Seduction by Foodyism Gets Out Of Hand, Plus The Dangers Of Leaning On Revolving Objects.

God, M&S have got a lot to answer for. And I've gone right off food.

It all starts when Max has to leave early for work this morning, and tells me he hasn't had time to make any sandwiches.

"That's okay," I say. "You can buy yours, and I'll make my own. I can easily slap a bit of *Dairylea between two slices of bread."

Max looks appalled by my lack of epicurean standards - yet again - but doesn't actually say anything in response. He just pats me several times on the shoulder. Rather too hard, as if I was a particularly blokey mate of his but, by the time I've thought of a suitably ironic comment, he's already left the house.

Honestly, romance is fast becoming something I can only recall in dreams. And then it's always Max who takes the role of Romeo. Johnny never shows up while I'm asleep and, even when I'm awake, I do wish he wouldn't insist on saying, "Keep up, woman" during virtual sex. It's hardly up there with *Shakespeare's Sonnets, is it?

It's time to do something about the emotional desert I'm bogged down in. (And yes, I do know that's an oxymoron. Apart from the first three letters, the word pretty much sums up how I feel, after what happens next.)

I decide that Max and I need to spend more quality time together - away from Josh and, most particularly, Dad - so I walk down to his shop to find out if he's free for lunch. I don't phone first, as it'll be a nice surprise. And there you have my first mistake.

There's no sign of Max on the ground floor, so I tiptoe up the stairs leading to the first, where his desk is situated in a far corner of the shop. I've forgotten to bring my distance glasses with me, so I can't quite see what's going on, but he appears to be busy with a customer. Maybe he's actually going to make a sale, and there'll be some commission at the end of the month!

It's best not to interrupt him when he's working, though - so I wander around a display of furniture at the other side of the room until I figure enough time to sell anything has elapsed. Then I start to walk towards his desk.

Oh, shit, shit, shit. That wasn't a customer. It was Bambi. Or is Bambi, to be more accurate - sitting perched on Max's desk and talking nineteen to the dozen. I'd love to know what she's talking about. Max looks positively rapt.

There's so much stock in the shop, that there's probably enough cover to allow me to make it almost as far as Max's desk without being spotted, if I'm very careful. I zig-zag my way across the floor, bending double while out in the open, and pausing behind various sofas and sideboards to recce the situation along the way.

Thank goodness for all the stalking practice I've had during Greg's DIY CRB Checks, that's all I can say. At least I do a better job than Special Forces did in Libya. William Hague will probably phone me next time he needs a hand.

I'm really close to my target by now, but I still can't hear what Bambi's saying. I can see the way she's crossing and uncrossing her legs all too well, though - and that annoying Princess Di thing of giving coy little glances from under her fringe.

There's nothing for it but to try to reach the rotating display stand directly opposite Max's desk. It's a good job I'm small enough to hide behind it, though I'm a bit worried about the CCTV camera overhead. Oh, well - needs must. And I'm used to denying the screamingly obvious, if it comes to that. I do work for an MP, after all.

My sang-froid seems to be wearing off a bit by the time I'm finally in position, though, and my heart's making such a racket that all I can hear is a worryingly-fast boom-boom noise, interspersed with that sounds like, "brownie" and "roast."

So I wait for my pulse to slow down, while my legs start to shake a bit as a result of standing stock-still. My ears are probably shaking too, from the effort of straining so hard to hear.

"And look at this, Max," says Bambi. "It's so-o-o good, you are going to want more."

What is the woman talking about? And what exactly is she offering Max? I try my best to work out what's going on, but this damned stand is so tall that I can't see over it, and I can't see through it, either. Not unless I can swivel it around a bit - about a quarter of a turn. It should only take a little push.

Oops. Oo-ops. Oh, bugger it.

"Molly," says Max. "What the hell are you doing down there?"

He helps me up, gathers the brochures that have fallen off the still-spinning stand, and then turns to Bambi, who is staring at me as if I am quite mad. Some people have no sense of when to leave the scene of an accident.

"Here you are, Max," she says, passing him a brown paper bag. "As I was trying to tell you - it's an organic Scotch Egg. With pepper, chilli and paprika. You could even say that it's orgasmic - so I know that you'll enjoy it."

Is that a wink, or do annoying women just have a tendency to twitch while using foodstuffs as tools for seduction? Dervla Bloody Kirwan has no idea what she started.



*Dairylea - viscous yellow cheesy spread, perfect for really lazy people like me, and for whom food is merely fuel.
*Shakespeare's Sonnets - rather better than the stuff Greg and I were forced to listen to at last week's poetry reading. And sadly absent from my daily life.

In Which Woolly-Headed Thinking Gets Me Absolutely Nowhere Fairly Quickly.

Bugger. I thought I'd got my mojo back there for a minute, thanks in no small part to last night's Newsnight. By which I don't mean Jeremy Paxman's possibly-accidental use of the Jeremy Hunt word, either.

