Diary – 11 February 2006

As this edition appears I will be back in Edinburgh for my latest bout of electioneering. The last time I appeared there was a massive crowd of students boiling away in a bar, and an alarming group at the back waving banners saying things like ‘Bog off, Boris’ and ‘No to top-up fees’. I scrambled on to a stool and tried to make a speech, but the din of the two opposing factions was so huge that I couldn’t hear myself speak. After a while I gave up and said (I think), ‘And now I am going to have a beer!’ As I stepped down, some swine snuck up behind me and poured a big cold pint of bitter on my head. I was dimly aware of the culprit vanishing into the crowd in a black T-shirt and with a blond pigtail. People afterwards said that if it had been them, they would have punched his lights out, and so on; but I must admit that wasn’t my instinct.