I have spent this breezy weekend leafleting in various parts of the ward, and not doing much else. That my life crumbles to nothingness the moment Tamsin leaves me is as much a testament to her qualities as it is to my inability to make friends. She is in France and so, leaflets aside, my companions at the moment are this computer and the television downstairs, with its litany of pointless channels. Yesterday there were humans involved as well, and there probably will be tomorrow too. But today, oddly, they were all doing other things, and I pottered about here like a lonely old man.

And now I feel guilty for not doing something worthwhile with my time today, like reading a book. Weighty tomes loom down on me from the bookcase, whispering “great men read serious works” whilst I thumb through the pictures in the Tommy Cooper biography, try not to notice that Barack Obama’s book is there just waiting to be started, and not even bother with either in the end. ”Gladstone didn’t spend his spare time watching Sky Sports News” they intone. And they’re right.

I received a call today from a resident, who asked me to do something which I am not entirely comfortable doing.

He lives on a quiet road which also serves as the route for an hourly bus. And he wants me to ask if I can divert it so that it goes down the next street instead. Apparently it shakes the ornaments in his living room as it goes past, and he’s not happy. I know where he lives, because we’ve spoken on his doorstep. I know that the view from the back garden of his house is so spectacular, perched overlooking the Irwell Valley for miles as it is, that if I lived there I wouldn’t care about buses. But he is obviously used to the view, and does care. And so now I have to too.

Now, I have no objection to asking the bus people to consider moving the bus route. The way the streets pan out in this particular location means that there is a perfectly acceptable alternative route 50 yards away which will make no difference to the journey, and all the difference in the world to this man. But obviously it will make precisely the opposite difference to the people on the next street who are suddenly lumbered with a bone-shaking introduction to bus travel every hour. Is this fair on them, I wonder? And will one of them ring me up and ask me to move the bus back where it came from? What should I do then?

Issues like this arise from time to time. Residents ask for things which I think are a bit odd or impractical, or which I know will annoy as many people as they please. I pass on these requests, because I was elected to be an advocate for people, and advocate their wishes I shall. But I was also elected as a community leader - as someone to cut through the issues to find the solutions. And there are few solutions that please everybody. So what should I do? Do I carry on passing on the requests, or do I turn round and say that, since I am just as much the Councillor for the bus-haters as I am for the people living quite peacefully free of buses, that my man should fight this war on his own?

After all, for every resident delighted that the bus is re-routed, there’s another one after my blood for cursing them with a bus. For every householder singing my praises for getting parking restrictions imposed, there’s another one sticking pins on things with my face on them for stopping their right to park. And for everyone pleased about this week’s bollard (myself included), there is an angry man who’s crashed into that bollard and now wants to uproot it and throw it through my window.

These issues are tough calls. And they’re so local that they’re pifflingly small-fry compared to exactly the same types of issues facing the national politicians every day of their lives. And at least when I tinker with a local bus route I don’t have the Daily Mail calling me a butcher whilst the Guardian calls me a saint.

So, the leader/advocate thing is a dilemma. At the moment I am advocating. And if it turns out that I have to advocate for both sides of the same argument, then I suppose I will have to leave logic behind for the good of the ward, and carry on regardless. I think it might be different on the bigger issues. I think maybe when it comes to taxes and housing and Europe and the NHS, maybe politicians should stop saying “yes” to everyone and act more like leaders than advocates. But for me and my bus route, I don’t think picking an argument is the best way forward.

And besides, I comfort myself with the fact that no matter how many people I annoy whilst trying to do the right thing, it doesn’t really matter because there’s a 70% chance they won’t be voting anyway.

Which, of course, is a whole different depressing ball game.

Rick

At my party on Saturday, a friend of mine who I’ve known since three minutes after I started university, and who has recently married, announced that she was now pregnant. I was overjoyed at the news, cooing around the place like a demented owl and generally doubting my own gender by getting the types of broody feelings I’m not sure men are biologically supposed to get. It was the best news I’d heard all year.

