you had to be there

So we all trooped down to Sunshine House to celebrate Sam's first birthday. He looked faintly perturbed by the whole thing. Luckily Sunshine House was playing host to actual sunshine, and there was a barbecue too, although on arrival we were told: 'Don't mention the burgers' , there having been some sort of burger-related crisis earlier on. Something to do with supply-and-demand issues; sanctions had had to be imposed... essentially, we were entering a war zone. Children, of whom there were quite a few, screamed. But then, that's mostly what they do. In response to these tensions I immediately dropped a beer bottle, just to watch it smash.

No, it was an accident of course, and ensured that I spent the first moments of the party in search of a dustpan and brush. This being Sunshine House, it was no ordinary dustpan and brush but some sort of fabulous contraption, and I had grave doubts about my ability to use it.

I needn't have worried.

Later, it seemed that an actual war had been declared because all the 'men' disappeared. However, this was something to do with a climbing frame further down the garden which had to be moved or assembled or something. I had witnessed men taking off their watches and solemnly handing them to their wives in preparation for this task. Which had alarmed me. Luckily, I had just speared a chorizo sausage when the call came, and I couldn't just abandon it, despite Mat's assurance that I would provide a vital hindrance to the task.

I haven't been down the end of that very large garden in years. Rumour has it that illegal immigrants toil in plantations down there, boosting the Sadler millions and occasionally being picked off by alligators from the swamp.

Our revels were not disturbed by alligators, only by a random spaniel which materialised on the lawn and ran madly about until Rhys persuaded it to leave. He was rather cagey about how he had managed to do this, but it was probably through one of the following methods:

1.) A 15-minute PowerPoint presentation explaining the finer points of social etiquette and the desirability of the spaniel's remaining in its own 'space'.

2.) The feeding of one randomly selected child to the spaniel. (As I said, there were quite a few there).

Kevin said, to everyone's surprise, that worms lived in lightbulbs.

80's revival

So the Tories are back in, their first act being to postpone EastEnders, since BBC coverage of the switchover overshot massively. First we were assured that EastEnders would follow immediately after the coverage had finished; then, when the coverage had finished, we were told that it wasn't going to be shown at all that day. Already we were being lied to.

Cameron's opening speech made mention of the elderly, the frail and the poor. Start running now, was the clear implication. If you can. There's something inhumanly bland about Cameron: stare at his face for too long and it threatens to shrivel into some hideous alien visage - specifically Michael Winner's.

No doubt Nick Clegg has already had his brain sucked dry by the Conservatoids. Poor Nick! He never really had a choice, though when he pretended to have one and did a bit of shopping around he was accused of being a 'harlot', of all things. As if jumping into bed with the first person you meet was somehow the reverse of that.

Meanwhile, the candidates for the Labour leadership are some people called Miliband (possibly it's the Steve Miller Band) and Balls. What kind of a choice is that?

I never liked The Joker.

Darts Match

We went down to Wales for the wedding of Rhys and Hadeel, Dave driving. As an experiment, and because Dave's ipod had run out of battery, my ipod (or 'deep throat' as I have named it) was used to provide the in-car 'entertainment'. However, it seems that prolonged exposure to 'my' music sends Dave into a trance, and from there swiftly into clinical depression and psychosis - the experiment was abandoned at Reading services.

Rhys was putting up decorations at the wedding venue. He was so very pleased to see us that he immediately fell off the table he'd been standing on. Luckily, he bounced back, and we spent the night before his wedding in the traditional manner, watching Mega-Shark Vs. Giant Octopus starring Debbie Gibson on the Horror Channel. No doubt we would all have got riotously drunk, except Rhys spilled beer on the sofa and had to rush out to buy Febreze.

The wedding venue was a pub called Ty Mawr. This means 'Big House' apparently. You can see why they didn't bother to translate it. When, pointing at the name on the menu, I asked Rhys what it meant, he thought I was indicating the special offer just beneath it and was surprised at my puzzlement at the notion of 'two main meals for £8.95'. Despite which, he was all geared up to launch into an explanation, and I really wish now that I'd let him.

The ceremony went smoothly enough. Mat did the best man's speech, seeing as he was the designated best man. Both Rami, Hadeel's brother, and Rhys did speeches before him, and I feared that they might steal his thunder. There was no need to worry, as Mat doesn't have any thunder. He doesn't 'do' thunder any more than he can grow facial hair (Amanda, he explained at one point during the day, can do that for him). He was simply, hilariously, himself. It's an act he's been perfecting for many years, while still managing to give the impression that he's just starting out.

The night ended really quite bizarrely with Mat and I caught up in a seemingly endless discussion (I would hesitate to call it an argument) about Science (Mat) versus not so much Religion or even Spirituality as my fuzzy idea of 'something more'. Since Mat chose to define Science as 'everything that has ever existed or ever will exist' I feel I did well in keeping it going for as long as it did. We ended up in the hotel, standing talking in front of the bar for what might have been hours before I finally suggested getting a drink. At which point he said no he didn't really want another drink, and we repaired to our rooms.

Everyone else had drifted off long ago, alienated by the discussion. It was not quite Mega-Shark vs. Giant Octopus, after all.

Speak up Brown, you're through

So Gordon Brown, not being content with probably being about to lose the election, seems determined to make a real effort to lose it, by ensuring that his off the cuff remarks about voters are recorded by Sky. He could still have tried harder - I would have hoped for something more along the lines of Catherine Tate's 'Nan' character - 'What a fucking liberty! Stupid cow!' Instead, he just called the woman a 'bigot', which at least meant that the formerly, supposedly, 'taboo' subject of immigration was now fair game. I watched BBC News patrolling Rochdale to discover whether people had views on immigration. One man was 'too angry to speak' (they didn't say if this was generally the case). Others were only too happy to do so (I summarise): 'They're coming over here, taking our jobs. They live on benefits and never do a stroke of work. In fact, we don't know what's the most aggravating thing about them: their tireless work ethic or their unbelievable laziness.' You quickly realised that the reason for the taboo was not to prevent 'rivers of blood' so much as a dreary grey drizzle of ill-thought through complaint.

Enter the BNP. We had a leaflet through the door in which Nick Griffin was pictured so close to Winston Churchill that they looked like a mythological beast with two fat heads. Churchill? Why not Hitler? Well apparently, after much discussion, they decided at BNP HQ that it wouldn't play as well.

Poor old Nick! Nobody ever asks him about his economic policies, they're too hung up on this slight indiscretion of him being a Nazi. For the record, I think their economic policy is as follows: get rid of all the immigrants and everything will be OK. However, I missed the party political broadcast. Lorraine said it was hilarious. A man in a turban was brought on, possibly at gunpoint, to express his enthusiastic support. Churchill appeared again (it says something about your campaign when the only celebrity endorsements you can get are from long-dead people) and there were lots of Spitfires zooming around. Perhaps their policy is to return the country to the 40's. This seems achievable: uninvent the internet, reintroduce rationing, close all the supermarkets. It would be like one big dull, endless, reality show - that never gets televised. No doubt the immigration problem, if there is one, will solve itself.