Diary of a Notting Hill Nobody
By Tamzin Lightwater MONDAY What a morning! Was having coffee with Jed's new PA, Janice. Lovely lady. V spiritual — although some might say a bit severelooking with the shaved head. Anyway, as Nigel says, she's 'taken a shine to me'. She tells me things that are troubling her and today she told me something's going on which she doesn't think is ethical. It seems Dave has been getting coaching from 'a senior Labour figure'. She made me swear a dozen different oaths — including one on Sesame's forthcoming dressage trials — before she told me who it was. Suffice to say that when she told me the name I swallowed a piece of mini muffin down into my windpipe. It was dreadful. The whole of Starbucks was in panic. Janice screamed at everyone to stand back, leapt on top of me from behind and performed a manoeuvre she said she learned in the TA. I don't know what was meant to happen but a piece of mini muffin shot out of my nose and landed on a gorgeous guy from the Institute for Fiscal Studies who was sitting at the next table. Think I would rather have choked to death.
Also she's broken one of my ribs. So am writing this from a real live A&E department. I must say, it's v efficient. Only had to wait ten minutes before being shown into a room with Fairtrade coffee. How on earth could we improve on that?!
TUESDAY Am shattered. Turns out the ten-minute wait was just to get on to the waiting list for the real wait. Followed by a wait for the wait for the X-ray queue. This is outrageous. Surely some sort of strict waiting-time target is needed? Must tell Mr Lansley.
Strange atmosphere in office. Wonky Tom and Poppy both reading A Bluffer's Guide to Liberalism and Nigel asleep in his chair with The Ashdown Diaries over his face.
Jed called a meeting, showed us some pie charts and declared that we had to 'roll with it, improvise, adapt to the environment, Darwin, sh*t happens, I Ching" Nigel says he's going through a Tom Cruise phase again. My ribs ache. Also, can't stop thinking about the coaching sessions. What I want to know is: does he come to us, or do we go to him? Is he really spilling the beans about Gordo? And can he really hate Gordo that much??
WEDNESDAY Lot of v bad taste jokes doing the rounds about hung parliaments and `the size of Dave's majority' not being all that we hoped it might be. Also everyone obsessed with boundaries all of a sudden. I don't know whether they mean the ones in hedge form, or the emotional sort, like the ones Sherwood the Life Coach tells me I should be putting down in front of Mummy. Either way it's doing my head in.
Matters not helped by another silly letter from Mr Farage, offering to enter into a pact with us 'if it helps'. Cheek. About to throw it away but Nigel snatched it off me and put it in a drawer muttering, 'We might need that'.
THURSDAY Bit depressed so popped into the Countdown to Brown unit for a spot of 'Pin the Blame on the Gordo'. Jed was in there throwing darts at Gordon's head. He wouldn't even put the blindfold on. Don't think he's quite grasped the point of it.
tamzin.lightwater@spectatm co.uk
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