Having 'enjoyed' the horse racing yesterday afternoon (that was worth waiting four months for), Lisa and I spent the evening at the home of her friend 'L' (not to be confused with Lorraine, who actually complains if I don't mention her by name on this blog). I haven't seen L since December, when he asked me if I was writing anything at the time, and I attempted to explain my novel to him. He looked at me as if I was insane. Obviously I am insane, but that's no excuse.

So I was bracing myself for an in-depth discussion about penguins last night, but fortunately L seems to have learned his lesson, and kept the conversation well away from my writing all evening.

Lisa and I had promised to be there at 8pm, so we arrived promptly at 8:30, putting to shame the other invited guest (whose name also begins with L - this could get confusing) who was booked for 8 and turned up at 10. Even Lisa and I wouldn't go that far. We draw the line at about 90 minutes late.

But we had an enjoyable evening, during which our host informed us that not only has he taken up Morris Dancing, but he's also put a bet on the Green Party winning the general election. He was particularly pleased, because he has a contact in the business who'd been able to get him odds of 25-1. Obviously I was far too polite to point out that the chances of the Greens forming the next government would be closer to 25 billion to one, and even then I wouldn't put a bet on it, so I just smiled and nodded, with a kind of 'and you thought I was insane' look on my face.

As it turned out, he was only talking about the Brighton Pavilion constituency, where apparently the Green Party recorded their highest ever UK vote at the last election. They came 4th (wiping the floor with Marie Paragallo of the ProLife Party), receiving 9.3% of the total vote. Which apparently makes them a good bet to overturn Labour's 10,000 vote majority and 48.7% share of the poll this time around, and gain their first ever MP.

He said his Mum had a poster in the window anyway. So I'm sure he can't lose.