Why I Have Nothing In Common With Anthony Blunt Or Attractive Russian Redheads.

As if toothache wasn't bad enough, now I've got hypothermia as well. And I am rubbish at keeping secrets.

There seems to be something wrong with my syntax, too - given that I didn't mean to imply that my toothache and hypothermia should only be revealed to MI5, (as well as to a dentist when I can afford to see one).  Other things, however, are supposed to be kept under wraps, but I seem to have forgotten that today. Anna Chapman I am not.

When I get up this morning, the house is freezing, and I have to add yet another thermal vest to the millions I'm already wearing. Then I can't move my arms at all, and anything resembling a waist has disappeared entirely.

I'm sitting on the sofa, talking to Max about poor old Alan Johnson and why decent people always get shafted - if that isn't an unfortunate phrase - when I notice something odd about the colour of my hands.

"What on earth's the matter with you?" he says. "Why are you shaking your arms around like that?"

"I can't feel them," I say. "At all. And my hands are blue. Am I having a heart attack?" (Max may occasionally be right when he claims that I get more like Mum by the day.)

He leans over and squeezes the tops of my arms.

"No," he says. "You're not. But the sleeves on that jumper are way too tight. What the hell have you got on underneath it? You've probably cut your circulation off."

"Five vests," I say. "One more than usual. But it's so cold that I had to put it on."

Max looks a bit shifty, and makes one of those non-committal grunting noises that are usually The Boss' speciality.

"What?" I say.

"Talking about the cold," he says. "It's because I've turned the heating off. We can't afford it at the moment."

Good God, is he mad? We only have the heating on for a couple of hours twice a day as it is, so it's not as if we're going over the top - unlike most of our friends, who just turn their thermostats up the moment it becomes too chilly to sit around wearing a t-shirt.

Maybe that's why they are always otherwise engaged when we invite them to come and stay during the winter. And why their waists are more visible than mine, and they haven't lost the use of their arms.

Anyway, now Max has really got me worried, so I give him one of my Infected looks to make it clear that anything other than The Whole Truth would be pointless, before I start questioning him.

"We both get paid within the next ten days," I say. "So surely we can have the heating on some of the time? We won't have to pay for it before then."

"Yes, well," he says. "That's sort of the point. I've just found out I'll only be getting my basic this month. Don't seem to have earned any commission, or only £20:00 anyway."

It is definitely not an exaggeration to say that you can feel it when you turn white with shock, though even that's probably a more attractive colour than the weird shade of grey that Max's face has suddenly become. He looks slightly less healthy than John Major did in Spitting Image.

"Oh, my God," I say. "Your basic? Just your basic?"

"Yes," says Max, as if that's all that needs to be said, which I suppose it should be. But I never know when to stop, as my sex-life seems to demonstrate all too clearly. Flogging a dead horse, I think they call it.

"Well, what the hell am I going to do about your birthday party, then?" I say.

"What birthday party?" says Max.

Now I see why no-one from the security services has ever tried to recruit me.

The Significance Of Talking To Someone Low-Paid As If They Were A Husky.

God, my tooth hurts. I can hardly think straight - and I can't even afford to go to the dentist. Why isn't NHS dentistry free at the point of delivery, like every other form of treatment? I can never understand it.

"It won't just be dentists that we'll have to pay to see soon," says Max, in a doom-laden voice. "What with these bloody NHS reforms. Do they think we're stupid?"

"Um," I say - which is about all I'm capable of, given the pain caused by moving my jaw. Not that I'm talking to Max anyway, given the petrol fiasco.

"Do the Tories really think we've forgotten what they did to the NHS last time? It's like the bloody 80s all over again," he says.

Then he glowers at the TV, and changes channel.

"I've had enough of the news," he says. "It's not as if it's ever good these days."

"I've had enough of my job too," says Josh, as he comes into the room. "And I bloody hate the general public."

I know exactly what he means but, as he's only just started working, I probably shouldn't encourage him. Even if that does mean saying a full sentence. I am a responsible parent, after all.

"That's a bit strong, Josh," I say. "What's happened to make you feel like that?"

"Where do you want me to start?"

Josh sighs even more loudly than Max does when I moan about the amount of TV we watch, and then goes on to explain that he had to serve a really unpleasant man just before his shift finished.

Apparently the guy wanted seven ice-creams, one for each of his five children -  or snotty nosed kids, as Josh puts it  - and two more for himself and his wife.

"Well, that doesn't sound too bad," I say. "Seeing as most of the profits in cinemas are made from over-priced food and drink, aren't they?"

"Yeah," says Josh. "But he'd left it 'til about a minute before the film started, and the ice cream was frozen so hard it was almost impossible to get out. So there I am, struggling to do it as fast as I can, when the scoop breaks. You won't believe what he said to me then."

Max and I both look curious, one of us far more convincingly than the other.

"Mush," says Josh. "Mush! As if I was a bloody dog."

"Rude bugger. He sounds a right chav to me," says Max, who's genuinely paying attention now. "Though I don't know how anyone can afford to go to the cinema these days, let alone buy seven ice-creams while they're at it."

"And cokes," says Josh. "Large ones. But he wasn't short of money, Dad. He was loaded. He pulled a great wad of notes out of his pocket and made a big deal of unfolding it in front of me, while muttering 'pay peanuts, get monkeys.'"

Oh, dear God, Max is right, isn't he? Only nine months since we got a Tory government and we're already back in Thatcher's 1980s. Max looks at me and says,

"You thinking what I'm thinking, Mol?"