But now, two days and one clean-up later, I find myself asking how on earth this managed to happen. Obviously I have moved on from the biological now. My parents taught me about the dangers of baths that are too hot, and of cabbage patches years ago, and I tell Tam never to take such baths or eat such vegetables because I know we’re just not ready for children yet. No, I don’t mean how she managed to get pregnant in the first place, but how in the name of all that’s rational I came to be old enough not only to have friends who are married, but friends who are now carrying children of their own.

Does this sudden dismay happen to other people? Do others ever just stop for a moment and think about how many decades their inner-selves are from their outer-selves? Is there a cure?

Yesterday, and I mean, literally, yesterday, I was six years old. I lived in a house with my parents and sister, I went to primary school, and I played with a plastic football and Lego bricks. There is no way, NO WAY, that anyone in my peer group is now old enough to have a baby, without them being the talk of the town and rightly whisked off to a country house supervised by sadistic Irish nuns. And yet, it turns out that they are all old enough. How did this happen?

There was someone else at the party, a friend of Tam’s, who has gone through the whole pregnancy thing already, and emerged out the other end with a real child. A “Francesca” that breathes and cries and will soon walk and talk. How could she have done such a thing and survived? Here she is, with a baby, still managing to do normal things like engage in conversation and drive a car, and here I am struggling to come up with the necessary commitment to bung a pizza in the oven for 15 minutes. If I had an actual baby, I really don’t understand how I would be able to do anything other than act like a jibbering wreck.

I can pin-point the exact moment when we suddenly stopped being the young generation and started being the middle one. It was 19:50 on October 31st 2006, when the last of my grandparents died, and there was absolutely nothing and nobody standing between my parents and The Great Hereafter. The shield that separated my cosy little childhood from nasty things like time’s irritating ticking disappeared. But I didn’t have to do anything about it then. I could just pretend to still reside in kid-hood, because there was no-one beneath me coming up on the rails. Now that’s changed too, and there is no place in the play-pen left for me. I’m going to be shoved out of it by a gurgling newcomer who is the product of someone who was, last week, LAST WEEK I tell you, the 18 year old fresher at university tumbling about the place without a care in the world. And now she has travel-cots and stuff that pumps things. It’s unpleasant for any number of reasons.

I have a responsible job. I am elected to public office for God’s sake. People ask me to do things for them, and they get done. I debate issues that matter and people ask me for advice. And yet, in my head, I just can’t contemplate that it is even conceivable that a peer of mine is doing something this grown up. An actual baby, that will be here after we’re gone and will have babies of its own.  

I probably grossly undercooked a sausage or two at my party. I thought quite often about the mountain of debt it is necessary to tunnel into to afford the mortgage on the house. And I let two dozen people drink red wine near my cream sofas. But the one truly frightening thing about Saturday night was the thought that in six months time there’ll be a little one amongst us and we really really won’t be those kids who met on the first day of university any more.

Which would be a sad thought, were I not still absolutely gob-smacked with delight about the whole thing.

Rick

The continuing warm spell meant that last night I took advantage and mowed the lawn. The occasion also saw the juddering debut of my new strimmer. Such is the exciting life a Councillor leads in the week after an election.

So now my lawn has stripes on it, which I must admit are wavey in parts due to the fact that my lawnmower has the turning circle of an oil tanker, rendered even worse by the fact that in turning it I regularly ended up inside a shrub.

I have scheduled a barbecue for Saturday night, so expect that sky to turn black and start pelting the earth with rain like God’s own rage at about Saturday teatime.

Tonight is the Liberal Democract Council Group Annual General Meeting, where we decide who does what and how the Group is going to work for the coming year. It will be nice to see my colleagues’ brows looking less furrowed than when I saw them all last on election day (although they became visibly less creased as the results became clear).

And in the meantime, I must get back to work. Sadly not under a tree, but here in my office, which is so hot that I’m fairly certain there is liquid magma flowing through the radiators.