"What the hell are you wearing on your head?" says Greg, when I walk into the office this morning.

"A woolly hat," I say. "As must be obvious."

Honestly, sometimes I wonder about that boy. He's as blind as a bat when he wears those coloured contact lenses.

"I can see that," he says. "But why are you wearing it? It's horrible."

"Because woolly hats are what activists are wearing now," I say. "And, as of last night, I count myself among them. And, anyway, I've only borrowed this from Josh until I can learn how to knit my own."

Greg stares at me, as I pause for effect before making my surprise announcement:

"I have got my political drive back."

"Let's see how long that lasts," he says, as the phones start ringing.

Then he steals my hat and throws it on top of the bookshelves while I'm stuck listening to Richard Levinson  who, as usual, insists on reading parts of the Daily Mail aloud.

Despite this provocation, I manage to resist falling prey to cynicism until lunchtime, when Greg suggests we make an executive decision to turn the phones off and take our lunch-breaks at the same time.

"Want to go for a quick drinky-boo?" he says, before retrieving my hat and passing it to me.

I'm sure there's no need for him to hold it between thumb and forefinger, as if it is something long-dead, but Greg takes no notice whatsoever of my scowl of disapproval. He just keeps talking:

"We can wash away the general hideousness of the mad, the bad, and the criminally insane - before we have to talk to them all over again this afternoon."

"Yes," I say. "But I have to go and buy some toothpaste first, now we've finally been paid. My mouth tastes like hell. I don't think salt is half as effective as Mum claimed it was when she had to use it to clean her teeth during the war."

"Well, d'uh," says Greg. "Of course it isn't any good. Otherwise Colgate wouldn't have made all that money, would they? Anyway, you go to Boots, while I go and get the drinks in. But hurry up."

He looks incredulous when I tell him that I am not going to Boots. And even more incredulous when I ask him to remind me to call Vodafone when I get back to the office - to cancel my contract.

"Huh?" he says. "Why? You're always telling me that Vodafone is the only network that gets a signal in the depths of Easemount. How are you going to phone 999 if you run into Steve Ellington during the next public meeting there? And you love Boots and your Advantage card. You won't get points like that anywhere else, you know."

Greg pauses to let what he obviously intends to be a killer blow sink in, then continues when he sees that I remain resolutely unmoved:

"And I wanted you to pick me up one of their meal deals while you were there. Why would you want to deprive me of my lunch, Mol? Haven't I suffered enough this morning? Why would you do this to me? Why? Why?"

Oh, for God's sake. Greg sounds just like Josh when he gets going.

"Because," I say,"Boots are cheating this country out of millions or squillions of pounds in tax -"

"Allegedly," says Greg, looking around nervously. He really does lack revolutionary spirit.

"Coward," I say. "And get this: I'm sure I read somewhere that the ex-Chairman of Boots is going to be in charge of commissioning for NHS Direct. Probably thanks to Andrew Bloody Lansley. So we we can't let pensioners and young people fight this battle on our behalf - we have to join in and make our views known. Although I am a bit worried I might be allergic to CS gas, given my tendency to Miss Chambers-related urticaria."

"You're bound to be," says Greg. "You react to everything. But hang on a minute, Mol - what's with the royal 'we'? Boots are the only people who stock my hair-gel. And what about Topshop? I bet you haven't thought about that!"

Oh, bugger, I haven't. Until now. Sometimes Greg is so annoying. Where else am I going to find adult clothes that don't absolutely drown me? Marks and Sparks might claim to sell a size 8 but it'd be labelled a size 14 in Topshop. And it'd be called a one-person festival tent in Millets. There's nothing for it, but some creative thinking.

"I shall have to make all my own clothes, then," I say. "Once I learn how to sew, seeing as Mum never taught me how to do that either. I do wish she hadn't been a bloody feminist. A raised consciousness is of no practical use to anyone."

Greg looks at me as if I am insane, but then he didn't have to spend his teenage evenings waiting hand and foot on a bunch of bra-less women drinking wine and eating loads of biscuits while discussing how their lives had been blighted by their husbands and children. (The 1970s weren't half as much fun if you fell into one of those two categories.)

"Anyway," I say, getting a grip on myself. "I'll deal with Philip Green once I've found an alternative source of freakishly-small outfits, seeing as you can get arrested for not wearing any clothes. In the meantime, I'll start with Boots and Vodafone. And so should you. Sod the meal deals, and bugger your hair gel, Greg. This is time to make a stand on behalf of all the working people in this country."

Sometimes I think Pete Carew might be right when he tries to persuade me that I'd make a much better MP than The Boss. Imagine me on an extra-large soap box right this minute!

"Except all those who'll lose their jobs if UKuncut succeed in closing down the shops that employ them, of course," says Greg.

Now I've had three gins, half of Greg's (really horrible) tuna and cucumber meal deal, and the arguments for and against revolution still aren't looking any bloody clearer. Sometimes strategic thinking isn't at all what it's cracked up to be.