"Um," I say. "Loadsamoney."



*Loadsamoney: if you're lucky enough to have been too young to live through the 80s, then here's an explanation of Harry Enfield's plasterer. I may suggest Josh considers learning a trade, once I can speak properly again. I have a feeling it would be much more useful than Film Studies, and probably more lucrative too.

Spontaneity, Prime Numbers And Filibustering. Not In That Order.

Honestly, sometimes Lords of the Realm get a bit above themselves. Talk about trying to make MPs' staff feel completely worthless!

Apparently we're all supposed to be invisible now, as well as underpaid and unappreciated. Not to mention being expected to donate our lunches to any passing MP, at least one of whom is quite patently suffering from a bad case of worms.

Greg's no more amused by the whole thing than I am.

"Did Carlotta text you about what Lord Howard said in the Lords?" he says, as soon as he arrives at work this morning. "She woke me up in the middle of the night."

"Yes, me too," I say. "I couldn't believe it. What a stupid man he is - unless he was talking in his sleep, of course."

"What on earth are you two talking about?" says Vicky. "Asleep? In the House of Lords? That's what peers normally do, isn't it?"

"Yes, but not in beds with duvets," I say. "Last night they were basically filibustering the Voting System Bill. They even resorted to discussing prime numbers at one point, or so Carlotta said."

For someone who claims to be interested in politics, rather than in just flirting with susceptible backbench MPs, Vicky's awfully badly-informed sometimes.

"What's filibustering?" she says. For God's sake, where does The Boss find these people?

Anyway, once I've explained, Vicky still looks none the wiser but, to her credit, returns to the really important point:

"So what did Lord Howard say about MPs' staff that annoyed you two so much?"

"He said - and I quote - that constituents will be upset if they think that MPs' staff are dealing with their concerns," I say.

"Seems the concept of voters wanting to be told the truth hasn't quite filtered through to everyone yet," says Greg. "Unless MPs are just worried about being had up under the Trades Descriptions Act. Maybe we should re-think using Andrew's auto-signature on 'his' letters, even though it'd be obvious to anyone but a muppet that it's only printed."

I'm not sure about that, actually. Constituents aren't half as aware of how MPs' offices work as we sometimes think they are. Even perfectly sensible ones seem to think that it really is their MP who handles their cases and that we caseworkers just take notes and then pass the information along. To the intellectual giants for whom we work.

It's probably part of the same syndrome as constituents' equally unshakeable belief - which they somehow sustain even while their television screens are showing live coverage of their MP sitting in the Commons Chamber during PMQs - that he or she is in their constituency seven days a bloody week.

"Too right," says Greg, when I mention it to him. "How many of the local tuition fees protests have been held on Thursdays when the House is sitting, for God's sake? You'd think university students could work out that it's only the poor old downtrodden staff that are stuck in the constituency offices mid-week."

Exactly. Poor old us - manning the barricades and not even recognised for our contribution. I can almost hear the violins. Unless Igor's outside with his balalaika.

"We have to know our place," says Greg, and goes out to buy extra chocolate, while I decide to cheer myself up by emailing Johnny. This doesn't make me feel any less downtrodden as, as soon as I tell him all about Max's mysterious fuel purchase, he's not impressed by my intelligence either.

"You're an idiot, Molly," he says. Admittedly affectionately, as far as I can tell, but even so...

"I am not," I say. "Max did have what could have been an innocent explanation."

"Your husband is clearly having an affair with that nymphomaniac, and you know it. Which makes your reluctance to take things further with me a bit ridiculous, don't you think? "

I don't think hitting a woman when she's down is very gentlemanly, but I don't say so. And I can't deny that Johnny has got a point.

I should face facts, accept that Max is definitely cheating, and get my own back, instead of always believing daft excuses about visits to Mrs Bloom - who just happens to live near Stalborough. Or so Max claimed when I confronted him late last night.

"I'm flying in to the UK next Wednesday," says Johnny. "So let's meet up again. We've been messing about for months, and I'm losing patience. Not to mention my sanity. You can't expect a man to live on emails and out-of-focus photographs for ever, however crazy about you I am."

God, I'm such a sucker for a compliment these days. Probably due to never getting any credit for anything I do - for which thanks, Lord Howard. I blame him for what happens next, which is that I decide that my life is sadly lacking in spontaneity, as well as acts of revenge.

"Okay, then," I say. "Let's do it."

As soon as I've pressed send, my stomach starts churning, and I want to get the email back. Why can't someone hurry up and invent a computer programme for that? It would save no end of people's bacon, not least that of MPs and inexperienced staff. Not that there's much chance of it happening any time soon - not now that Steve Jobs is on medical leave again.

So, after confirming that the offending email really is showing in my sent mail, and hasn't unaccountably but fortuitously hidden itself in my drafts folder instead, I sit and re-read it. My stomach feels a bit funny, and I really don't think I should clench my teeth like that.

"Argh, argh, argh," I say, as I re-read it for a second time. The noise may have been rather louder than I intended.

"What's up?" says Greg, appearing in the doorway. "And why the hell are you pulling that agonised face?"

I can't answer as by now I'm in literal as well as psychological pain. Can you crack a back tooth just by grimacing at your own stupidity?

"What's wrong with her?" says Vicky. As if I'm not even present. She'd make a good assistant to Lord Howard, now I come to think of it.

"Mol's doing the constituency office version of filbustering," says Greg. "Stress-related filling-busting."

Ha, ha, bloody ha. I'd hit back with a crushing rejoinder if I could bear to move my jaw.