Rick

Now that the election is over, there is less need for me to spend every waking hour out on the streets, so of course God has warmly mocked me by stopping the rain and blasting us all with a premature taste of Summer. I took advantage of the nice warm weather last night by unpacking a flat-pack barbecue, and attempting to build it.

Obviously, this being a construction project overseen by a British elected representative, it drastically over-ran. However, the delay in completion was only a few hours long, and was caused less by chronic maladministration, and more by my utter inability to tighten a nut to a screw. Somewhere along the line, when I should have learned how to do man’s things like re-wire stuff and wear a tool belt without looking like a buffoon, I missed out. Other people know how to do this stuff. I absolutely do not.

What I have now then is a functioning, if somewhat rickety, barbecue. It’s not all bad - I suspect it can be just about used for its primary purpose, although it may not work entirely as planned, and is in danger of collapse at any moment. Rather like the Home Office, in many respects.

Where my barbecue is different from the Home Office is that it has foldy-down side bits for hot dog buns and burgers. And these folding side table bits do indeed fold down, after some rigorous shaking. They are the definite highlights of my work. And, like all masterpieces, we should not risk damaging them. As such they should be preserved in either the up or down position at all times, and not tinkered with. Let me assure you that my reluctance to repeatedly extend or contract the shelves is entirely about the preservation of fine craftsmanship, and nothing whatsoever to do with the possibility that the whole thing might fall to pieces in my hands, scattering white-hot coal fragments over my nearest and dearest.

Now that my work is done, all that is left is for me to put the BBQ to good use this weekend at my house-warming party, by poisoning all of my friends.

As well as being all manly and building stuff with tools, I have been catching up on casework these past 24 hours. I have facilitated a meeting between the Police and a local man concerned with vandalism at some local allotments. Also, I have chased up some missing street signs (Butterstile Lane and Carr Avenue, not that you’d realise you were there, of course), and got the Council Tax people to prioritise the case of a local man who’s refund application has got lost in the system somewhere.

Thankfully, I am better at the casework than I am at the furniture-building. It’s a good job, otherwise nobody would cast a single vote in my favour ever again.

Rick

I am at a bit of a loss at the moment, and I wonder if I’m the only one feeling the pain of election cold turkey. This is an odd time of year when the elections are finished and the Council has yet to kick off. A kind of hole in the political space-time continuum that sucks people in at the conclusion of the count, and spits them out at annual Council with nothing in between except for a black and empty week and a half.

I do miss the campaign though, despite disliking every minute of it. I don’t have a mother-in-law, but I suppose if I did, and she came to visit for an entire horrific and unendurable month of ceaseless horror, before abruptly leaving, I’d feel the same kind of confusing sense of loss. I’d have done anything to end it sooner, including acts of criminal violence, but now that it’s gone away and left me with nothing to think about but the good bits, I wonder if I wasn’t just wasting time complaining instead of appreciating it. It’s not often a team comes together to achieve something that is genuinely good. It’s even less often that I am a part of it.

For weeks on end I was immersed in the election – leafleting all day every weekend, canvassing every night, and thinking of little else but how much I wanted to win a contest which, it turned out, even fewer people cared enough about to vote than last year. In the last week I was literally doing nothing but sleeping and election-ing, and in the last 24 hours even the sleeping was jettisoned in favour of about 5,000 leaflets and lots and lots of knockabout knock-up fun. It is not the nature of elections to have soft landings, but I wish there was some way of scaling down activity gently, rather than ramping it up until the last minute and then just stopping.

I miss it now, despite wishing the whole thing over throughout. It’s the people more than anything, of course. Although I wanted to commit an act of savage harm on the person who asked me to go knocking up 100 more people at 20:00 on election night, I’d really quite like to be back there now with the rest of the team, knowing that he was as tired as I was and that we were both going through it together. Thankfully my sleep-deprived and leaflet-addled body couldn’t muster the beating I so longed to meter out, because if it had then I probably wouldn’t have been invited back.

