says. "And I don't know any of my neighbours, so I don't feel I can ask them for help. I don't like to bother people, and Fred and I were never blessed with any children."

"When you say 'the last bulb' - which room is it that has no lighting?" I say. Cooking by candlelight might be a bit hazardous, to say the least.

"Oh, all of them now, dear," she says. "That's why I had to phone you. I couldn't think who else to contact."

How desperately sad is that? When I finally get home - after checking behind me all the way to make sure Mr X isn't lurking in the shadows - I make a cup of tea, sit down and contemplate the height of our ceilings.

Then I climb onto a chair and try to reach the light fitting. It's miles away, so I try standing on the table, but I still can't reach the damned thing. Josh walks in and looks at me.

"What the hell are you doing, Mum?" he says.

"Trying to change a light bulb," I say. "By myself."

"You've got no chance of managing that. You're far too short. And anyway, this bulb's still working."

"That's not the point," I say. "I'm assessing the situation."

"Hopeless," is Josh's cruel verdict.

If he ever moves out, and then Max leaves me for James Bloody Blunt, I'll never see artificial light again.

An Epidemic of the Maladjusted....

I have new underwear - lots of it! It doesn't feel great - a bit cheap and scratchy - but as it only has to look acceptable in a photo, who cares? This cheers me up no end, and helps my blood pressure normalise after The Boss gives me a bollocking for "breaching Mr Humphries' confidentiality" by phoning the Police, and then giving a statement when asked to do so! Mr H, meanwhile, is in hospital on a section and hopefully getting some help at last. There is to be an injunction against him returning to the building, so everyone's relieved, except for The Boss, who rants as if he too needs to be sectioned during his phone-call - made from his nice, secure office in Westminster. I wouldn't mind so much, but he's never even met Mr H.

Greg phones James again. His Mum answers and says her son is far too shocked by yesterday's events to ever return to work, and that The Boss should know better than to expose staff to such outrageous risks. I should imagine James'll make doubly sure that any future internship is in the House of Commons, before he accepts it. Maybe he's even been put off politics for good, and will get himself a proper job instead. Every cloud has a silver lining.

Greg has to pack up all James' tea paraphernalia and his bowel medications, and post them back to him. Then he spots the Primark carrier bag on my desk and, before I know it, he's wearing my new lace boxer shorts. On his head. I should be cross, but the sight makes listening to Mr Beales' lengthy phone call oddly bearable. I think I may suggest that cranial knicker wearing is introduced nationwide as a contractual requirement for constituency staff. I'm never going to wear those pants myself now, though.

In the evening, I am in the bathroom, trying to photograph my own arse in the mirror - trickier than it sounds - when I'm interrupted by a phone call from Mum. She says that Dad has been phoning her a lot. What? He hasn't mentioned that to me, but Mum says that he apparently got her number from Connie - who'll tell anyone anything, the idiot. Now what the hell is going on? I like both my biological parents to stay nicely in their separate boxes, along with their matching and various new spouses. It's the bloody least they can do to compensate for making me the insecure maladjusted child of a broken home.