Lisa and I bought a new vacuum cleaner yesterday. It was a bit of an impulse buy (other people go for clothes and jewellery, we buy cleaning products), but when Asda are selling bagless upright vacuum cleaners for twenty quid, you just have to take advantage. It's made in China by that well-known manufacturer of quality domestic appliances, 'Pans' (if you can find them on the internet, you're a better man than I), so I suppose you could say their vacuum cleaners are dust-Pans. Let's hope they don't make beds.

For £20 I was naturally expecting it to suck in only one respect, but as it turns out, Pans' People know what they're doing. Having read the instructions while Lisa was busy randomly pressing buttons (patience isn't her strong point), I tried it out on my carpets which I'd hoovered only hours before, and it picked up so much dust I honestly thought they must have loaded it with dirt at the factory to make it look good. By the time I'd finished hoovering my apparently clean living room (which, let's face it, is only the size of a cupboard), I had enough dust to make a student jealous. It's a wonder I don't have asthma.

But it's a good job I cleaned, because the next Prime Minister's coming round today. Gordon Brown is appearing at the Dome this afternoon as part of the Brighton Festival, and in that time-honoured tradition of never giving a politician a moment's peace, pressure group Priced Out are organising a mass demonstration at 2:30pm. You can even download placards from their website. I find it hard to be motivated by a protest, but I'm quite keen to get on TV, so I might pop down there later. Look out for me on the news.

It goes without saying, however, that Gordon Brown is merely Patsy Palmer's warm-up act, and Lisa and I will be attending the main event at 7:30pm tonight. The festival programme states that "Patsy Palmer is joined by the poster boy of binge living William Leith - renowned journalist and award-winning author", which you'd think would be self-explanatory. But not if you work for the Argus. Here's how they summarised the event in yesterday's paper:


They make him sound like a male model. Of course I don't really need to attend tonight, because having read Patsy's autobiography (well, flicked through it in Asda), I happen to know that she conquered her addictions by immersing herself in the world of tanning products. So I already know how it ends. I'm more interested in getting diet tips from Bill.