I spent the weekend away from Prestwich. In Cumbria, at a hotel I am loathe to call “my favourite hotel” because I think it makes me sound worryingly middle-aged. Is it right for me to have a favourite hotel when there is 99.8% of the world left to explore? People retire to their favourite hotels. People my age should have favourite bars or something. Is it wrong that mine is becoming the one at Bury Town Hall?

Well, I suppose this hotel is my favourite one so far. And in it I returned to normality, of sorts. It’s a “foodie” place, and whilst on six nights a week the menu is more or less normal (with only one or two dishes that I am not cultured enough to understand), the Sunday night tasting menu involves bizarre dishes which this week included filet of python. There were only about six guests, and one man declined the python on animal welfare grounds, only to tuck in with gusto to the replacement course of veal. I can only hope he didn’t vote.

But throughout the weekend, where I did normal things like sleep in late and watch TV and drive off to see attractions that weren’t related to local pot-holes or derelict shops, there was something missing. It is depressing to think that I am almost certain it was a pack of leaflets and a canvass sheet.

Rick

My leafleting excursions over the years have had me face to face with various excitements - wild dogs mainly, with the occasional even-wilder local resident not overly keen on St Mary’s Focus. I have grappled with gates so complicated that their design owed less to B&Q and more to the CERN Institute. And I have taken on every type of weather imaginable. I have fallen over, accidentally kicked cats, got stuck in hedges and had a memorable encounter with a goose. Once I ended up consulting health professionals after an untoward incident with a (now deceased) dog. But tonight I was almost murdered on the streets of Prestwich by an errant letterbox which, on reflection, I am sure was made entirely of razor blades and barbed wire.

My hand went into it with the same composition as normal - four fingers and a thumb, protected by skin. I am not sure what happened during the depositing of the leaflet, but my middle finger clearly got mauled by an alligator or something because when I removed it there was a chunk of skin missing the size of a 10p piece, and I was spurting blood like a macabre comedy clown. Honestly, it was like Apocalypse Now.

The blood-letting was concerning for a number of reasons. First, because I am told that copious blood loss is never a good sign. But mainly because at this time of year I don’t want to be dropping leaflets into people’s porches asking for their votes whilst at the same time staining the leaflets with threatening droplets of blood. “Vote Lib Dem or We’ll Kill You” is not the message we want to get across. Although, having seen the general direction that the local Labour leaflets are heading, I wouldn’t be surprised if their view of this tactic differs from mine. Anyone on the receiving end of my bloodied hand reaching into their hallway must’ve thought they were starring in a re-make of The Shining. If anyone was scared, I apologise. But after 15 minutes of unceasing bleeding, you probably weren’t as scared as I was.

So, in short, I was alarmed. I staggered on for a few houses, all the while dripping into a tissue that my mum (leafleting with me) provided. But once it had turned from white, through “raspberry ripple,” into pure red, and the blood still hadn’t stopped, I thought that some emergency help was required before I dropped dead on the street.

Step forward Kindly Local Resident.

My Mum approached a lady innocently filling her wheelie bin, and asked if she could spare a dying boy a piece of kitchen roll. Kitchen roll was just the start of it though, as I was led into the lady’s kitchen, past her startled husband in the lounge, and into a downstairs toilet where I was ordered to wash the wound whilst it was inspected, accompanied by worried intakes of breath and mumbled words like “deep” and “stitches.” Obviously the seriousness of the situation hadn’t occurred to the lady - in election week I am going to carry on leafleting even when I put my hand into a letterbox and a dog bites my arm off. “Deep” and “Stitches” mean nothing to me. 

Two bloodied kitchen towels and four plasters later, this domestic adaptation of Holby City was over and I was released back into the wild with only minor faintness, to continue my leafleting. I didn’t apologise at the time, but if the lady is reading this, please let me say sorry for dropping blood on the rug by your sink. It was an accident.

