EH? WASSAT? LARGE ESPRESSO...ER, I MEAN VOTE FOR ME...

Sheesh, it was never meant to be like this. I was supposed to be carried to power on a wave of acclamation with an adoring team of Obama-esque acolytes attending to my every whim. Instead I am stuffing and delivering all my own mailings, which I wrote myself, and looking forward to more of the same for the rest of the week - and indeed for weeks to come.

My feet feel like they have been assailed by a madman with a razor blade and my family are a distant memory.

So, after a full day of shoving bits of tree through letterboxes across the area I went home for a brief shower, a couple of cups of tea and a bag of chips which tasted like the finest caviar, after which it was down to folding, stuffing and sorting yet more mailings which muggins here might find himself doing alone once more. I have some very kind people who have offered to help but I haven't got my delivery network up and running. I fear that even when such a grand-sounding institution does come into existence I will still find myself applying the plasters to my aching plates.

So this is politics: slog, sweat and expense. And the appeal is...?

Well, that's the problem. Its bloody brilliant being stopped by someone and telling them bashfully that you are the candidate. Luckily in my part of the world people tend - important word, that - to be rather pleasant so there's been little aggro so far. It's a drug and, my aching feet, bags under my eyes and general sense of blind panic notwithstanding, I just can't get enough of it!