I don’t know who the lady was. Or her husband. They told me they were Lib Dems though, which was nice. I can only thank them for their genuine kindness. They could’ve sent me on my way with a couple of sheets of polyroll, but they didn’t. They welcomed me into their house without a second’s thought, and made sure I was alright. Joking aside, it was very kind indeed of them. And the gentleman’s remark that I should sue the owner of the letterbox has resonated somewhat with me and my still-stinging finger!

And such a brush with death makes me glad to be alive! It is only when one comes face to face with mortality that one truly appreciates the most important things in the world - like the dazzling revelation that I mustn’t die yet, because the last thing we need now is a by-election.

Rick

I really should stop reading “Have Your Say,” the BBC News website’s comments forum, because most of the time I read it my blood pressure rises to levels that really wouldn’t impress medically qualified professionals.

Normally the pages are home to quite a bit of ill-informed commentary, but there is often a balance and some rational responses lurking amidst the shouting. But yesterday there was a debate about John Prescott’s announcement that he has suffered from bulimia for many years, and the explosion of ignorance, and almost glee in some quarters, from the responding public really did shock and disappoint me.

Take a look at the debate here. Here’s a man who has just opened his heart and confessed to an illness which is not only deeply personal, but one traditionally associated with people far different from himself. And the most recommended comment (recommended by 138 people) not only doubts the truth of his claim, but infers that it’s all a ruse to justify the size of his food bills!

Another comment, recommended by 90 people, says that Mr Prescott has a “monumental ego for thinking that anyone cares about his problems.” A monumental ego? I wonder if this contributor has thought for even half a second about the emotional turmoil and discomfort that this story would bring to Mr Prescott? Has he thought about the increible amount of relief fellow sufferers will feel in hearing that older men with good careers can suffer from bulimia as well as waif-like young women, simply because Mr Prescott has gone public? I doubt it. Instead, all the contributor has seen is an opportunity to poke fun at a fat person. Disgraceful.

People make fun of his size, choose to make cheap political jokes, and refer to his marital life. The entire first page of most recommended posts are exclusively nasty, hurtful, personal attacks on a man who is clearly in distress, and whose confession will help lots of others.

Shame on those who wrote those comments, and shame on the BBC for publishing them. They are not valid contributions to this argument, and do nothing but snigger at a tragic condition.

Whatever anyone thinks of the guy’s political legacy is one thing. But this debate and this issue is not the time to be raising thoughts of his policies. And beyond his now-ended Cabinet life, any opinion anyone apart from his family and friends has on John Prescott is based exclusively on hearsay, media tittle tattle and half-stories.

Mr Prescott has been very brave in publicly admitting his illness, especially when I’m sure his experience prepared him for this kind of ignorant backlash from people more inclined to sneer than to learn. The stigma attached to eating disorders is still very much in evidence, and it is a shame that when public figures admit to their own problems, they are lambasted as fakes and ridiculed as gluttonous.

Unfortunately the media seems ever more willing to give tremendously loud voice, and ample opportunity to shout it, to ill-informed people with axes to grind and absolutely no sensible contribution to make to debate and argument. Someone in public life, way outside the typical demographic for the disease, confesses to bulimia, and the BBC choose to give voice to random members of the public who know nothing, know not one thing, about the disease.

Vox-pops and “audience participation” seem to have replaced so much expert contribution, in everything from the serious (like this, and debates on European Treaties that are waged amongst the fact-less and hijacked by xenophobes) to the trivial (like football and gossip - how many phone-ins is it possible for Radio 5 live to have during the day, giving voice to people who really have no idea at all what they’re talking about?). It just fans the flames of prejudice and gives voice to people who’s opinions just aren’t valid because they are based on nothing but prejudice. A debate amongst experts in fantastic -arguments waged by people passionate in their viewpoint and convinced by different sides of complicated arguments. It’s what the media should be about. But debate amongst people with time on their hands and nothing in their heads is a waste of everyone’s time. Of course, people can say what they like, but I think it is irresponsible not to balance the opinions of the bandwagon-jumpers with both sides of the expert view.

It’s a shame that this hasn’t happened here. And Mr Prescott has been done a dis-service by many in a country he continues to serve, at the end of his long and distinguished career.

I wish him well in his recovery from this disease.

Rick 

I was disappointed this morning to hear an exchange on Radio Five Live about the decision of Angela Smith not to resign after all over the 10p tax rate cut. A listener texted in explaining that in his view the decision to stay in post came about as a result of Gordon Brown reminding Ms Smith about the “extra money, £180k mortgage expenses, and perks” of her job as Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Chief Secretary to the Treasury.

The listener is entitled to his view, but Nicky Capbell (the presenter) didn’t challenge the complete factual inaccuracy of the text, and instead just read it sneeringly, thus adding to the growing tide of disrespect flowing towards parliamentarians and other politicians who are, on the whole, decent people regardless of party allegiance.

I have no idea why Ms Smith flip-flopped over resigning. I think the 10p tax rate abolition is disgraceful, and she clearly has reservations. But people blithely assuming that any decision made by an MP must be about personal greed rather than principle is annoying, and doubly so when it is accepted so casually by the mainstream media. Maybe she just changed her mind, like people do.

PPSs don’t get paid, so deciding not to resign actually means more work for no more money at all. In addition, this whole issue of expenses is blown ludicrously out of proportion in my view. Out of the 600+ MPs, of course there will be one or two who take more than they should. Derek Conway’s conduct was neck-deep in the immoral and probably bordered on the criminal. He has brought politicians into disrepute, but the disrepute that has been brought to them is way out of proportion to the reality.

Of course all of our MPs are in the public eye and should be held to a higher standard than those not paid from the public purse. But the reason expenses claims seem so high isn’t because MPs are on the take, but because they need somewhere to live, and they need to furnish it, and they need to staff an office to do their job, and they need to travel up and down the country, and they need to eat away from home, and they need to try and not let their families disintegrate through distance, as well as actually having to do a job for which the weight of expectation can never be met. And I bet every penny in my pockets that the vast majority of them got into it for the right reasons - wanting to bring about a positive change, wanting to follow their beliefs, and wanting to make a difference to people’s lives.

If MPs only got into politics for the money and the perks, they made a very poor choice. They should’ve become lawyers or bankers instead. A lot more money for a lot less hassle. I reckon that David Cameron is way down the list of top earners compared to his chums from Eton and Oxford. And of the 600+ MPs, a dozen or so might get a car and a driver in exchange for working 100 hour weeks, but the rest probably lead fairly miserable lives spent mostly on trains and in lonely flats.

On the doorstep in the campaign I am staggered by how poor the regard for politicians and politics in general is. There’s a tired government, battling a weakening economy, and for the first time ever in this country those two factors are being scrutinised by a 24 hour news media and an internet which stretches into every nook and cranny of everyone’s lives. And the Tory opposition is gaining ground less because of its wide array of groundbreaking policies (which doesn’t exist) but more because of a vague desire for “change” caused by being “sick of that Labour lot.” It’s so sad to hear on the doorstep that someone is voting Tory rather than Labour, but doing so in the strident belief that the Tories will do no better.

I long for some positivity in the media, because obviously it is the media which drives the agenda and forms the opinions. MPs of all parties make wonderful speeches, come up with great ideas, and set them forth only for the front pages the next day to be dominated by the one dissenting voice. Of course all sides should have their say, but let’s have fairness with it and shine a light on the positives.

Maybe tonight, and over the weekend, sentiment may change. And don’t get me wrong, the people who are nice on the doorstep, of all political allegiances, still outweigh the ones who aren’t. But I much prefer someone to say “Yes! I’m voting Lib Dem!” than hearing them say “I’m sick of Labour so I’ll give you people a shout this time.” And at the moment, I’m hearing lots of the latter as well as lots of the former.

Rick

I can’t quite put my finger on which year it was, but there must have been one year when the balance of my birthday decisively tipped away from wrapping paper and candles, and towards emails and report-writing. I suspect it was around 1998.

And so today, whilst there was indeed some gift unwrapping at 7am, I will mostly be doing mundane things. Which is a shame I think, partly because I am yearning for lost innocence and my youth back, but mainly because I think we’re all inherently lazy and would rather be reclining on a chaise-longue being fed grapes and given gifts rather than sitting at a desk typing. I certainly would.

I have been very lucky this year and received lots of nice things. Tam got me some CDs, having unleashed me in HMV on Saturday armed with a shopping basket and her debit card (God bless chip and PIN, now I don’t even need her there to sign anything). And my work colleagues have made a donation of £43.50 to Speakability, a charity for people with aphasia, a very nasty illness which my Grandpa suffered from. The gift also gives me the opportunity to go hunting round the office this afternoon looking for the tight-fisted git who decided to give the 50p. I also have a few other things coming my way apparently, including a book on Gordon Brown, which I suspect will flap about a lot and prove to be a major disappointment.

And before I can enjoy any of them, I have work. Then some electioneering of some sort this evening. Yesterday I saw the Labour canvassing teams out in the ward. Obviously they’re doing what we’re doing. I often wonder what would happen if we both ended up choosing to canvass the same street on the same night. Who would give way first…? Or would we both race between houses trying to knock on the door before the opposition? It would be amusing… Not for any of the hapless residents caught in the crossfire and watching some kind of War of the Rosettes in their street. But for me, certainly.

I hope everyone enjoys the day.

Rick

Last night whilst leafleting I stumbled blindly into the type of social situation I try my utmost to avoid at all costs. I think you’ll agree that by running away, I handled it in the only sensible way.

I was jamming a leaflet into a letter box, and my idiot-fumblings clearly aroused the householder, who probably thought that war had been declared in his street. When he came to the door I immediately knew who he was, because I used to be friends with his brother. And he asked “Do I know you?” meaning of course “I know you, what are you doing trying to break into my house?”

Now, bear in mind that I hadn’t seen or spoken to him since I was an awkward school-boy, and throughout the intervening dozen or so years, during which time I have progressed to being an awkward adult, I have tried to avoid giving him and everyone else I knew / evething else I did at the age of 14 single moment’s thought. At that precise second though, stood with my hand through an open door’s letterbox, all my horrific teengage insecurities came flooding back in a tidal wave of school-changing-room-scented awfulness.

So essentially I had two choices. I could have engaged in conversation, enquired after his health, activities, and the well-being of his family whom I vaguely recall, and maybe re-kindled an old friendship. Or, I could have said “No mate, don’t think we know each other,” and hurried away, arms flailing like a maniac. Obviously, the thought of chatting to someone who’s last recollection of my was as a shaky-voiced 14 year old fills me with utter horror, so I chose the second option, and ran away.

This is the by-product of not being brave enough to move away from my home town. Around every corner there may lurk an older version of the playground bully or my first crush or my best friend from primary school who I haven’t seen since 1989. What can I do but run away? After all, they might have made more of their lives than me, and I couldn’t face finding that out. Thankfully we live in an age where people can easily move abroad, and by God I wish they all would. Tesco would be much less of an ordeal.

So if by any chance the person concerned has been giving our encounter as much thought as I have, and has Googled me today and found this site, let me say that I have no excuse for my rudeness other than social ineptness. So… sorry. And please stop stalking me.

Despite my experience, I’ll be back out on the streets tonight, no doubt. Leafleting and/or canvassing. My biggest fear of course is knocking on someone’s door to canvass them and discovering that we sat next to each other in geography in about 1993. I honestly think I’d flee the scene screaming. And to hell with the votes.

Rick